My attempt to construct a bean frame was less than adequate. It looked unlikely to withstand the strong winds which brought down the beans on flimsy bamboo stakes last year.
When I showed my brother what I was trying to achieve, he hammered the posts in a little more with my small hammer. It must have been on his mind because he turned up today with two mallets to make a better job of it.
I found some lengths of wood to use for horizontal supports. We had to scratch around in the garden shed to find screws to attach them, but my rarely used power drill’s battery was dead. Instead, at the bottom of my father’s old tool box we found a hand drill and rustled up just enough rusty old nails to finish the job.
Already the beans are pushing their way up through the compost, so the finished frame is timely. I will be able to run twine between the horizontal pieces to support the beans as they grow.
I signed an SPCA petition to ban fireworks so that animals are spared the often traumatising time in their neighbourhoods around November 5 when, for obscure reasons, Guy Fawkes is remembered (or not; most of us just think, ‘Fireworks!’ just as Christmas is associated in most people’s minds with loot and overindulgence).
I could also sign up for Felix – all I needed was his paw print. This proved difficult. Much like trying to give a cat a pill, I suspect.
Felix was sleepy and relaxed as I tried to photograph his paw. Another person to take the photo might have helped. The one I used in the end (above) was more like a high five and I’m not sure it translated well to the image required.
My favourite photo of Felix’s paw is this one: a furry fist bump.
Fist bump
In the event, there have been fewer fireworks in our neighbourhood than in the past. Perhaps people are over it. I would like November 5 to be used to remember the peaceful protests and eventual invasion of Parihaka on November 5, 1881, which is still relevant to us*, rather than Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators and their failed gunpowder plot in 1605.
I bought this pop up book years ago to help me re-learn my times tables
I am a numbskull when it comes to numbers; my brain seems to freeze. Usually, it doesn’t matter because I can use a calculator if I need to. But when doing the Nymbl exercises to improve balance, I became frustrated at my ineptitude with maths questions. You do the physical exercises simultaneously with cognitive exercises: word jumbles, simple maths, intermediate maths, memory skills and general knowledge. The intermediate maths exercises continually trip me up, so to speak, particularly in subtraction when the number in the ones column is greater than that in the ones column of the number you are subtracting from. My times tables appear to have deserted me too, despite years of chanting them at primary school. I often add using my fingers. Meanwhile, the clock is counting down while my brain starts to implode – or is it stretching along with my limbs? The hardest exercises are where you choose which of three options is the greatest number, which involves a combination of division, subtraction and multiplication. In your head!
Exercise and think……while the clock counts down
I am so annoyed by my lack of maths skills that I have bought a maths workbook – designed for 10 to 11 year olds – and have become quite absorbed in the exercises. I’m learning new skills, some of which I use for the Nymbl exercises – although they’re under pressure of time and you’re trying to balance at the same time.
The exercise in the workbook (below left) was a timed exercise – but I just took it slowly and carefully, and got 100% correct. The answers are in the back of the book.
Accurate, given time, but not as nimble as a 10 year old!
Who knew you could turn subtraction into addition? Everybody, probably, except me! The ‘Addition using an algorithm’ however (despite the use of the word ‘algorithm’) was the way I learnt addition at school. It was called ‘carry one’ then – now it’s ‘renaming’ (a one becomes a ten, etc). Also, putting the renamed number at the top of the next column makes it harder to overlook than putting it at the bottom of the column, as I was taught.
I’m looking forward to getting to division and multiplication. Just 18 pages to go!
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