I am currently obsessed with apple trees and Latin courses.Early this week, I finally went into the garden centre and asked if they could get me Mother, Winter Banana and D’Estivale on dwarf rootstock. On Mother, they were sure they'd have no problem, but the other two they were a bit dubious on. So, I'll just have to wait and see.
I've also set up wind direction monitors in my garden (ie plastic bags attached to sticks) to see just where most of my wind comes from. Surprisingly, most of it heads straight up from the beach. Even when the wind is a northerly, it comes through my yard from the west. I'm not quite sure how that works, but, it looks like I'm going need to plant more shrubs to try and slow it down as it whips through the yard.
Which gets me onto my major annoyance with our local council, most of whom were elected because people around these parts would like to see the water that runs straight out to sea collected in some sort of dam. No problem, vote for us, and what do you know, they'd rather spend the money on water metres and trying to get the populace to store their own water in tanks, and increasing the fines on those who use too much water when they are not supposed to. Makes it difficult if a person wants to grow stuff on their land, we kind of need water for that.
And Latin. It's fun learning it, but I need to know where I'm going with it, so I've been trying to figure out what curriculum to use. Do I continue with Latina Christiana II, or just go straight into Henle I with my 13 year old? Or do I do what Memoria Press recommend, forget Latina Christiana II and use their new First Form instead. Henle looks really good, but not knowing Latin myself, it might be too ambitious for me to use straight after Latina Christiana I. Ah, decisions, decisions.
I thought I'd post this FNFFA early this time. Last week, I was all set to chat to everyone after dinner, but my sister phoned. After a short conversation of an hour or so, I was no longer in the mood for anything but down time. So, that's what happened to me last week. Plus with being not well (wretched flu), my energy levels flagged by that point.
Let's see what happens tonight.
Evening all. Back soon after the usual pizza and kebab run.
ReplyDeleteEvening all. Pasta on the menu tonight. Carbo loading for the Rotorua Marathon tomorrow. Heaven help me and my calf.
ReplyDeleteAverage week, although better than Gordon Brown's. Could he have put his foot more in his mouth.
Hi Zen and Ozy!
ReplyDeleteMakes me wonder what our politicians say when the mikes are off.
I was going to make chicken stock this afternoon, but, decided against it. Won't be able to eat the chicken soup I would have made from it, so may as well do the whole thing tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteCooking on Friday's generally never happens around here. I like not having to do so many dishes (still no dishwasher), and when you're taking a kid to the pool for 5pm and picking them up after 6pm, three days a week (including today), it plays havoc with cooking dinner.
Ha! I made it back! My sister even phoned, but I kept it down to 20 minutes.
ReplyDeleteEvening all. Off soon to deal with the Friday night crazies. It was a full moon last night and the clientele reflected that...
ReplyDeleteA boiled egg and bread and butter for dinner--we're both too tired to bother with anything more or a trip into town for takeaways.
Just finished "The Face" by Dean Koontz. An interesting, dark tale of hatred and redemption.
I like Dean Koontz, especially his recent stuff (which includes The Face). Mind you, I just have finished reading some of his old stuff, and that too is good.
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking of writing to him to see if I can reproduce a short story he wrote, as a four part blog post. It would be an interesting story for some of our regular readers.
He sure can write! And I thought perhaps the person who loaned me the book might have intended to send a subtle message....
ReplyDeletePossibly, but if he's anything like me, he probably lets his guardian angel do the thinking for him, cause he probably just grabbed a good book... :-)
ReplyDeleteWhich reminds me of an interesting coincidence today.
Got on the train to go home, and 95% of the time, I sit in either of the first two carriages.
It's the Capital Connection to Palmerston North, so it has tables with 2 seats either side of the table, very civilised.
For some reason I decided to sit at the complete other end of the train today.
Got on the carriage, ignored a seat, and decided I preferred another empty seat further on that I went to - by the window. Asked the person sitting next to it, in the aisle side, if it was taken.
They said no, and got up to let me through (rather than moving across). I sat down, and looked on the person sitting across from me that I couldn't originally see from my approach.
It was my niece, who was traveling North this weekend, rarely (if ever) using this train.
So I managed to sit across from her by unusually and without thought, breaking my regular habit.
Interesting.
Hi KG,
ReplyDeleteSorry, I wandered off and had a shower.
Sometimes highly complex ideas are best transmitted through story. Helps a person live it for a while, and maybe through the experience, see things differently.
Oh, Latin, is it? Well, consider the sentence:
ReplyDelete"Mater mea porcus est malo."
Which would appear to mean:
"My mother is a bad pig."
Now, what good young Roman boy would say that about his mother? But put commas after "Mater" and "mea," put long-vowel marks over the "a" in "mea," the "e" in "est," and the "o" in malo," and then translate it!
(Just a little fun from an old Latin scholar.)
Bit late, but Friday night pased me by and this just in from over the water ...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.jesusandmo.net/2010/04/27/free/
You really don't get the point of the FNFFA do you LRO?
ReplyDeleteIt's a lefty troll. So, no surprises there Zen.
ReplyDeleteNo worries, Lucyna. We had to leave for work anyway. :) And you're right about stories--I guess we absorb what we read and the subconscious works away it it for a while, unraveling meanings and implications for our our own lives.
Very cold here today. I was going to go into town to buy a netbook so we can access CR wirelessly on our own account from work but slept instead. Maybe we'll go to Palmerston on Monday and look for a secondhand lappie. Does anybody know of a place to get one there?
Thanks for that, Francis.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure someone reading this will understand it. However, my Latin is very, very beginner. We've just started memorising the 2nd Noun Declension (Neuter), so the subtleties of adding commas and that are a little too over my head at this point.
Si hoc comprehendere potes, gratias age magistro Latinae.
ReplyDelete