Fresh produce - planted and purchased

Today my voice was almost recovered but I am still taking it easy, so although we had almost regular school, I didn’t catch up on everything and asked Nick to do some of the reading. I also had to take a few breaks between the readings which I think was a bit exasperating for the boys – they would have preferred just to get school over with. I made a few pairs of earrings while I was ‘breaking’. During the afternoon I ironed the few things that I had before it piled up into the monster again, and vacuumed some bits of the house. The boys were given a lot of seeds some weeks ago by Louise here at Piccolo, and today was the day for planting them. The diggers have mostly finished digging up trenches and they are now being covered over again, so it was easy work just to poke holes in the dirt out back of our house and drop in the seeds. Caleb marked off the area with sticks and string, then he made a little sign which I laminated, advertising the buried treasures.

Claire came by at some point – Tom has hurt his arm and she had taken him to the hospital to establish whether it is actually broken or not. They still have no clarity as were advised to wait a few days and see how it is. Meanwhile he is wearing a sling. Anyway, Tom came over to play as soon as they were home, which suited Caleb and Aaron nicely as they didn’t need to then wait until after 3 when their friends usually get out of school. Claire brought Milly over to let her play with the boys a bit too – also wanting a bit of peace while she unpacked the groceries. She had managed to procure a lot of fresh fruit off the ship as she has put in an order with one of the small shops. This is a good idea as it means she doesn’t need to try time her town visits to co-ordinate with the mysterious and irregular unpacking times the shops have in order to get fresh produce. She said she had a bit too much and offered to let me have some off her, which I happily accepted – wow, she came back with a huge bag loaded with apples, pears, peaches, plums, nectarines, grapes, kumquats , tomatoes and even a pineapple. I have NEVER had this much fresh stuff all at one go in the nearly three and a half years we’ve been living here. What a treat!
At the deacons’ meeting last night the Ascension trip that Nick has been thinking about was discussed…Nick has been wanting to go there to do an outreach, preaching for several consecutive Sundays and doing mid-week bible studies. The funding has become available and the deacons gave the green light, so today we phoned shipping and made a provisional booking for him, departing St Helena 16th June and returning 16th July. How do I feel about him being away for a month? Well, it could be worse…it could have been six or seven weeks! I’m not ecstatic and am dreading the time but it will be enlightening to see what single mothers have to deal with. I’m so dependant on Nick for his company, friendship and parenting input, as well as the many cups of tea and coffee he makes me, that it will be quite horrible to be without him. However, as this is the Lord’s work I have to let him go willingly, not grudgingly, and not sulk about it! So that is on the calendar.