Random Ramblings

Life continues somewhat complicated. Our Jack Russell, Sparky, has been diagnosed with the early stages of kidney disease. He’s getting on, as are we all. At least we can start with treatment that will hopefully ease things for him. He does get a free pass now if he has a slip-up in the house.

Sparky and Caesar sometime in 2005

I am soldiering on with my husband’s jersey. I may not get it finished in time for his birthday next month (the dreaded 65 – retirement). It’s quite a learning curve. Sometimes a learning cliff…

I still have two stalled tatting projects (three if you count the Celtic Shamrock Wreath – I don’t even want to guess how long that has been on stop).

I have been doing some bits and pieces just for myself. I’m digging out a lot of my favourite poems and memorising them.  I’ve always remembered bits of poems, I’m just putting them all together. I go around reciting something dramatic while hanging out the washing, or similar (My life is such a mad whirl). I do have a very old-fashioned view of poetry. I like the stuff that has rhyme and rhythm. I know the modern view is against this; I’m old enough not to care.

Something else which may be categorized as weird – I’m going through a maths course – starting with kindergarten, mind you. It’s many years since I was at school – things have changed more than a little. We did buy a maths course some years ago while my son was still at school. It explained things so cleverly that I couldn’t even do the addition or subtraction.

I’ve always had a ‘thing’ about maths. I can clearly remember a teacher telling me sometime in primary school ‘You’re good at languages, but bad at maths’. Every time I ran into problems with maths, I would just tell myself I was no good at it anyway, and stop trying.

When I got into music later on I found theory easy – I taught myself up to grade 5 and passed well too. There is a relationship between music and maths, and I began to wonder if I was as bad at maths as I’d always thought. A few months ago my son put me onto Kahn Acadamy. Their stated mission is to ‘provide a free, world-class education to anyone, anywhere’.

It’s a great resource for anyone with kids in school, or who might like to brush up some rusty brain cells. It’s not only maths, they cover everything from History to Economics and Computer Programming. All free, and no adverts!