Cake expectations

Another year older, and none the wiser.

At breakfast I was presented with a selection of gifts from my favourite fair trade shop, Ten Thousand Villages, so that was very lovely.

The Man had taken the day off work because we planned to go on a family outing, but the weather was so atrocious we decided to postpone it. So later in the day I took myself off shopping while the Man stayed at home and got beaten at Scrabble.

Among other places I called in at L.L.Bean (sports goods and casualwear) because they had a sale on. My, the floorwalkers there are attentive! It was like being surrounded by very polite gnats. But after three hours attempting to shop there and elsewhere I had nothing to show except a reusable water bottle and some pyjama bottoms. Ah well. Shopping's not my best sport.

When I got home I could smell a cake baking in the oven - and there I'd been thinking I'd have to make my own. We decorated it together, what d'you think? It tasted good - very light. It would definitely have been a worthy contender at Linton & District Annual Garden Show.

'Over and out

The Girl was away on a sleepover last night and spent most of the day at her friend's house, so it was just me and the Boy rattling round at home today. We read, played Albany Monopoly (I lost as usual) and messed about in the pool with our inflatable menagerie. Between times I also managed to get a few jobs done around the house.

The Girl came home late afternoon, apparently having had not much sleep at all. In fact it sounds like it was more of a napover. But she seems happy enough on it and has gone out again tonight, with her dad and her brother (they're up to something, but I can't quite put my finger on it).

Overnight we had so much rain I thought the house would wash away, but fortunately it didn't and the weather has been warm and dry again today. Tomorrow - who knows? Flood warnings have been issued, so that may be a clue...

Monsoon season

Well, so much for summer - yesterday was just to tease us and it's been torrential rain as usual again today.

The day began very hot and muggy, making the basement the most comfortable place to be, so I took the opportunity to do a little sorting down there. I generated one large box of items for the next yard sale/charity shop opportunity, and several bags of rubbish for the wheelie bin. So it was a morning well spent.

The weather broke mid-afternoon, and the rain hammered down. I went outside in it to check how the gutters were coping and came in drenched after only a few moments. It has been the wettest summer anyone here can remember, and guess what - more rain is forecast for the rest of week.

The Man adds... Having read about the Titanic, the Boy has vowed never to go on ships. Hopefully, this doesn't extend to arks.

Lone shark

Relax, I don't know anything about sharks, except that this one's called Fin.

It has been the first bona fide summery day today - temperatures touching 90F, blue skies and no rain. Having failed to drum up any playdates, the children managed to make the most of each other's company. They arranged the shells and pepples we'd collected at Cape Cod in the flowerbed, then involved themselves in an extended game of beach holiday/orca trainers in the pool.

Meanwhile I cleared out the conservatory-sort-of-thing tacked onto the back of our house (here it's called a 3-season room), having remembered last night how to turn on the lights and fan in there (there's a secret switch) and realised that, now that we've had its leaky roof fixed, it could actually be quite a pleasant space rather than just a dumping ground for tools and rubbish.

The kids were still swimming in the pool at nine o'clock tonight. Extravagance though it is, it can be a real boon on a hot day (as well as being a fund of interesting wild water-life).

Turtle contrast

More sea-life facts, continued from yesterday

Sea-turtles, by contrast, are solitary creatures. By the time they hatch out their mothers have long moved on, and they never know their parents or siblings. Having no-one to teach them life-skills (unlike the social orcas) they must survive by instinct. Instinct doesn't always serve them well: young turtles often end up in cold waters around Cape Cod by mistake and, close to death, they have to be rescued then rehabilitated at the New England Aquarium. The best hope for a baby sea-turtle is to land up on a mat of seaweed, on which it can float around living off the food that gets trapped in the weed. But even that's no guarantee as it has many natural predators, not to mention the risk of a careless human running over it in a motor boat.

It doesn't sound much of a life, but sea-turtles have very tiny brains so chances are they don't worry about that unduly. Anyway not all turtles are loners, as this photo reveals.

Killer instinct

Thanks to the Boy's current fascination with sea-life, I now know plenty about killer whales. For a start, they are actually dolphins. They are cooperative creatures, living in family pods all their lives, doing their hunting together and then sharing out the food. They have large brains. Having no predators, they are top of the ocean food chain. They are playful, and quite sociable with humans, as demonstrated by this photo.

Tee time

Mini-golf has become a bit of a recurring theme in our lives lately. We tried out two different courses on Cape Cod; on Thursday evening we played it with friends; and the Boy frequently goes to one or another course with his buddy. Tonight we had the novelty of playing by floodlight on an award-winning scenic set-up near Troy, involving rocky outcrops, waterfalls and the like.

I have to report that the Girl managed to hit an outrageous hole-in-one. She belted the ball up the dog-leg green, it hit a fence-post, bounced back onto the green, hit the edging wall and plonked down into the hole. The Man was as gracious about this as he could be given that his sole unrealised ambition is to hit a hole-in-one.

Mini-golf seems to be hugely popular in general - there are at least three courses within a 30-minute drive of our house. Tonight the place was cheerfully buzzing with families and young couples, and we had to wait at every hole for the hen party ahead of us to finish. I don't think it's such a big thing in Britain, is it?

Apart from a trip to the farmers' market this morning we had spent the rest of the (very summery) day at home. The Boy had complained of a stomach ache in the morning and had taken himself off to his room to recover while listening to a 4-hours-and-9-minutes audiobook in its entirety. Hence the late-night golfing adventure, really, as we all needed a change of scene.