Well, we’re having a really busy week. We’ve cleared and painted the outdoor kitchen which is now looking pretty good. We’ve painted the back gate with the super expensive ‘extreme’ paint which has given us a rather unusual mottled effect. We’ve also varnished the front door – although I did clean it first and it was amazing the affect of removing layers of dust – we found that our front door was shiny after all. But the varnish will help to protect it for another year. I tried to fill some gaps in the front door, but the filler was such an odd color I decided to leave it. We’ve also painted the sun terrace and started to get things in order in our ‘store’. This is the bit that is behind the new wall in the outdoor kitchen. What’s left is to make tables from our doors, put electricity into the outdoor kitchen and sun terrace and wash down the outdoor kitchen floor. We’ve removed sackfuls of dust, a lot of this would be from when Manuel’s been using this area as his base when he’s been working in the house, but a lot of it is just the day to day dust that accumulates. I think that dust is one of the few negatives about living here. Of course, dusting more frequently than once every four years may help.
We’ve also turned the small front room into a classroom and reclaimed the big front room. The big front room wasn’t really set up as a classroom and I was always worried that they might damage something – or themselves.
I’ve got a new class on Wednesdays. These are very young, one five year old and two six year olds. I’ve decided that they will either be really hard work or really easy. The first week was just a ‘getting to know you’ session and I was just trying to find out how much they knew. Yesterday was their first class and we spent about 20 minutes on numbers and then I gave them a picture of a doll which they had to label with parts of the body, and then a picture of Hello Kitty that they had to color following my instructions ie color the ears of Hello Kitty green; color the nose of Hello Kitty red. We then went on to give her a hat with three flowers, five pet sheep etc which tied in numbers as well. So we got in numbers, colors and parts of the body – which is quite a lot – however the little one just said how much fun she was having. When they left, I could hear them outside telling their mum’s what they had done and how much they enjoyed it. I just hope that their parents realize that they are doing the coloring and drawing following English instructions and not that I just give them a load of pens to get on with it! But anyway, so far so good…
I’ve split the others into two classes now, which isn’t ideal, but I was finding five in a class too many, particularly as they are in two groups at school, working from two different books. I’ve now got eight or nine children (one only comes during the holidays) . If I get any more I may need to look at becoming legal, however I’m not sure what that will entail.