There is a teaching method in primary school called "dependable rimes". It is where the children learn all the words that end with common letters. I don't think we had it in my day and I am not toooo sure why it is *rimes* and not *rhymes* but there you are.

An example would be where the child has to learn all the words ending in *ame* like game, fame, name, lame etc.

Iain nearly wet himself the other night when supervising Jessica's homework. She had to construct a sentence using as many words as she could with the rime *ick*. . .

She wrote out:

"Licking the prick made him sick."

After quickly rubbing out the sentence Iain quizzed her about the word *prick*. No - she didn't know it's meaning and it ISN'T a word we use around the house so I think it was just a word that fitted for her.

It will be one we remember to tease her with in future years though - a bit like the time I asked my grandmother for Vagina Ham in my sandwich rather than Virginia Ham - although I have a sneaking suspicion I knew fine rightly what I was doing at the time.

Had I been supervising the homework I would have let that one go in to the teacher - I don't think they get enough laughs in a day!

Tags: Jessica

Last week, in all that nasty snow, our niece Louise had a bump in her car - front and rear ended. Not nice. She was fine though.

The other day my Uncle rang with news that he had had a head-on collision - shaken but not stirred - thankfully.

Yesterday my husband decided to park his pride and joy on its roof in some farmer's field, cradled nicely in the loving bars of a gate.

And yes, apart from a bruised ego (he IS the best driver I know) and having to crawl through the back door to get out, he is perfectly fine.

The weird thing is all the coincidences and thoughts I have been having over the past while and the process of choices that left him in the field and not on a totally different road.

Right from the time we heard about Louise I have been waiting for something to happen to us. Iain mentioned that if he scraped a bit of money together he might have the car *souped* up to make it a tad faster - it wasn't the fastest diesel by any stretch of the imagination but my initial thought was "I don't think so . . . that'll be wasted money . ."

Then yesterday he made it in to work and realised he had my (one and only) car key in his pocket so put a sign on the door and came home again. He handed me the key and I had a series of thoughts along the lines of "Wait a few minutes and I will come with you, I am nearly ready to leave. .. " then "You take MY car and the dog with you and I will go do a couple of things on the way to work. . " The one thing I didn't say was "Be careful of the black ice."

We didn't discuss any of that because I knew he would be worried about getting back to the shop as soon as possible.

At one point in our journey to work we have to make a decision to either to take a shorter, slower route through a village or the faster longer route around it. Normally we make the decision depending on where the car in front goes. Yesterday he took the shorter, slower route. It is very seldom either of us go that way.

Twenty minutes after leaving the key with me he rang to ask me to come and get him. He would be the one in the field! On top of the farmer's gate.

The car is a write-off. There is a lot of panel damage - very little real structural damage but it is quite old and not worth repairing. It is probably worth more as parts - especially with the alloys on it and the amount of new parts we got to put it through the MOT a couple of weeks ago. I wonder how much of it will end up on eBay over the next while.

I can't quite get my head around whether the next statement is comforting or annoying: His was the third of three accidents in the same spot in less than 3 hours. In one way it is good because it takes some of the *blame* away from him and in another if there were that many going on - shouldn't someone have put up some kind of sign?

The poor farmer has just replaced the gate at his own expense after someone did a hit and run on it within the last couple of months. There was broken indicator glass all over the pavement which didn't belong to us. . . it is obviously a black spot.

I took some photos, when I picked him up, for the insurance claim but after speaking to the company this morning Iain doesn't even have to fill in a claim form never mind provide visual proof of road conditions or the icy puddles in the fields.

Anyway - the main thing is that he was ok. And that the car was totally legal - fully MOTd (JUST done a couple of weeks ago), Taxed (JUST renewed at the end of the year) and Insured (JUST about to lapse in 10 days!). I am not saying we make a habit of not being fully legal - but there have been times in the past where things didn't over lap as they should have. It is nice not to have to worry about anything along those lines.

One accident every 22 years isn't bad now, is it?

Tags: Iain, Car, Ice

Iain bought me some fancy chocolates for Christmas. The pile is getting smaller very slowly because I don't bring them out in front of the children in case I have to share the good stuff with them.

Jessica came downstairs in her new purple satin jammies. She flicked at the chocolate covered almonds sitting in front of me and asked "What are you eating?"

"Guinea pg poo."

"Really?"

"Yup."

"Mummmmyyyy. What are you really eating?"

"I'm really eating guinea pig poo."

"Mummyyyy. They are too big for guinea pig poo."

"Yea, you are right - it is really cat poo. They collect them, bake them in an oven until they are hard and then polish them to make them look nice."

"Really?"

"Yup."

"Mummy?"

"Yes?"

"You DO know I can read now, right? I think they are . . . chocolate . . . . covered . . .. almonds. . . . "

"Oh. Bummer."

Tags: Jessica