Friday fun fact #10: Chestnuts and conkers

Just two names for the same thing? No, there's a difference. There is one huge difference. Simply speaking, one is edible and the other is not. Take a look at the photographs, both from Google images:

Chestnuts

Conkers

Indeed, they have only two things in common as far as I know - their colour and the fact that they are around at the same time of the year, namely late September through to the end of November, depending on the weather and where you live.

Now the reason for the confusion could be put down to the fact that conkers are also called horse chestnuts. This name probably derived from the fact that, although the fruit is poisonous to humans, due to saponins, it can be given to deer, cattle and horses. Apparently, it gives a horse a lovely shiny coat.

When I was a little girl in short, white socks we used to wait with impatience for conker time to come around. On my way home from school there were a good few conker trees and I managed every year to fill my school bag, day after day, with these lovely, shiny treasures.

What would I want them for, you may be asking. Well, it pleased me simply to admire their beautiful colour and handle them. I used to take a tissue or a clean hanky and 'puff and shine'. Most of all I liked to find the unopened ones and be the first to discover their simple beauty.

But above all, I picked them to have conker contests with the boys in the playground and sometimes even with my brother. I wasn't much of a 'girlie' girl to be honest and this was something I was good at.

To prepare a conker for the fight one had to string it - make a hole through the middle, thread a string and tie a strong knot. You then wound a good part of the other end round your fingers and you were ready for the battle. The opponent had to simply let his conker dangle at the end of the string and inwardly squirm at every hit!

The contest consisted of taking turns in bashing your opponents conker to smithereens. If you missed the opponents conker then it was his turn to bash yours and so on till one or t'other would completely break apart and fall from the string.

If your conker won two battles it was classed as a two-er, if five battles, then you had a five-er, etc.

How did you know if the conker was a good one. Well, before the hole was made one could tell by the weight. The heavier they were the more solid they would be inside. If in doubt, you put it in a bowl of water. If it floated it was no good. Next, if when you made the hole, the skewer went through too easily, then that one was also discarded. Obviously, the best conkers were the heavy, solid ones.

So far this article consisted of refreshing my girlhood memories. But now if you care to look here you will find more information about conkers. If you look here you will find out more about sweet chestnuts, sometimes called Spanish or Portuguese chestnuts (I didn't know that!). Although their names are similar, the two varieties of tree are only very distantly related.

Have a good Friday and a pleasant weekend.

Lovely song... Oh, so true

Please, dear bloggy friends, pop over to my daughter's blog and listen to the song she posted some days ago.

http://www.dreamymaygirl.blogspot.com.es/2015/01/we-have-this-moment-today.html

More snow

This time it has snowed on our very own doorstep!

Here are some photos I took between 8:00 and 9:30 am. I went for a walk even before breakfast because you have to be quick to catch it here.

At 8:00 am

Across the valley

Vineyards in the snow

The woods down the lane a bit

The road out of the estate

The main road up...

...and down

The mountains - by 11:00 you can see the snow is melting

Harry, the happy snowman (Can anyone smell carrots?)

Blog birthday

My blog was 2 years old on the 26th of January but I was busy doing the holiday post. To celebrate, like last year, I am posting a bunch of photos of purple or lilac things, things that I have come across during the year 2014.

Don't I just love pens and stuff like that!

Straws and blackcurrant tea.

A field full of thistles.

A plastic bag.

Cimbrisor - a herb that A. gave us to beat off our colds in Romania. Here we call it thyme!

Happy birthday, blog

Our holiday

Here is the promised post about what we did over the holiday season. Those of you who have been following my blog will know that our second daughter was married last June and went to live in Romania. Well, the long and short of this is that we went to see them!

We set out from Tarragona at just gone midnight on the 23rd of December, on a coach that would take us to Bucharest, where my daughter lives. We passed through the whole coast of Catalonia, on into France, then Italy, Slovenia, Hungary and finally across through Romania to the capital, where we were met by our son-in-law at 8.00 pm on the 24th. (44 hours)

A. and D. have such a lovely apartment in the capital, a little back from the main road. It has lots of light and not much need for heating as the apartment is extremely well insulated and the heat from the apartments which are joined to theirs is enough, although the temperatures were very low outside. At the back there is a kiddy park, black squirrels running up and down the trees and A. has a pet dove that she feeds crumbs to every day.

The very next day we went to visit D's parents, an hour out of the city, in a town called Ploiesti. We had a wonderful day with some of his family. D's mother is a fantastic cook and she made us some good traditional food:

Ciorba

Sarmale - meat and rice wrapped up in a pickled cabbage leaf

Mamaliga - a stiff dough made from corn semolina

Strudel cu mere for desert, I think, in total, I ate at least seven of these things. They were soooo good

The second day we were there, in the evening, it started to snow... and snow...snow... and more snow. Here is a photo of that aforementioned kiddy park taken the next day:

On the Saturday we took the underground train and visited downtown Buchuresti in the late afternoon/evening. Awesome city. Here are some photos that I have actually taken from internet because it was already too dark for my camera to do a decent job.

Arcul de Triumf

The Dambovita river

Casa Poporului or, literally, 'House of the people'

Casa de economii si Consemnatiun

Sunday was Sunday. We spent the day once again with D's parents and plenty more of his family and friends. We felt welcomed by almost everyone and by now we were picking up a good quantity of Romanian words. That evening we had supper with D's brother and his wife who live in the converted attic above his parent's house.

On Monday, 29th of Dec. we travelled to the Transylvanian area of Romania and visited Bran Castle. This is where Frankenstein used to live. An absolute must if you visit Romania. I took very few photos. Why? Because that day it was 18º C below zero and I really did NOT want to take my hands out of my pockets or take my gloves off too often! I'm sure my daughter has some better ones.

One of the castle towers

Centre patio with well included. It was here that we stood still just long enough to hear D. tell that joke about Dracula and the tower.

View out over the snowy countryside from one of the castle windows.

On the Tuesday we had an early-ish lunch and then headed off once more for Ploiesti where we were going to spend the rest of the year! There was lots of yummy food - in fact we had a barbecue! These were the star of the show for me:

Romanian sausages or mititei

Apparently, we had the coldest end of year that Romania has had for fifty years, with the lowest temperatures registering 23.5º C below zero. At 11.30 pm a bunch of us wrapped up warm and went to see a spectacular firework display in the centre of Ploiesti. We all hugged, cheered and wished each other a happy New Year. Then we headed back to the house for chocolate cream cake and more blackberry tuika (pronounced tsueekuh). My, if that stuff doesn't warm you up then you have a problem!

New Years Day was spent at my daughter's place. She prepared a traditional Catalonian dinner and then we did our invisible family present giving thing in the afternoon. Fun, fun, fun. After, we 'skyped' with family back at home and in England and also wished Iaia a very happy 86th birthday. Then, all but Hubby decided it was time to go out and have fun in the dark, in a park, in the snow. So, that is exactly what we did. Unfortunately, it ended with the youngest member of the gang slipping on snow-covered ice and breaking his arm.

On the Friday D. and A. treated us to a meal in a beautiful restaurant in the centre of Buchuresti. The food was well priced and most awesomely delicious! (Photos from Google images)

The street sign

Inside

The wooden staircase

The menu

Ciorba served in a hollowed out loaf of bread

We spent the Saturday home and then on Sunday we said goodbye to S. very early in the morning as he had to return home a day earlier than the rest of us. Sunday was Sunday and we went to Ploiesti in the morning, had lunch with D.'s  parents, said goodbye to everyone there and headed back to base. We packed and had an early supper as we had to leave on our coach at 4.00 am the next morning.

The journey home took 48 hours. We were stopped a long time on the Hungarian border, half the time in a snow blizzard. Then again we were stopped by Italian police who were checking passports on the Slovenian/Italian border and once more when we crossed over into Catalonia. We arrived at our own home at 7.30 am on the 7th of January. We spent most of the morning picking up on sleep as we only slept about 4 or 5 hours during the whole voyage. Even then, we never got to sleep more than hour at a time because the coach stopped too frequently for much more!

Here are some more snow photos:

Icicles

Roadside stores. The thermometer in the car registered 8º C below zero here!

The Carpathian Mountains

Well, I really hope you have enjoyed reading this as much as I have enjoyed reliving all these beautiful moments. One thing is for sure, I'm going back as soon as I possibly can. Now to learn a few more words...

Coming soon...

Hi, folks.

Sorry about the lack of posts lately. In fact, the last post was actually a programmed one from way back. Truth is I have been 'out of office' for the last three weeks and indeed, out of the country, too.

Now things are gradually settling into place and a routine is beginning to surface, maybe I'll have a moment or two to tell you what we have been up to over the holiday season.


Meanwhile, I will post a photo for you all to enjoy.

You wanted snow, Sofia? Here, have all the snow you want, and there's more on the way!

Stay tuned!

Dad's Dictionary...

  LACKADAISICAL

 
This is one of those words that, for some reason, reminds me of my teenager years. My Dad used it in the same sentence as "bend yer lazy old back". We seemed to hear it oh, so often...

This word is delightfully evocative, bringing to mind some languid person lolling on a couch while all around goes to ruin, so accurately evoking its modern idea of somebody who lacks enthusiasm and determination or is carelessly lazy.

It owes its origin, strangely enough, to an old saying of regret or dismay, lack-a-day!, a shortened form of alack-a-day!. Alack dates back to medieval times, and probably comes from a dialect word lack that is variously interpreted as failure, fault, reproach, disgrace, or shame. So alack-a-day! originally meant “Shame or reproach to the day!” (that it should have brought this upon me). But over time it became weakened until it became no more than a vapid and vacuous cry when some minor matter went awry.

Later it moved towards the idea of somebody who was affectedly languishing, and thence to someone merely lazy.

Text taken from www.worldwidewords.org  It's a fantastic etymology web, very interesting indeed to those who like words as much as I do.

Dad's Dictionary...

 JOLLOP

I remember my father using this word to refer to anything from a new batch of Mum's homemade jam to the grease he used to lubricate his lathe!

Let's take a look...

The meaning of the word, according to The Collins English Dictionary, is "unguent" or "cream".

Some dictionaries say the word jollop was used to refer either to a liquid medication or a strong liquor (often one and the same!)

Others indicate that it's real roots are Mexican and that the word is derived from the Spanish JALAPA. Jalapa was a city in Mexico (now Xalapa-Enrìquez). It was here that a notorious laxative was created.

Another source writes that the word originates from the word 'julep', of Persian origin and arrived to our shores via French and Latin. The word 'julep' means 'rose water'.

The word JOLLOP first appeared in England in 1675.

"Pass me some o' that there JOLLOP, will 'e?" Sigh... Some fun memories!

Another of those quotes!

On the Tuesday before her wedding my daughter (21 yrs) was giving instructions to her cousin (almost 22 yrs) as to how to manage our shower upstairs. As I left the room to go to bed (it was almost 2:00 am and the cousins had just arrived) this is what I overheard:

"You'll see there is a lever. You push it to the left for hot water, to the right for cold water and you leave it in the middle for... something in between!"

Yup, absolutely!

Honestly, it doesn't seem so funny written down and I guess it was due to the stress of the moment, but I sat in the stairs and wept tears of laughter.

Country house

Last week, as the children were off school, we went to spend the day with family. They had rented this country house (the one furthest away and slightly to the left) for a few days and invited us to come and have a barbecue with them and check out the area.

We had a lovely time picking up on news, going on a long walk and then another, asparagus-picking one, in the afternoon. It was just nice to be together and relax while all the children had fun playing football and fishing for taddies and snails in the river...

Thanks J. and R.M. for inviting us. We really enjoyed our time with you all.

Spring project 2010

During our homeschooling years I often used ideas from others people's blogs. It was useful in many ways because the work had been tried and tested and comments were added for ways to better their experiences. I thought, from time to time, that I would also post about projects and things we studied back in the not too distant past, with the idea that it might also help others who are studying at home. It also brings back great memories, I can assure you.

During the spring of 2010, when my last homeschooler was 8 1/2 years old, we decorated our kitchen door with a spring project. It all looked very jolly and we had so much fun doing it.

We included all our areas of study. Here's how (please note that all of the family speak two languages as a regular thing but for written work, at this stage, I normally treated English as a second language, with Catalan being their first):
Language arts
Catalan:
- a short essay titled "When I hear the word 'spring' I think of..."
- a list of twenty-two spring words to be put in alphabetical order
- look up, discuss and write down sayings about springtime
Spanish:
- learn a poem titled "La primavera ha venido" by Antonio Machado
English:
- colour by letters - an umbrella (from edHelper.com)
- butterfly word search with secret message (from EnchantedLearning.com)
- spring alphabet code (from EnchantedLearning.com)
- making plurals of spring nouns (from EnchantedLearning.com)
Music
- learn a song in Catalan "Els ocells han arribat"
- learn to play the same song on the recorder
Bible studies and memory verses
- discuss and learn - Song of Solomon ch. 2 verses 11 and 12, Hosea ch. 6 verse 3, Joel ch. 2 verse 23
- talk about the significance of the butterfly, rain and rainbows in God's word
Nature studies
- learn about the life cycle of a butterfly
- learn what metamorphosis is and talk about other creatures which go through the same type of life cycle
- learn about the nests of different creatures - fish, wasps, field mice and birds
Social studies
- learn when spring officially starts and how the moment is calculated
- talk about the equinox and the solstice
- learn about the tilt of the earth and how this causes the seasons
- Make a weather chart and plot morning (8:00 am), midday (2:00 pm) and evening (8:00 pm) temperatures + a daily pictogram of the general weather trend
Mathematics
- plot a graph picture using a series of given coordinates (from edHelper)
- learn about symmetry using bugs (from EnchantedLearning.com)
- study simple fractions (using worksheets from EnchantedLearning)
Art
- study and colour various typical spring flowers and learn their names in all three languages - tulips, daffodils, poppies, violets and roses
- study and discuss the growth of the grape vines and draw fortnightly developments
Physical activity
- plenty of nature walks around where we live

Later, we converted the work into a manageable project. Here's how in photos:

The front cover:

Social studies:

Translation of last paragraph. "The word 'primavera' comes from two Latin words - 'prima' meaning 'first' and 'vera' meaning 'green'. Thus, we can say that spring is the 'first green' of the year.

Nature studies:

Catalan:

Spanish:

Maths:

English:

Music:

Art:

Each study subject is separated with  a piece of decorated paper, thus:

I have not included all the work we did as this would have taken much more time. I hope, however, you get the general idea.

If you go here you will find a lapbook about Catalonia (in Catalan).
If you go here you will find a character study (in Spanish).
If you go here you will find details of a project about butterflies and moths, including a mosaic of a Camberwell Beauty butterfly and a quiz to find out how much has been learnt (in English).