Tag Archives: family

Mountains and Christmas and toy cars with doors that open

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For the story so far click here 🙂

Wednesday 18 December

Jude has started drawing a cartoon strip.  It’s really good, she’s great at cartoons.  I really like the way she does people’s fingers and curly hair.  So far she’s drawn seven pictures.  I wonder what she’ll name her characters.  Naming characters is one of my favourite parts of writing stories.  I like to have a lot of characters when I write a story, just so I can name them all.

I sewed buttons onto my dress today.  It buttons down the back, and I sewed press studs to button it up, and blue buttons to decorate it.  And now my dress is finished!  I tried it on and it fits perfectly.  I love it!  And it’s ready in time for me to wear it for Christmas.

I also made some mermaids to live on the rocks next to my lighthouse.  I’m really pleased with them.  I made them out of some slinky shiny fabric I had in my sewing box.  I drew faces on them in felt tip and sewed long pink hair onto their heads. They look beautiful and they love playing in the water next to the lighthouse.

Thursday 19 December

Jude found the lip balm this morning and she’s really cross about it.  She won’t stop going on about it, as if I did it on purpose, which I didn’t!  I just wanted to see how far it would unwind to.  How could I have known that once it had unwound it wouldn’t wind back in? And I didn’t mean for it to break off either.  It was an accident.  She’s very angry.  She says I shouldn’t touch her stuff.

We have been making Christmas decorations out of paper and cardboard tubes and beads and glitter!  I also knitted a lot of my pig, but he’s still not finished.  He may have to be a belated Christmas present.

We read some more of These Happy Golden Years which is perfect to read in December because it is winter in the story.Tomorrow is the Christmas holidays!!!

Sunday 22 December

We are on holiday in Wales!  It’s brilliant here.  We came on the train and then we caught a bus which drove us through these winding roads over huge hills and valleys to this town and then we had to find the key to the cottage!  I really expected the bus to fall off the winding roads and slide down the side of the hills, but it didn’t.

It’s great here.  Jude and me have a room and Mum and Dad have a room, and downstairs there is an electric fire and a kitchen and a sofa.

We brought our stockings with us.  I’m a bit worried that Father Christmas won’t be able to find us because we’re in the wrong house, but Mum says he knows where we are.

Monday 23 December

There are some lovely shops in town, Mum has bought some books for us to learn Welsh when we get home.  There’s a Welsh-English dictionary, a book of phrases and a book of Welsh fairy tales.  We also went in the second hand shops and the junk shops, and I have started a collection of toy cars.  I have bought fourteen little cars, my favourite one is a little red Mini with doors that open and close.Tuesday 24 December

It’s Christmas Eve!  I’m so excited!  Today we went for a walk up the mountain, it was raining a bit so we wore our raincoats.  It was a long way up, so we didn’t go all the way. I think we got to the bottom of the mountain and then it was time to go home.  But the views were magical and we even saw a natural spring!

Tomorrow is Christmas!  We have never been away from home on Christmas before, it’s really fun!  We’ve left mince pies out for Father Christmas and carrots for his reindeer, because they will all be hungry.

Thursday 26 December

Yesterday was brilliant!  Father Christmas did find us, and he brought us lots of lovely presents! He brought me a T shirt with a green motorbike on it, and some veggie bears which are fruity sweet jellies!  He ate one of the mince pies we left out for him, and took the carrots we left out for all the reindeer.

We had roast potatoes and carrots and beans and sosmix toad-in-the-hole.  For a long time I thought toad-in-the-hole had something to do with Toad of Toad Hall from The Wind In The Willows, but it doesn’t.  I don’t know why they call it toad in the hole though.

We had crackers and party hats and mince pies too.  I had apple pie because I don’t like mince pie.  I try to like it every year, because it’s so Christmassy, but I never do.  I won a little rubber dinosaur in my cracker!

We had a great day playing games and watching Snow White which was on television. We also went for a walk on the mountain, which was beautiful.  When we got back we had missed the beginning of The Great Escape, but we watched the rest of it, it’s such an exciting film.

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And that brings us to the end of December and therefore the end of Chapter 3  but don’t go far, Jude and the other one will be back soon to start a happy new home-schooling year in Chapter 4: January 😀

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Wales, holiday, Christmas, vegan, vegetarian, veggie kids, home school, home education, Cader Idris, mountains, vegan Christmas dinner, children, family

First of all …

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For the story so far, click here

“First of all I had to make sure my friends were safe.”

vegan comic for children

“After some practice I found that, if I concentrated, I could move things inside the cottage.  Donnan lay down by the door, watching, waiting for my return.  I draped a shawl across his back which startled him and he whined as he looked around for me, confused.  The shawl slipped to the floor and I lifted it and draped it over him again, this time slowly dragging it across his back, stroking him with it.  He rubbed his face against the shawl, breathing in its smell, my smell.  Then he rolled around on it, wrapping himself in it and howling.  Somehow he sensed me.  He knew I was there.

“The others watched Donnan’s strange performance and gradually they too became aware of my presence.”

vegan comic for children

“I needed to let them know that it wasn’t safe for them here, that the Viscount’s men would be coming back.  There was a cave at the foot of the mountain where they could hide until the danger passed but I didn’t know how I was going to explain that to them.  I repeatedly tried taking the shawl so that I could use it to lead them there, but Donnan thought it was a game and kept pulling it back and rolling around, barking and wagging his tail.  Eventually I got so frustrated that I screamed with vexation.

“My friends were suddenly still and alert, their ears pricked up.  They had heard me!  I looked at Donnan and Brighde and Beathag and the wee bird, and realised that they were all looking back at me.  They could see me!

“There was a small sack of oats in the basket by the hearth.  I pointed to it and told Donnan to ‘bring’.  Then I moved to the doorway and he followed me, and the others followed him.  We all made our way to the foot of the mountain and I told them to wait in the cave while I went back to the cottage to wait for Faulkner’s men.

“I didn’t have to wait long.”

To be continued …

Diabolical Mountebank

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For the story so far click here

vegan comic for children

“In spite of being a drinker, a gambler and a generally neglectful parent, my father had at least made sure I wouldn’t be destitute before he lost the rest of his estate to Viscount Faulkner – or ‘that diabolical mountebank’ as he called him.”

vegan comic for children

“His son was worse.  It was he who shot me and I knew that he would not be satisfied with the manor and most of the vast estate if he thought he could get it all.  He owned the bankers and the solicitors and  would not rest until he had in his possession every last blade of Allaway grass.  I had to make sure he didn’t get his hands on my four acres.”

To be continued …. 

Children’s Books Giveaways!

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We’re very excited!  Honestly Books are so happy with our reviews of their books (see here) that they’ve sent us a selection to giveaway to our readers! 😀

children's books giveaway

Woohoo!

So, here’s what we’re going to do – starting tomorrow we’ll give away one book a week to a lucky prize draw entrant anywhere in the world.  All you have to do is comment on the giveaway post, letting me know you want to enter.

Come back tomorrow when I will announce which book will be the first giveaway 😀

Christmas is coming …. I wonder to whom Father Christmas will be bringing a lovely new book 😉