For this afternoon’s Wednesday Workshops, I chose a re-telling of the Jataka Tale ”The Monkey King’. On You Tube, I found footage of adults and children at an NKT Festival re-enacting the tale in a very amusing way. I thought it would be fun to show the children the NKT’s version, then we could re-enact the tale ourselves. I quickly drafted the tale as a play suitable for the age group I’ve got this term (5-7 year olds), grabbed the laptop and mangoes and half walked / half ran to school (tight for time as usual), lugging my ridiculously heavy bag up and down the hills (this is my exercise for the day).
The children seemed to love the play. During play time, a few of them started to make costumes and props and they’re hoping to perform the play in front of their class. I was very impressed with the reading skills of the children; there was one Year 1 boy in particular whose reading and acting skills blew me away!
It was swimming lesson night for Lil’ L and his friend Lil’ S. On the way, I stopped to post a letter at Batheaston post office… and discovered 4 mallard ducks waiting to cross the High Street! There were cars coming from both directions and a bike speeding down the hill. I jumped in the road to try and stop the traffic and let the ducks cross safely. The ducks weren’t paying any attention to my lollypop lady hand signals so I ended up dashing behind them and herding them across the road. The guys outside the pub cheered and gave me a clap. Cheeky things.
As always on swim night, Lil’ L wanted spinach pancakes for tea with roasted butternut squash and pine nuts. I thought I’d experiment with the filling tonight and make a white sauce. Lil’ L took one bite, burst out crying and shouted “THIS IS RANK!!!!!” It did make me chuckle as I’ve never heard him use this expression before… or look so disappointed with his dinner! I think it was the mountain of wholegrain mustard in the sauce that did it for him. Needless to say, I won’t be publishing the recipe. I, on the other hand, loved the sauce and ate it all up 🙂