Birds and books

It's been a busy week. Kitty started her new school on wednesday, which is really lovely. There are 13 children in the class, a mixture of local village kids and fee-paying kids. There are two other girls she was friends with from her last school, which is nice. The teaching is in English and swahili, with translation either way when neccessary (especially now at the start of the year with new kids in the class). Her main teacher was a very well respected teacher in the International School here for many years, who wanted to do something different and set up this new school.

So, school is great... but it is a LOT of time in the car for me. Minimum 30 mins each way makes for a minimum of 2 hours in the car each day for drop off and pick up, and it's mostly more like 35-40 mins, getting up to an hour to get home one morning. However, there is no closer decent school (the early years school she was in last year is only from 2-5) The only alternative would have been put her into one of the bigger (and more expensive) international schools, which are just as far out but do provide a bus service, so I would do less driving but she would spend longer in transit on a bus. Am praying for another family to move next to us and choose to send their kids there so we can lift share..... it's always possible!

Books are more and more popular in our house at the moment. The Mancub insists on taking some in his cot at rest/nap time now, just like Kitty does, and can be heard loudly 'reading' them. He's mostly memorised his current favourites - the Gruffalo and the Gruffalo's child. And for the last week or so we've been reading lots of books to him between 6.20 and breakfast time.... Kitty's reading has progressed from the Peter and Jane level of  "Run Pat, Pat get the ball!" a few months ago to reading almost fluently through the Cat in the Hat and various other books now. She's really enjoying it!

Today, after church, we decided it was high time to get out of the house for a proper walk again - it seems like it's been ages. So we headed out to a new spot for us, recommended by a friend. It was lovely! A dry river bed at the bottom of a small gorge, with vegetation to bash through, rocks and fallen trees to scale, mysterious almost tunnel-like pathways and lots of nice woodland birds!

Some days I can really appreciate living here.