BEES, BOUNCING AND BROWSING

Hi all

Been a couple of days I know, but I had rather a bad night on Sunday and was far too shattered on Monday to write anything up, so catch up tonight.

The bee identification course we went to on Sunday was pretty good, but aimed at people already with a little knowledge, so a lot went over mine and the kids' heads. The journey there was good, thanks to Carol for driving, and Romney Marsh has to be the most strangest place in South England. It's almost alien, but really fascinating. Callum was rather interested in the lighthouse and the power station, but it was so windy that investigating will have to wait until another day.

As I've said the talk itself was a little in-depth, but we still managed to glean quite a bit of information. It was nice to have a closer look at some bees (admittedly they were dead ones) and, using a small lens and the info we'd been told to try and identify the different types.

Callum was very impressed that there are 250 different types of native bee not including the honey bee and they any of them can re-sting as their stingers are not barbed like the honey bee's and so they can retract them. This means that the myth that bees die once they have stung you only refers to honey bees.

There was a nice array of leaflets, seeds and posters at the back and we bought a couple of packs of seeds, a set of the magnifying lenses, an id leaflet and a badge. We also picked up some leaflets on gardening for bees.

We also had a quiz which Callum saved for Monday. I had to furiously write down answers and correct my mistakes so that I had a reference for him on the Monday (no mean feat when the names were in latin!).

Monday came and he did the quiz with very little help (which was much better than I had fared the day before) and we wrote up the day for our folder. Both of us weren't feeling 100% so we spent the afternoon watching a programme that I'd recorded ages ago about the Japanese Tsunami (Caught on Camera on Channel 4) and discussing what we'd seen, how we'd feel if it happened here and how they must have felt when it happened.

Today was trampolining and Kim, his coach, spent quite a bit of time trying to get Callum's positioning correct and trying to encourage him to get some height in his bouncing. Was strange to watch an instant improvement just by Kim getting Callum to sit on the side of the trampoline and him moving his legs into the positions that they should be in for each movement. Callum says it made it easier for him as he could feel the position and 'save' it in his head. He then did some more somersault work. They are now trying to remove the extra mat as they think it may be distracting Callum (I say they to represent Callum and Kim; I don't really have anything to do with it). Callum is now consistently getting the somersault and is now over turning rather than under turning which means he lands pretty much on his feet (and collapses) or over onto his knees. He did nail one though and I squealed like a girly; sorry Callum.

The rest of the day we spent on Youtube looking at Flashmobs and having a discussion on the fact that if a small group of strangers can get together and do something unique, what could we do as a complete species if we put our minds to it. Callum was rather interested in the idea of all armies putting down weapons and refusing to fight (his thoughts) and wondering what their respective Governments would do about it. Nice to know that his fascination for warfare and fighting has a peaceful side to it (at least he realises that what he plays isn't real and that the 'real' isn't a good thing).

Anyway, that about sums up the days we've had. I've missed out the umpteen cups of tea we've drunk, the browse around the garden, the rescuing of an abandoned umbrella and the starting of his new set of books (The Hunger Games). Oh and the watching of the new series of Horrible Histories on the BBC.

Cya later folks.