Today...

 on the walk home from collecting one of the wee people from school, the 3 and a bit year old decided to do the whole John Cleese, ministry of funny walks gig, with wild abandon, a huge grin on his face and loads of giggles from him, and us....

it's not the norm here, of course... but then so much of what we do isn't, that we're pretty much past caring what people think and we just let the kid get on with things in his own peculiar way...

on a later walk home, we were following a few sheep, one of which was doing it's own peculiar walk... which gave me  a slight fit of the giggles... and the 9 year old, complete with very heavy backpack, walked the rest of the way home singing, something about a sheep, moving one way and it's tail moving another, with some interesting drumlike sound effects and not a little swaying this way and that from her... which could have been because of the very heavy school
bag but I'm not totally convinced!

Again, we drew a few stares, which to be honest appeals to the Britishness in us and just made us a bit more giggly...  

It was on my almost last school run of the day, whilst being blown hither and thither in the market, that I mused over how immodest the wind is, and that I'm not keen on my hijab being blown all over the show when I'm least expecting it...(my personal ploy is to turn around and walk backwards for a bit, which my daughters tell me looks a bit weird here but what the heck, in for a penny in for a pound I say!)  anyway this led to another fit of the giggles when dd21 suggested that it made us humble hijabis look like we have  jumpsuits on when the wind blows at us full throttle and mercilessly moulds every inch of fabric to every lumpy bump you possess....

we have a fair number of giggly walks...and I sometimes think it's a shame that I don't see enough Algerians embracing the giggly bits of life.... 

sometimes the reality of how different we are as a family hits me when I least expect it, and I know alot of sisters struggle with the divide. But the more I dare to be myself, the more I realise how accomodating Algerians are... and if they look sideways at me today for being a bit giggly about silly stuff they wouldn't bother to crack a smile for, they'll hardly bat an eyelid
 when they catch me doing it next time...

Weekending...

So it's Friday already.. the day of the week I've been waiting for with relish... it's the day for letting go and just being...
No rainy, cold, drizzly walk to school... no breakfast too early for appetite... a chance to wake slowly and enjoy the warmth of the covers for a while longer before facing the chill..

The beds are all still down in our communal sleeping space, the big boys have taken themselves off to the tutors, and I'm thinking about what I might do with this day of ours.

I hate planning... I fly by the seat of my pants these days, taking life as it comes at me. And on the odd day when neccesity makes me scrawl a to-do list I can only work in brief stages.. planning the next hour or two ahead... no more.

It's a challenge for at least one of my children, who is an organizer, a naturally neat and ordered person who needs to know what's happening ahead of time... all the time.
I try to accommodate everyone in my house, but there are just some things about yourself you can't change... and this for me is one of them.

So my day is starting slowly... it's raining outside, it's cold enough for me to think about lighting the fire inside once all the mattresses are up and out of the way... the 3 yr old is awake and happy to have found that we've brought the kittens (newly born four days ago to a slightly slapdash mama cat!) into the sitting room during the night... it was far too cold upstairs and one of her brood has already lost the struggle for life.

Someone else has gone to put the kettle on the stove for tea, and the first wash of the day has just started tumbling about in the machine... it's a low impact kind of day... no need to rush about making sure lunch is on time... there are enough lentils from yesterday to suffice... perhaps I'll throw some bread dough in a bowl and let it sit on the fire to prove in this all purpose winter room of ours... sometimes I kinda wish we had a wood burner set in the middle or could at least bring the primus stove in here ...

And then I remember it's Friday.. and I need to put pans of water on the stove for Friday showers... and that  I need to plug in the emergency power because the rain did seep into the electrics again and we need light in the bathroom...

The 3 yr old has settled himself down next to the kittens under the fully loaded clothes horse, some of the others are watching the last bits of a film... HOOK I think...

It's a nice start to a weekend which might deteriorate at some point into siblings screaming at one another... the 3 yr old doing what he does best and creating all kinds of havoc, and me screaming at the 14 yr old in my life to clear his room up... it currently looks like a hurricane it it.

The day of course, will be punctuated several times over by prayer, and hopefully some Qur'an.. the nearly 9 yr old has started blessing us with her very own unique Qur'an recital skills.. and as a mother I'm happy to hear the happiness in her voice as she belts out verse after verse... the others of course are different.. siblings don't have the same tolerance levels as peaced out mums....

Breakfast is nearly here... the eldest has made crepes while I've been sitting here... the 12 yr old is about to brave the rain to buy butter... the 3 yr old has been crawling around on the floor pretending to be a cat... and  most of our mattresses are still dotted about the floor... it's time to start.

Time to do something slow, yet constructive... to think about grabbing my knitting bag at some point today too and getting on with that cardigan...

Here is some of our week in pictures....

rain rain, go away.....

it's been raining for over a week now, incessant and dismal and very, very heavy.
I've said it before I'm sure, but there is nothing like Algerian rain.. it's relentless. I spent the majority of last week wet.. and muddy. and sleeping with my family in our living room to get away from the leaky upper level of our house. But we haven't flooded yet so this I tell myself is a bonus. We needed the rain.. in fact about half an hour before it started a couple of our local mosques prayed Salat-al-Istisqah.. which is basically a plea for rain.. it worked.. I was standing outside the school when the heavens opened and the rain came down, and it's hardly stopped since.

It's at times like this that I have to remind myself why I came here. Why I put up with the sub standard housing, the mud, dust and bugs...This time last year I was almost booking tickets to go back to the UK, so I guess there's been some kind of an improvement because it hasn't got that bad for me yet this year...

Hijrah does get easier for people. I see the evidence in how other people are living, but then maybe I'm only seeing the surface... who knows how hard it is for people really and how much they divulge about the difficulties of living here. I have yet to see it in my own life.. but we march on regardless... getting through the day and making the best of what we have, and don't have.

Lately I've begun to supplement the 8yr olds schooling ...  trying to weave into this life of ours some of the homeschooling lifestyle we left behind. So we've been reading ALOT... Roald Dahl is what she's loving at the moment and me, doing the grand high Witch complete with German accent is making her super giggly. She's also doing some Math drills online to try and get to grips with the speed at which lessons move in this country. And slowly, very slowly she's recognizing words in English and reading them on her own.

It's been a strange learning curve for her. Her first spoken language is English, but she's so fluent in Algerian derdja that English has become a language she only uses if she has to... She can't read English yet, she learnt to read Arabic first and is learning to read French before attempting to read English in any determined way. So the pace is slow, sometimes too slow for Algerian teachers and she's fallen behind her classmates a little. But this happens in the life of the multi-lingual child. And while I patiently sit by waiting for her brain to filter all the languages and make sense of it all, knowing that eventually it will all settle and make sense to her, the teachers here are not so forward thinking. I console myself with the fact that school will be out by the end of May most probably this year and that we can settle down in the summer to some home-ed unschooling style and do what comes most naturally to us all.

And we're embracing simplicity. Sometimes due to neccesity, but also from choice.
We live a pretty frugal, simple life anyway... we're minimalist from habit and don't have alot of the "stuff" that other folk have. But this year I was determined to set myself a challenge and make this my year of living sunnah. embracing from it what I could and living my Islam more holistically.

Which is why I started the New Year quietly... keeping myself slightly at arms length. Putting it all into perspective and taking slow, purposeful steps. I have hermit tendencies, and I'm standing slightly further back all the time,  no longer trying to find the place where I'll fit but content at last with the fact  that I never will and feeling comfortable with it.

And the rest of the day ahead?
Well the rain is falling... upstairs is leaking and out of bounds. Outside my window the mountains have disappeared into a grey cloudy haze and are no longer visible and I have all of the children in the sitting room trying to stay warm and not get on each other nerves. We were supposed to go to the doctors today for a routine visit for more meds but we're not brave enough to face the rain today. I'm off to cook, and get some laundry done. Figure out my spending plan for February, decide whether I'm going to plan my menu's next month or not. Get some more knitting done, a chunky scrapbusting scarf for the 3yr old and some of the Shalom Cardi that's coming along so nicely despite a couple of very minor imperfections that I can live with and the 8yr old won't notice. And if you've really been taking notice since my last post you'll have notice that the cardi is no longer destined for the 12yr old... we have a bit of a yarn, needle problem here in Algeria .. not enough different sized needles to suit the yarn weights... and I'm not going to even bother discussing my relationship with Math & Dyscalculia  here and my innability to veer even slightly from the pattern... so the cardi is slightly smaller than it should be but will fit the 8yr old nicely thank you...

Pictures will come eventually, when the rain stops and the Internet connection can take the pace of multi-tasking...

:: FIVE ..

Normally, during the winter I'm fired up with thoughts of crafting and spending long winter evenings with my yarn basket beside me. This winter just gone was no exception; but for one reason or another I just never got round to making anything.

Now, with spring on it's way inshallah, I have ideas growing... 

I've even almost been tempted to dust off the old sewing machine and finish off the dress I started for myself late last summer!  Good sense prevailed however and the old faithful stayed put and I went to work instead, tidying up my forlorn and neglected yarn bag.

Now here's the thing... I live in Algeria... and we're not spoilt for choice in the yarn department. We make do with whatever we can find that doesn't bring us out in a rash or cause friction burns while we're knitting  & crocheting it up... and whats more, by the time summer comes in ALL yarn will have been secreted away to the  back of the yarn shops and won't see the light of day till the wedding season is over... which is normally from the first blush of spring till the first frost of winter...

Never one to be put off by such trivialities, I've dusted off my very modest yarn stash.. discovered a few unfinished projects lurking in there, and made plans to stop by my local haberdashery store tomorrow to stock up on the necessaries to finish them inshallah....

See what a spot of spring sunshine can do to an uninspired crafter!!

On the home front, there's been alot of baking going on... 

One of my goals for march was to bake our morning bread instead of buying it. As a rule I do make bread daily during the summer, but during the winter our kitchen is just too cold.

This week I've found the perfect breakfast bread, and it's been a hit through the whole house mashallah...

I might even treat you to some photographic evidence tomorrow... 

Sunday...

and start of a new week for us here in Algeria...

It took me a while to get used to a Friday /Saturday weekend when I first came here

but it's normal now...and we generally look forward to the couple of days off school.

Falling into a slightly different pace & routine.

It's not altogether unbusy of course...

Friday, being Jumuah is the nicest day of our week.

My boys wander off to tutors in the morning while the rest of tidy up the house a little and make ready for any of the drop in guests we normally get over the weekend.

Boys are back in time to shower and run off to meet their Abi in the masjid and then we prep lunch and settle down to a nice family meal post salat... and hopefully to an afternoon of lounging around catching up with all the things we wanted to do during the week but didn't have time for because we were too busy doing the "have to's" of life.

Although in reality our weekend quite often gets hijacked by friends and neighbours popping in for tea and a chat.

This weekend was nicer still because lunch was courtesy of an aunt in law who sent it along with my boys..and then we drifted off in the afternoon ( they live just a short walk away)to spend some time with them all and the new baby in their lives masha'allah.

Saturday is another affair altogether...back to an early start after the Friday lie

and making ready for my "Saturday Girls"

A group of 5-6 girls from my Tuesday masjid class who come for extra tutoring.

Though we've decided that Saturday should be more informal and as we're not actually covering much academic ground on a Saturday we're changing it to a crafting session insha'allah...so I hope we'll have something constructive to show for ourselves sometime soon.

My other two regular adult students weren't able to make today... so we had an easy afternoon.

Dh was out all day, so we all sat down with the knitting sticks and cast on projects to make us happy...

a rash of baby wear  is taking shape on our needles and after a few days of not being able to find a rhythm to our yarn crafts we are finally back in the groove and happily knitting away masha'allah.

Tomorrow?

Well,

it's the first day of a new week...

which, in my house means cooking & cleaning

getting rid of all my week long stash of stale bread and turning it into bread puddings

making some soup and bakeables

getting rid of weekend dust and lighting bakhoor to freshen the place up

and being ready to offer up the younger ones something warm and comforting after the long-ish walk down to the school and back...

I love the start of a new week almost as much as I look forward to the weekend...

My younger children are another matter altogether..

After years of homeschooling, Sunday morning holds less joy than it used to..and it seems more important now to make home somewhere where they can offload and relax.

I used to fight against housework and what I thought was the drudgery and monotony of everyday chores.

But I know that my job makes the other people in my life more relaxed, and makes life easier for them..after all they are the ones who are facing the real hardship of having to leave home day in day out whatever the weather....

The job I used to resent...even if ever so slightly I now (usually) tackle with relish and a new found enthusiasm.....

winter....

is beginning to take a firm hold here in Algeria...

The days are wetter, the nights and early mornings much colder.

The houses here are not built to cope with the cold... (and no... I can't understand it either).... they seem not to be able to cope with much rain either....

so we keep ourselves warm with lots of hot tea... and winter woolens..amongst which are our growing supply of handwarmers....fingerless gloves, a marvel of an invention....my girls wear them to school and keep them on in thier lessons to keep out the cold of an unheated classroom....

you can find the pattern for these here...

they were super easy and incredibly quick to knit...didn't make much of a dent in my ball of wool either

I'm not going to be a yarn snob..they were made with bog standard algerian acryllic....someone tell the nation  to stop drying the fleeces and start spinning the blooming stuff instead eh ...