Friday 29 June 2012

Improperly Indian Pieday

We made samosas.
Sort of.

These are somewhat healthier than proper samosas because they are made with filo pastry and baked, rather than using proper samosa pastry and a deep fat fryer.
I don't know what it was, but something told me that the combination of Eleanor and a deep fat fryer might not be an entirely good thing.

Ingredients

A packet of filo pastry
Two potatoes
Two carrots
An onion
Some peas
A chilli
A few cloves of garlic
Garam masala
Turmeric
Black mustard seeds (except we didn't have any)
Quite a few curry leaves
Pepper
A little lime juice
Some vegetable oil
A big lump of butter, melted

Peel and boil the potatoes and carrots.
Cut them into small pieces.


Also chop up the onion, chilli and garlic.

Put the onion and spices (except the curry leaves) in the pan and simmer them until the onion is soft, fragrant and looks "like gold but all sizzly".



Add the chilli, garlic, curry leaves (crumbled), potatoes and carrots.


Simmer for ten minutes.

Tip in the peas then squeeze in the lime juice.



Let it simmer for another minute or two.

Now melt the butter and get out the filo pastry.

Cut a sheet in half, or, if you think you are likely to tear it, brush a little butter over it and fold in half to make it sturdier.
Next brush a thin layer of butter over the whole of the filo strip.


Put a big blob of the potato mixture at one corner and fold over to make a triangle at one end.




Keep folding until you have rolled the whole thing up and have something that looks like a samosa.



Repeat with the rest of the pastry and filling.
Brush the last of the butter over the samosas.

Turn the oven on to your usual pie-setting and put the samosas in for twenty minutes, checking occasionally to make sure they don't burn.



Remove, leave to cool a little, and eat with chutney.





Thursday 28 June 2012

Instructions

Eleanor has a little difficulty following instructions.
I think it's her hearing: I mean I'll say something like "Don't touch this pan: it's very hot" but she'll hear something more like "Boring, boring, boring, Touch This Pan! Boring, boring, boring."
Well, that's what I assume happened today anyway.
Then her hearing must have retroactively improved as she suddenly realised what I had said, and therefore, as she's a good little girl, decided she couldn't possibly have actually touched the pan as that would be naughty.
 Eventually she was persuaded to admit that she might, in a moment of weakness, have accidentally poked the pan to see what would happen, and that perhaps it would be ok to run her hand under the tap now.
And wrap it in a wet cloth.
Ok, and make a fuss of her for a while.
 We reminded her that although we do want her to do as we tell her*, and we never tell her to do something without a really good reason, we'd much rather know she's hurt than have her conceal it, and that we won't be cross, just worried about her.
She says she'll remember next time.
I can't wait.

She has similar problems in ballet class.
It's not that she doesn't pay attention, or not exactly.
It's more that if one or two of the other students are doing something different to her, like standing on their heads while pretending to be penguins for example , she'll assume she wasn't paying attention and that when she heard the teacher say "Now sit down and see if you can touch your toes" she was actually instructed to impersonate an inverted waterfowl from the southern hemisphere.
 She's mostly got over this by now though.
I explained that the teacher always knew what she should be doing, so now if she's not sure she just copies the teacher.
Which is fine as long as she doesn't try to take the register.
Of course occasionally she'll pay so much attention to the teacher that she won't actually remember to do whatever it is she's supposed to be doing, but at least if you asked her she'd know what it was.

Then there are her workbooks.
Oh how she loves her workbooks.
She completes about four pages a day and, even when the work seems too hard for her, stridently resists any suggestion that we should just put the book away for the day.
The problem is that sometimes she simply won't think.
It's not that she's lazy, it's more that there are days when she doesn't want to have to work for the answer if she thinks she can get there without it.
So if the answer seems to be on the page somewhere, for example in a spot-the-odd-one-out problem, she will just guess at random until she happens upon the right one.
Which is a little frustrating.
 Much worse though are the times when she thinks the answer is on the page but it actually isn't.
Even if I tell her that the answer isn't on the page, if she thinks she knows better she'll just assume I'm not paying attention properly.
I suppose it must run in the family.
 She started two new workbooks yesterday: the Letts' Little Wizard books in Maths and English.
All went well with  Maths so we boldly embarked upon the English.
Unfortunately the genius behind the Little Wizard books has chosen to use letters as bullet points in each section.
I didn't immediately spot the problem here, but then we came to a section requiring her to give the first letter of each word.
The first was fine, so was the second, then she noticed the  bullet points.
It took me half an hour to convince her that Frog did not begin with C.
 It wasn't that she couldn't understand the question, it wasn't even that she couldn't do the work**, it was simply that she knew the answer, it was there on the page, and the book couldn't possibly be wrong.
 I spent last night blacking out every bullet point with a crayon.
I had to use a crayon because we don't have any pens.
You see, I did tell her not to use them...


*Unless it's something stupid.

** "What's the first sound in Frog?"
 "Ffff"
"And what letter says "Ffff"?"
"F!"
"So what letter does Frog begin with?"
"C!"


Saturday 23 June 2012

The Differences

Spending last weekend without Eleanor really underlined the difference there have been between Phoebe's early months and Eleanor's.
 Phoebe has never had to be alone: even when I've been in the kitchen, surrounded by bubbling pots and sharp knives, I've always been able to leave her playing happily with her sister.
This weekend though reminded me sharply of Ellie's first year: every time I had to leave her alone the eight-month-olds' separation anxiety kicked in, producing a panicked, sobbing baby girl, perhaps even more distressed simply because she has always had a sister to rely on in the past.
 Fortunately I always hurried back so hopefully the all important lesson -that just because Mummy goes away it doesn't mean she's gone for good- will soon be learned.

Meanwhile I started pondering the differences between Phoebe and Eleanor.
 It isn't that I hadn't noticed any differences before, in fact when Phoebe was first born all I seemed to see were differences: she was about twice the size that Ellie was at birth, she fed and slept happily, gained weight and grew easily*, she was nothing like her sister at all, even in appearance**.
 But as I got used to Phoebe the differences became far less pronounced: these days she even looks much as Eleanor did at this age, just a little larger.
 So it took a little thought to notice just how different these two are.
To begin with there's Phoebe's reaction to music.
Play a decent piece of music to Phoebe and she will sit transfixed.
In fact I gleaned the time to type this by putting on Turandot in the background***.
 To Eleanor the correct response to music has always been to get up and dance, or to try to sing along.
Even before she could walk or talk she would start to wriggle and wave to the music, or start to yowl along until it finished.
Phoebe, however, listens.
Sometimes she'll try to join in, drumming or shaking a rattle in very inaccurate time, but mostly she just listens, she will even let me sing her to sleep.
 Then there's the way Phoebe wakes up happy whereas Eleanor always gave the impression that she was thoroughly distressed to find herself back in the same world she left when she went to sleep, in fact Ellie is still sometimes grumpy on waking up, Phoebe, meanwhile, wakes up wreathed in smiles.
Phoebe can't walk yet but Eleanor was walking happily at six months, Eleanor's first word was "Cat" but Phoebe's was "Daddy" (neither thought I was worth remarking on), Phoebe is cautious around strangers whereas Eleanor would and will smile at anyone,  Eleanor grabs any new toy and dives straight in but Phoebe will study it from every angle before tentatively trying something, like a scientist testing a hypothesis.




 Does all this mean that Eleanor is doomed to be a gregarious pessimist, while Phoebe will be a happy intellectual?
I severely doubt it.
But it does show that, despite all their similarities, despite sharing their genetic makeup, their upbringing and -reluctantly- their toys, they are and always will be individuals.
 And it means that for all my experience with Eleanor, I still can't count on anything.

* My baby is not a rhinoceros, she is perfectly average, Eleanor was born tiny and got tinier.
** Eleanor looked like an unfledged crow or possibly an alien, Phoebe just looked like a baby.
*** This sounds terribly pretentious but if I'd put on the Teletubbies it would just be ordinary bad parenting.

Friday 22 June 2012

Thoroughly unAmerican Pieday

We made apple pie.
What more need I say?

Ingredients

100g of cold butter
250g self-raising flour
Some cold water
A reasonable quantity of apples, both cooking and dessert (mixed to taste)
3 eggs
100g caster and soft brown sugar (again, as you prefer, or just use one).
Ground nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves, a pinch each.
Some more butter.

Cut the butter into cubes, mix with the flour and rub together till it resembles breadcrumbs.
add one egg and enough cold water to make a dough.


Roll into two balls, one biggish one to make the pie-case, one smaller one to make the lid.
flatten them into discs and stick them in the fridge.


Go and play Scrabble for half an hour (this is not an optional step).

Peel, core* and chop the apples, making the pieces reasonably small but still big enough to get your teeth into.

Melt the extra butter in a pan, chuck in the apples and cook for ten to twenty minutes depending on how soft you want them.


Turn off the heat, beat the two remaining eggs and tip most of the beaten egg into the sugar.


Add the spices to the apples, then pour in the egg and sugar mixture.
Let this cool a little while you roll out the discs of pastry.

Line your pie-dish with the big disc, pour in the apples and set the smaller disc on top, sealing carefully around the edges.


Brush the last of the beaten egg over the lid and put it into the oven at 200 or whatever your normal pie-cooking temperature is.


Leave it for fifteen minutes, then turn down to 180 (or whatever your normal not-so-hot temperature is) for another half hour.

Take it out, let it cool a very little, slice, apply cream** and eat.



*Except I mostly just slice pieces off till I get too close to the core then eat the apple.
** Because it would be terrible if your pie got sunburned.

Thursday 21 June 2012

Slight Piatus

We haven't done much on the home-ed front this week, having spent most of it entertaining my Mother who has been up visiting us.
In addition to this, Eleanor and Richard were away camping all weekend, leaving me at home with Phoebe.

But while it's been a quiet week for Eleanor,* Phoebe has been doing all sorts of things.

To begin with, she's been a holy terror at night, constantly waking up, wanting attention, refusing to settle, and generally disrupting the sleep patterns of all who love her.
 I know this might not sound like a good thing, well, let me be honest: it's not a good thing.
It is the start of sleeping through the night though.

You see it works like this: Phoebe wakes up wanting Mummy, Phoebe gets Mummy, Phoebe goes back to sleep.
Which probably sounds like a recipe for disaster but is, in fact quite the opposite.
Every time Phoebe wakes up, cries, and gets attention, she learns that I will come when she needs me.
She also learns to be less insecure, to be less afraid of sleeping alone, to need me less.
 So eventually, when she wakes up, even if I'm not there, she'll just put herself back to sleep.
After all, she'll know that if she ever really needs me she only has to call.

As well as this she's just cut another tooth, she's learning to pull herself up and support her own weight**, she can now say Daddy (or Dadda), Ummy, and Yeh! (the exclamation mark is definitely pronounced), and she has started to use the potty.
Which is terribly exciting when you're only eight months old.
All in all it's hardly surprising she finds it a little hard to sleep sometimes.***



*Where quiet means "Grandma's here! Grandma! Pay attention to Me!!"
** She had the good manners to postpone this event until her Grandmother was here to see it.
*** There's also something called Reverse Cycling to contend with, which can be defined thus: "The world is so exciting and I am far too busy to feed right now so I shall wait until bedtime when I have nothing better to do".

Friday 15 June 2012

Thank goodness it's Pieday!

This week's pie is ultra-simple and so good for children just learning to cook, it's also a handy thing to have in the freezer if you need food for an impromptu picnic or a quick but reasonably healthy dinner for the kids (just add a tin of new potatoes and some frozen peas).
 I was going to use a proper rough-puff pastry this week, but while I was buying milk I noticed some ready-rolled herb pastry and wondered what it would be like.
 It turned out to be pretty good, but I'd recommend making your own if you feel up to it: either a rough puff or a more traditional shortcrust.

Mini Quiche

Ingredients

One recipe or packet of pastry
One egg
A generous handful of cheese (we used a mixture of Cheddar and Peccorino Romano,)
Some vegetables (we used tomatoes and green beans) either fresh or frozen
A splash of milk
Some fresh herbs 

Roll out the pastry and cut it into circles using a large pastry cutter, put the circles into a bun-tin or muffin tin, pressing each down lightly so that they conform to the depressions in the tin.

Grate the cheese and slice any large vegetables

Place the vegetables in the pastry circles, then sprinkle on the herbs.
We used tomatoes* with basil, and green beans** with mint.
I would have used peas as well as the beans, to make a summery green quiche, but what I thought was a bag of peas turned out to be yet more green beans.

Now crack the egg, add the milk and beat them together, seasoning if you want.

Share the egg-mixture between the proto-quiches.

Top with the cheese

Bake in the oven at about 180 for twenty minutes, checking to see the they aren't ready sooner and lowering or raising the temperature as appropriate (times and temperatures may vary depending on the pasty you use).

Remove from the oven and leave for ten minutes to cool a little and shrink away from the sides of the tin.

Either serve, or throw them into a bag and dump them in the freezer.***

You can make these with pretty much any vegetable and cheese combination that appeals: stilton and mushroom works particularly well, as, I suspect, would feta and pre-roasted butternut squash.
And of course you can add meat if you feel the need: snipped up ham or bacon is perfectly acceptable I'm told.


*Not actually a vegetable I know.
**Yes, yes, I take your point.
*** I should probably say something about defrosting them really thoroughly here, but, lets be honest, I just throw them in the microwave for three minutes and call them cooked.

Thursday 14 June 2012

Sometimes It All Comes Together

The paper ladybirds have redeemed themselves.
 The day after I remarked that Sometimes It Just Doesn't Happen I resolved to try again.
This time we started out by drawing around ourselves.
First Eleanor lay on the paper while I traced her outline, then Phoebe, with many a wriggle, did likewise.
Then I lay down and Eleanor, with much giggling, drew around me.
Lastly we added faces and hair to the pictures and there we were, as large as life.
 When we had our paper us-es we spread them out on the floor and started to compare them.
Some things were the same: we all had two arms and two legs for example.
Some were different: I was by far the tallest, Phoebe was the smallest.
After looking at all the similarities and differences we could think of we agreed that we were more the same than we were different.
 Next we got down the paper ladybirds and the paper butterflies.
Could we find any ways that we were the same?
We found a few: we all have legs for example, but there were a lot more differences than there were similarities, we decided that humans weren't all that much like insects.
When we compare the butterflies and ladybirds to one another it became much more interesting
 There were plenty of similarities: both had six legs for example, but although the two insects looked very different it was quite hard to think of real, rather than cosmetic differences.
Eventually we agreed that ladybirds don't eat nectar and butterflies don't eat aphids but that, as with humans, these insects were a lot more alike than they originally appeared.


Then, finally, I got around to the point I had been trying to make earlier in the week: we folded the paper humans.
 After some pondering Eleanor observed that the two sides were the same ("Except Phoebe because she moved").
 We talked a little about symmetry: were the paper ladybirds symmetrical?
They were!
And the paper butterflies?
My word!
What about a cat? A dog? A rabbit?
 Eleanor flew about collecting toy animals and we established that they were all, in fact symmetrical.*

 And then I asked her to think of an animal that wasn't symmetrical.
And she couldn't.
And I showed her a video of a fiddler crab on YouTube.

And everything was lovely.

And then we watched a video of a hedgehog having a bath.
Just because we wanted to.

*The tiger, of course, has a fearful symmetry.

Tuesday 12 June 2012

Sometimes It Just Doesn't Happen

I love planning projects.
I love planning projects so much that this could easily be a whole blog entry about how much I love planning projects.
 I have a list of project themes on my phone (I keep it there so that if I think of another project while I'm out I can add it to the list), and happily while away my odd moments, on the bus, feeding Phoebe to sleep, waiting for Eleanor to finish her ballet lesson, by expanding on the various ideas, adding new activities, and thinking of ways to make everything as much fun as possible without actually abandoning any thought of education.
 Then I get thoroughly excited about all the activities I have planned.
Unfortunately what looks like a great idea on paper can be a bit of a damp squib in real life*.

Yesterday's activity was one of those.
It seemed a great idea when it was just an outline on my phone: we were going to make paper ladybirds.
We were going to each ladybird two more spots than the one before, and we were going to make them symmetrical, then we were going to talk about counting in twos, and multiplying or dividing by two, and symmetry.
 We were going to look at our paper butterflies and our paper ladybirds and talk about how they were all symmetrical, and then we were going to see what other symmetrical animals we could think of.
And then I was going to ask Eleanor if she could think of any animals that weren't symmetrical, and when she couldn't I was going to show her a YouTube film of a fiddler crab.
 It was going to be great.

It wasn't.
We made the ladybirds, but I took more time cutting out the pieces than Ellie did sticking them together.
 Perhaps it was the effect of having something new to do after yet another week in quarantine, but she seemed to assemble paper ladybirds like a paper ladybird assembly machine.
 And then, she said, she was finished.
Asked if she could see how the ladybirds counted in twos she informed me that no, they didn't because there were numbers missing.
No you can't count in just twos: " cos it would be just two, two, two, two and that's silly".
No she didn't want to listen, this was a silly game and did the ladybirds eat paper aphids?
She vaguely acknowledged that yes, both sides matched, just like the butterflies, but made it clear that this was a supremely uninteresting fact.
No, she didn't know what other animals were symmetrical.
No she didn't want to think of one.
 She did think that maybe the big ladybirds were the little ladybirds' Mummy and Daddy though.


*A bit like this really.
Honestly, in my head this was going to be a great blog.


Sunday 10 June 2012

Butterflies

Our butterflies have flown.
 Only three of them made it in the end, the other two never emerging from their cocoons.
Since the weather has been so damp and dismal we had to keep them in for a few days, and feed them on pieces of squashy fruit and flowers with drips of "nectar" on.
 As soon as we got some warm weather, though they were off.



 Hopefully they'll survive the cold nights and rainy days which seemed to start again as soon as the last one had flown.

 But our house isn't butterflyless yet.


We made "stained glass" pictures to brighten up the windows.



We made big and small butterflies by cutting out butterfly prints*


And we put a big butterfly with six pipe-cleaner legs on the wall to finish our life cycle chart

Technically the project might be over, but I suspect we'll find a little more to do yet.


*take paper, add paint, fold in half, squash flat, open: butterfly.

Friday 8 June 2012

Happy Pieday!

I warned you.

Nobody can say I didn't warn you.
I warned you that my definition of pie was going to be flexible.
Today's pie has a filling contained within a crust*, therefore it is pie.
The fact that Nigella Lawson calls this a mexican lasagne should trouble nobody.
Eleanor couldn't do this all by herself as it involves a hot pan and a lot of chopping, but she had fun with the parts she could do.

Bean and Tortilla Pie

Ingredients:

One packet of tortillas
One large or two small tins of sweetcorn, drained
Two tins of black beans, drained
One tin of tomatoes
One or two green chillies
A mediumish block of decent cheese (smoked cheddar is good)
One onion
One red pepper
A few cloves of garlic
A bunch of fresh coriander
Some cooking oil.

Chop up the garlic, onion, pepper and chillies.
We kept the chilli pieces quite big so that I could find them to fish them out of Phoebe's portion, but you probably won't need to do that.


Heat the oil in a pan, add the garlic.
When the garlic starts to soften add the other chopped vegetables.



Once they've had about five minutes in the pan chop the coriander, add this to the pan along with the tomatoes and put it back onto the stove for ten to fifteen minutes.


While it's simmering grate the whole block of cheese and put most of this into a bowl.


Add the sweetcorn and the black beans, then stir it all together.

When the sauce is ready turn off the heat and prepare to assemble the pie

Put a little of the sauce in the bottom of a casserole or deep pie-dish.

Add one or two tortillas to cover the bottom and sides of the dish.


Now add about a third of the beans and cheese (more if you're using less tortillas) and cover that with more sauce.

Add another tortilla or two on top of this and continue layering beans, sauce and tortillas until you reach the top of the dish, finishing with a layer of tortillas.

Dab the last of the sauce (unless you have a lot left over, in which case just use a little) on top of this and cover it with the last of the cheese.

Put it all into the oven on 200 (or similar cook-everything) setting for half an hour or until the crust looks crisp and, well crusty.


Take it, singed but delicious, out of the oven and leave for ten minutes or so.

Cut into squigdgly sloppy slices** and serve.

This is definitely worth reheating and seems to stay good until you run out of leftovers.

*It goes crusty in the oven so it is a crust.
** Slices, see? Like a pie. It's a pie!

Red White and Blue Pieday

I haven't updated very often in the last week I'm afraid.
Unfortunately the chickenpox reared its ugly head once more and the time I might have spent writing in this blog was instead spent tending to a very spotty, very sad baby.
 Have no fear however: it would take more than the spotty pox to defeat Pieday.

We didn't intend to make a red, white and blue pie this week: it just sort of happened, perhaps the royal jubilee had infected my subconscious or maybe the shops had just stocked so much red and blue fruit for jubilee cookery that we didn't have any choice.
 This, like last week's pie, started out as a Nigella Lawson recipe.
Then I fiddled with it.
This recipe is much simpler than the original, and doesn't require food processors, it also requires a lot less precision: just adjust as you go along to suit your ingredients.

Cheesecake Pie


Ingredients

One small packet of digestive biscuits
One packet of ginger nuts
Soft cheese (about one-and-a-third tubs of Philadelphia seemed to work here)
One block of butter
One jar of lemon curd
Two punnets of soft fruit, more if you want.


First melt about a third of the butter.
The easiest way is to put it into a bowl, then place that bowl inside another bowl which is half-full of hot water.
You may or may not need more butter than this, so leave the rest out, just in case.


While the butter is melting, smash up the digestive biscuits.
We put them, a few at a time, into a jug, then hit them with a rolling pin.
However you do it you should end up with fine crumbs

Then take about a quarter of the packet of ginger nuts (more if it's a small packet) and crush them too.
Mix the crumbs together in a bowl.


Now pour in the melted butter and mix thoroughly.
 You should find that the crumbs are thoroughly coated and can be squished together, if some are still dry then melt a little more butter and stir it in.


Now take a deepish cake tin, pie tin, quiche tin, or whatever you have available*, and start pressing the crumb mixture into the base and up around the sides till you have a firm, if slightly crumbly, shell.
 This is your cheesecake pie-crust.
Put the whole thing into the fridge for an hour or two.

Meanwhile make yourself a cup of tea** and investigate the possibilities of the leftover ginger nuts.

Once the shell has set firm you are ready to make the filling.


Mix the cream cheese and the lemon curd, using more or less cheese or curd according to your taste, the size of the pie you have to fill, and the amount of curd available.



Now take the cold pie-shell and dollop in the lemony cheese, spreading it out to fill the bottom of the pie.

Put this to one side and wash the soft fruit gently, hulling any strawberries and cutting any particularly large specimens in half (or into slices if you're using peaches or other larger fruit).


Fill the pie with the fruit, taking care to cover the base evenly, and return it to the fridge for another few hours.

Since there are no ginger nuts left find something else to occupy you for a while.



Finally remove (carefully) from the tin, slice, rejoice, devour.


*We used a springform cake tin which is particularly handy when trying to remove crumbly pies*** like this without breaking them.

** Unless you are too young for tea.
Then don't.

*** Yes it's still a pie.

Monday 4 June 2012

No Timetables

One of the great things about home ed, as most home edders will tell you, is that there are no timetables involved.
 Which means that if no-one's in the mood for maths you are free to read books, look for the hottest and coldest places on the map, paint pictures, watch a film in Italian, do a jigsaw puzzle, or do whatever else you are in the mood for instead.
It means that you never miss your big exciting educational trip because of flu (or indeed chickenpox).
It means you get to go on holiday when most kids are stuck in a classroom, and then visit all the museums and local attractions once everyone else has headed off on their considerably more expensive (but possibly warmer) holiday.
 It is also not entirely true.
It's certainly true that we have no written timetable (unless you count the big calendar I write reminder notes on) but nevertheless our weeks, and even days, do have a certain pattern and rhythm to them.
There are the home ed groups which, when someone's ill or on holiday, go ahead just the same without them, there are the ballet lessons, twice a week, which start promptly, end on time, and won't move for anyone.
There's the library, always visited on the same day, at around the same time: the point at which our convenience and the library's odd opening hours coincide.
There are buses to be missed at our peril, there are "See you next week"s and "Sorry we can't come"s.
Our time is not entirely our own.
 On a day to day level it's the same: On a day at home Eleanor tends to get her work books out in the morning, then she'll dance or watch a television program, perhaps I'll read to her or we'll play a game before lunch, on Mondays and Wednesdays we'll probably do some sort of art-based activity, on Tuesdays we'll look things up, Thursdays may involve making things, Friday has pie, and every Friday ends with us curled up on the settee watching films in Italian (for Eleanor) or Japanese (for me).
 None of this is obligatory, it just suits us, in the same way that that regular library visit (on a Thursday, last thing after a day of ballet, and craft projects) suits us.
I like it.
 I like the way our week rolls along from mostly-at-home more work-intensive Monday to a Friday spent almost entirely out of the house, not even glancing at a book*, until it all rolls up in that cozy ball on the settee.
 And if I stop liking it, or Ellie does, or Phoebe has something to do or somewhere to be one day, we can change it.
 Because we don't have a timetable.

*Ok, Eleanor does take a workbook out with her, just to pass the time during Phoebe's ballet class.
And we might read a story or two on the bus.
And sometimes hey have them at the Soft Play centre after lunch.
But apart from that there are no books.
 Not many anyway.