Weekend

So, the week has gone by, and we're getting used to life without Daniel. I've somewhat tidied his room, sorted the clothes he didn't take with him, and put away some juggling stuff he left around the house. We've heard from him a few times and it sounds as if he's having a good, if busy time. He - and about forty others - will be joining the Doulos in a couple of weeks.

We've had to rethink the family menu a bit, since we no longer need to have vegetarian options. To my surprise our supermarket bill was about a third its usual cost on Friday... I don't think this is entirely due to Daniel being away, though. It's partly because we still have a lot of food in the freezer and elsewhere left over from Christmas. Not that I shop madly to stock up for a month (as some people do when the supermarkets are going to be closed for a couple of day) but we did fill the cupboards and make sure there was extra food in case of unexpected visitors.

It's been a cold week, too, and that tends to reduce my enthusiasm for almost anything. Today I'm wearing a sweatshirt, a sweater AND a fleece and the kerosene heater's been on all day. At night we're using hot water bottles, and the cats are sleeping on our beds for extra warmth. Winter, like summer, is a time to be tolerated - and thankfully it doesn't usually last as long as the summer. The sun has come out a few times this week, although on Tuesday we had about 7cm of rain in 24 hours, which is quite a bit. I hope that helped the reservoirs.

Tim's regular activities have started up again after the Christmas break (which ends on Jan 9th here, since Epiphany, Jan 6th, is a public holiday here). So he has a piano lesson, a singing lesson, a music theory lesson, an aural lesson, playing guitar at a church student group, a 'Christianity Explored' course at his church, and the inter-church youth group. It doesn't seem very much after last year's hectic schedule, and nearly everything is timed conveniently, unlike some of the things Daniel was going to. Last night he invited some of the youth group over to watch 'The Importance of being Earnest'- only two came, but I think they had a good time.

This week it's supposed to be dryer and sunnier, although not much warmer. I need to cut the 'grass' at some point since it's very overgrown, and I have a mountain of laundry. I only did two loads this week as it's very difficult to get things dry when the weather is wet. Tim needs to get stuck into his home education coursework, too. He was quite tired this week and overslept a lot, and didn't have much enthusiasm at all. He hopes to finish by the summer, if at all possible, so ideally he should do at least a couple of hours of study each weekday.