Saturday, 26 March 2011


Hi Kai,
This is a picture of a clock with a sheep on it. The reason I want to show you a picture of a clock is because tonight in Scotland the time changes. very early in the morning, or maybe very late at night, the clocks will go one hour forward. We do this to make the amount of daylight when most people are awake to be longer. It has been done for almost 100 years. It also makes some people complain because they get an hour less in thier bed if they have to go out to work! I don't know if you change clocks in South Africa, but here we do it twice a year, once on the last Sunday of March to move them forward and then we move them back on the last Sunday of September, very close to your birthday.
Can you tell the time on a clock? This is an analogue clock and there are two types of clock. The other is called digital. A digital clock shows the numbers in a row like 10:10 and the analogue goes around in a circle like the one here. There 24 hours in a day and 60 minutes in an hour and each number on an analogue clock is 5 minutes. There are also two hands on a clock a big hand and a small hand. The big hand means minutes and the small hand means hours. So if the big hand is pointing to 4 and the small hand is at 2 that means it is twenty past two. Can you tell me what the clock would be like when it is your Bedtime or your lunch time?

Lots of love, Dad.

Sunday, 20 March 2011

Apples Bananas and lots of others

Hi Kai,

Today I went shopping and bought some apples and bananas. I hope you like fruit they are tasty and good for you. A fruit is a plant that contains seeds but some fruits are called vegetables and it can be confusing as there are so many. Because there are so many I wondered if there was a fruit beginning with every letter of the alphabet. So I started making this list. I didn't find them all but I wonder if you know any of the ones I missed. These are some of my favourites, I bet you won't try all of them!


Apple : There are apples everywhere most are either red or green. I like the green ones better than the reds. The green ones tend to be sharp tasting and the red ones sweet. Your great grandad has apple trees in his garden but they are cooking apples so I make turnovers with them.

Banana : Bananas are great they have thier own packaging. I prefer them when they get brown spots.

Cherry : Cherrys are small and red. They are sometimes sweet and sometimes sour.

Dragonfruit : There really is a dragonfruit! It has bright pink skin and has white flesh and black seeds inside. It tates a bit like custard.

Fig : I have never had fresh figs but I have had dried figs. Sometimes people dry fruit so it lasts longer and that it doesn't go to waste. I like some dried fruit but others I prefer fresh. There is also a type of biscuit called a fig roll. That has dried figs as a filling.

Grape : Grapes come in different colours from green to dark red and black. They grow in bunches on vines. There are lots of Vines in South Africa but not many in Scotland.

Gooseberry : There is a fruit called a cape gooseberry because it was famously grown near where you live. I think I knew it as a Chinese lantern as thats what people thought it looked like.

Honeydew: A honeydew is a type of melon I like melons. When I was young we rarely had melonsso when we did it was a special occasion. I like eating them because you could use your hands and then the juice could go everywhere!

Ice Cream Bean : I have never tried this and don't know much about this I only added it here because I missed a fruit with E and with H and wanted to add it beacause I liked the name and wanted to add something with an "I"

Jam : Okay so Jam isn't a fruit but it's another way of preserving fruit. It's sometimes called jelly or preserve or conserve, but I don't know the difference between them. My favorite Jam is Raspberry.

Kiwi - Kiwi's are a little bit bigger than an egg but are green and hairy on the outside. Some people think that they should be eaten like a boiled egg by cutting off the top and using a spoon to eat the inside.

Lemon : Lemons are very sour they are not nice to eat like an apple or an orange but they are nice to add to cakes and recipies and lots of people add them to drinks.

Mango : Mangos have a big stone in the middle. Some people turn them into hedgehogs before they eat them. To do that you cut them in half then remove the stone. Then you score the flesh in squares and then turn them inside out so that it looks a bit like a hedgehog.

Nectarines : Nectarines also have stones in the middle, they are a bit like a peach that doesn't have any hair on them or a big plum.

Orange : There are lots of types of oranges and lots of names for them, I thinke that they are called lemoens in Afrikaans and they are called naranjas in spanish. They are squeezed for juice or made into marmalade. I used to eat them at half time when I played football.

Pear : There are lots of types of fruit beginning with P but the pear is my favourite. But I like pineapples, plums, peaches, papaya, passionfruit, pomegranite and pawpaws too.

Quince : I have never had quince but it looks like a pear and is famous in a poem called the owl and the pussycat

Raspberry : When I was a child we grew Raspberries and Strawberries in our garden. There is something special about growing your own food and eating it when it is ready.

Starfruit : A starfruit is strange because when you cut it it is shaped like a star. It tastes a bit like an apple and an orange and a pear all mixed up.

Tomato : A tomato is really a fruit but it is strange because it doesn't taste like the other ones I've mentioned here. An Irish Rugby player once said "Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad" quite what he meant by that I don't think anyone really knows. Tomatoes are used to make pizza, lasagne, soup, and to flavour and be the base of thousands of other dishes.

Watermelon: Watermelons are green on the outside and red in the middle, they are huge they have black seeds in the middle so you have to be careful when you eat them but i dont think there is anything better than a nice big slice of watermelon straight from the fridge.

Saturday, 5 March 2011

Russell




Hi Kai,

Russell was a blackbird that lived in my garden. He was very inquisitve and often came into the back kitchen to steal Brogan's food from his dish. Your Grandma called him Russell as she would here him rustling in the house and then fly away when she went to see what the noise was. This is not a picture of Russell, he was a lot fatter than this bird. I guess blackbirds are not meant to eat dog food, but Russell certainly seemed to like it.

Lots of love, Dad.