Little Visitors

It was Sue's birthday on Tuesday and she got home in the afternoon with leftover cake from a surprise birthday party at one of her schools.  In the evening I had my regular class of nine year-olds and little Ivy brought yet more cake.  Sue cut it and brought slices into the classroom for the kids as we worked on making pictures of "beautiful clean" and "ugly polluted" beaches.  The nine year-olds are a delight to teach and my relationship with them is becoming more and more relaxed as I get used to being around little ones and they get accustomed to being taught by a big pink old man.  I was especially impressed with Qian Hui's "ugly polluted beach", which included a rabbit on its side with its eyes closed, obviously dead and a mysterious lump with some squiggly lines emerging from it, helpfully labelled "smelly vegetable".

Yesterday evening Sue invited our neighbours' children to come into the house and play.  Jasper, Jason and Felicia are charming and full of life, though Shelley seems less content and cries a lot.  They have a different attitude to personal space than we do and for a while tried to get into our house at every opportunity.  Sue manages the situation by setting clear rules about when they can and can't visit us and lets them in to play and draw every now and then.  For a period, every time we came home Jasper, (on the left of picture), would rush up to our gate and ask in perfect English "are you free?"  On one occasion we were watching TV in the evening when we heard a snigger from behind the sofa, only to find three little ones hiding there.  Their delight in the game was so obvious it was hard to be angry with them.  Now they sit and draw contentedly for an hour or so before going to the front door and putting on their shoes and pattering back home.

Once, coming back from doing the shopping, I found a row of tricycles parked on our drive and three tiny pairs of shoes on the steps, which made me smile as I prepared to open the front door and say "hello" to Sue and our little visitors.