Fade to White

After the early dump of snow just before Halloween (what we like to call a Helen special) we’ve had a couple of weeks of unseasonably warm* weather. That meant that unlike the first two winters that we’d spent up here, the first blanket of white to lay itself over everything disappeared. We had a couple of weeks of mini-spring, IE mud.

Over the weekend we received another crisp white blanket of snow though, restoring things to what one would expect for this time of year. Saturday was overcast and it snowed for most of the day, but Sunday dawned bright and sunny> When the snow is crisp and fresh and the sun shines, it reflects of the thousands upon thousands of ice crystals in the snow and you’re treated to a gorgeous sparkling blanket. Right up to the point where the plough runs along the road, spraying all the dirt and grime from the road across it.

Of course, with the snow having arrived properly, it won’t be melting again this side of spring and so the colour has again drained from the world. The trees are bare and everything that isn’t vertical get’s its coat of white. That might be great news for the ski season (33 days until we head off to kicking horse!) But it’s not so good for the soul. Eventually the lack of colour, the constant cold and absence of the sun really start to wear you down. Which is why like last year, we’re planning an escape about mid-winter. Last year it was to Jamaica, this year, we’re flying to Florida before embarking on a Caribbean Cruise. It should be awesome (and for those that are counting – that would be me – its only 75 days away!)


*By unseasonably warm I mean that it was hitting highs of around +4 Celsius instead of lingering down around 4 or 5 below.

Fade to White

After the early dump of snow just before Halloween (what we like to call a Helen special) we’ve had a couple of weeks of unseasonably warm* weather. That meant that unlike the first two winters that we’d spent up here, the first blanket of white to lay itself over everything disappeared. We had a couple of weeks of mini-spring, IE mud.

Over the weekend we received another crisp white blanket of snow though, restoring things to what one would expect for this time of year. Saturday was overcast and it snowed for most of the day, but Sunday dawned bright and sunny> When the snow is crisp and fresh and the sun shines, it reflects of the thousands upon thousands of ice crystals in the snow and you’re treated to a gorgeous sparkling blanket. Right up to the point where the plough runs along the road, spraying all the dirt and grime from the road across it.

Of course, with the snow having arrived properly, it won’t be melting again this side of spring and so the colour has again drained from the world. The trees are bare and everything that isn’t vertical get’s its coat of white. That might be great news for the ski season (33 days until we head off to kicking horse!) But it’s not so good for the soul. Eventually the lack of colour, the constant cold and absence of the sun really start to wear you down. Which is why like last year, we’re planning an escape about mid-winter. Last year it was to Jamaica, this year, we’re flying to Florida before embarking on a Caribbean Cruise. It should be awesome (and for those that are counting – that would be me – its only 75 days away!)


*By unseasonably warm I mean that it was hitting highs of around +4 Celsius instead of lingering down around 4 or 5 below.

Learning

On wednesday of this week, we had a holiday for memorial day (the 11th of November and all the import that that implies). That however, is not the purpose of this post. Michael has had a project looming over him for a while that he wanted my help with as it involved constructing a moving vehicle. Having the day at home gave us some time to tackle it.

Whilst getting ready to do that, I came across Sam in his room who was very upset. Enquiries lead to the revelation that it was because he had some school work to do that involved having to draw some pictures. And he couldn’t draw them (must have inherited my lack of artistic ability). He was attempting to draw planes and birds, from scratch, with nothing to reference to help him.

It was a bit later on that this caused me to pause and think about the two different approaches that I was seeing between Michael and Sam.

Michael was very much in the mind set of getting the least amount of work possible done at the latest possible time so that he could devote his time to more enjoyable pursuits.

Sam on the other hand, unprompted was trying to tackle his homework and was upset because he couldn’t live up to his own exacting standards.

I helped them both, showing Sam a few tricks that would help him produce pictures of a quality he’d be happy with that didn’t involve the internet or a computer and he was happily on his way.

I also helped Michael to get his model constructed and working, as well as showing him a good way to document his design. Of course, once the model was built, Michael was happy to put the whole thing aside and move on to those more enjoyable pursuits. Sam plowed away at his homework (admittedly a less demanding task) until it was complete.

Michael needed some prompting to pull out the assessment guidelines to be sure that he was covering all his bases, but once prompted, at least took some time to look over it (well most of it) and make sure that he’d get a good result. It must be said that his chief concern was that the car that we’d made would go fast!

And then, there’s Tom. I feel for Tom, because Sam is usually coming home from school and telling us that he managed to get very high marks for his various tests. Michael doesn’t announce things in the same way, but he usually does very well. Tom doesn’t do badly, but with the legacy of his speech difficulties, things are significantly more challenging for him, so we build him up with his good results, hoping that he can focus on the fact that he’s doing well, rather than the fact that he can’t quite make it up to the extra-high standard of his brothers.

We’re all learning still.