February
The thing about going on holiday just when school breaks up is it leaves a long unbroken stretch of time spent at home. I am writing just before everybody goes back to school after 2 months in one place, mainly pottering, we definitely all have holiday fatigue, particularly me! And I have another three month holiday to look forward to when we move to England in May...
Poor old Kit has been filling his time with studying for his exam. He did brilliantly in 3 out of his 4 exams, but the lengua test proved beyond him. He had to retake it and if he failed, he was going to have to repeat a year, this meant he wouldn't spend his last few weeks of school here not with his classmates of the last 6 years, instead he would be with relative strangers. If you failed one subject you had to repeat the year in all subjects. Feel the pressure!
I can more or less teach any other subject in Spanish for Kit's age and below, and have done so, but my exception is Spanish grammar. This is not surprising as I have never learnt English grammar, so we enlisted a tutor. With her help and plenty of hard work, he passed his retake. Much to the relief of all of us.
Kit also has had to do some practising writing in English, as I try to improve his spelling and help him find his writing voice. Lettie too has been forced to this unpalatable unholidayish work. Millie is not yet up to this and is instead learning how to read in English. I personally think that Lettie will have the easiest transition as less will be expected of her, whereas Kit being 11 will be behind in English, while Millie is behind with her English reading and writing, as you start the process later here.
Lettie and Millie had the distraction from their English work as they are learning tela from their friend Lila. Tela is apparently in English called Aerial Silk, but is more commonly know as that thing that they do in the Cirque de Soliel. Here is a link to a video of Lettie doing her thing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_W6XGfMF_yM and there are photos of Millie down the bottom.
Kit's distraction of walking Avon had to be dramatically curtailed after an unfortunate incident with a small dog owned by a Korean family. Thankfully Avon was on a lead at the time and the other dog wasn't. He had bitten it two times before and with a third strike it was out.
Two days later Avon disappeared. Hugo and the children's immediate assumption that revenge was involved and they would have been keeping a constant eye on the victim's owner's house for signs of smoke to see if they were going for the traditional Korean food and had combined with an Argentine asado. Luckily I woke the night that Avon disappeared and heard the humongous storm and realised he'd run off in fear of that. The thunder was so loud it sounded like the roof was collapsing. He has run off before because of the noise of Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve fireworks, but had always returned by lunch time. When there was no sign by tea time, I knew he was lost.
Kit and I drove around having a look for him, but without any luck. He left on Sunday/Monday night and despite our searches and the messages we'd sent out, he seemed to have vanished. He, of course, hadn't vanished, but been on a Lassie-like odyssey to find his way home. Who knows what adventures he had been on. Where he ended up we do know, on the doorstep of our old house five miles away. When I picked him up his paws were blistered and his nails were worn down to the quick so he had obviously covered even more distance. As you can imagine he was beside himself to find his family again, it is going to be very difficult to get him settled into a new home.
That is the plan for March as we move to get everything as ready as possible, before we up sticks in May. I've thrown in a picture of one of Robbie's expert asados so we'll be able to reminisce.
The thing about going on holiday just when school breaks up is it leaves a long unbroken stretch of time spent at home. I am writing just before everybody goes back to school after 2 months in one place, mainly pottering, we definitely all have holiday fatigue, particularly me! And I have another three month holiday to look forward to when we move to England in May...
Poor old Kit has been filling his time with studying for his exam. He did brilliantly in 3 out of his 4 exams, but the lengua test proved beyond him. He had to retake it and if he failed, he was going to have to repeat a year, this meant he wouldn't spend his last few weeks of school here not with his classmates of the last 6 years, instead he would be with relative strangers. If you failed one subject you had to repeat the year in all subjects. Feel the pressure!
I can more or less teach any other subject in Spanish for Kit's age and below, and have done so, but my exception is Spanish grammar. This is not surprising as I have never learnt English grammar, so we enlisted a tutor. With her help and plenty of hard work, he passed his retake. Much to the relief of all of us.
Kit also has had to do some practising writing in English, as I try to improve his spelling and help him find his writing voice. Lettie too has been forced to this unpalatable unholidayish work. Millie is not yet up to this and is instead learning how to read in English. I personally think that Lettie will have the easiest transition as less will be expected of her, whereas Kit being 11 will be behind in English, while Millie is behind with her English reading and writing, as you start the process later here.
Lettie and Millie had the distraction from their English work as they are learning tela from their friend Lila. Tela is apparently in English called Aerial Silk, but is more commonly know as that thing that they do in the Cirque de Soliel. Here is a link to a video of Lettie doing her thing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_W6XGfMF_yM and there are photos of Millie down the bottom.
Kit's distraction of walking Avon had to be dramatically curtailed after an unfortunate incident with a small dog owned by a Korean family. Thankfully Avon was on a lead at the time and the other dog wasn't. He had bitten it two times before and with a third strike it was out.
Two days later Avon disappeared. Hugo and the children's immediate assumption that revenge was involved and they would have been keeping a constant eye on the victim's owner's house for signs of smoke to see if they were going for the traditional Korean food and had combined with an Argentine asado. Luckily I woke the night that Avon disappeared and heard the humongous storm and realised he'd run off in fear of that. The thunder was so loud it sounded like the roof was collapsing. He has run off before because of the noise of Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve fireworks, but had always returned by lunch time. When there was no sign by tea time, I knew he was lost.
Kit and I drove around having a look for him, but without any luck. He left on Sunday/Monday night and despite our searches and the messages we'd sent out, he seemed to have vanished. He, of course, hadn't vanished, but been on a Lassie-like odyssey to find his way home. Who knows what adventures he had been on. Where he ended up we do know, on the doorstep of our old house five miles away. When I picked him up his paws were blistered and his nails were worn down to the quick so he had obviously covered even more distance. As you can imagine he was beside himself to find his family again, it is going to be very difficult to get him settled into a new home.
That is the plan for March as we move to get everything as ready as possible, before we up sticks in May. I've thrown in a picture of one of Robbie's expert asados so we'll be able to reminisce.