Our Word This Week is Sharing

Sharing is caring, so they say. We think it is true, and since a lot of that happened this week, it is only right for that word to be used to sum up our week. In the UK it is half term break when teachers and students get a break from school and get to do some other stuff with family and friends. We no longer actively teach in the classroom but somehow we still continue to embrace and fully immerse ourselves in doing some ‘other stuff’ each half-term.

Sharing with our Neighbours

We have had two new families join us in our cul de sac. Of course, we try to be quite friendly to all and we have met with them and given them hints and tips about living in our area which so far they really do seem to appreciate. We have shared our numbers and a few treats told them about schools nearby (both families have school-age children) and about bin days etc.

One of the families is from Nigeria and we know they like buying food in bulk. So this week we took the mom to Birmingham’s biggest indoor wholesale market. We left out at 7 am (the market opens at 4 am) and were able to return home just after 9 am. She was very grateful as she did not know where the market was located and she was able to find a lot of what she would have in their traditional meals in that market. So she stocked up on meats, vegetables, ground provisions, and fruits. We were able to share the cost of a large box of plantains which is a Jamaican and Nigerian specialty food.

We bought fruits, meats, and flowers and were able to share them with another neighbour as well.

Sharing with a Syrian Family

On the first day of the break, we treated the children of a Syrian family (that we ‘adopted’) to a fun-filled afternoon of activities at Star City. They enjoyed rides, playing games in the arcade, and a light refreshment. They were very happy and are ‘coming out of their shells’ a little bit more as this is the second time we would be meeting up with them to give them a treat. The last time we treated them we took 3 of the 5 kids, however this time the almost 3-year-old wanted to come too so we took her. We are glad they had a lovely time and their mom was overjoyed to see the delight on their faces when we returned them home.

Valentine’s Day/Ash Wednesday

Now this was the perfect opportunity to share. Both girls were home for the day so we gifted them each a bag of essential goodies and made them a special dinner of pot roast beef, creamy mashed potato, and vegetables. Roast beef is usually a Christmas Day treat in our household, so they did feel special. We don’t do it often because it takes quite some time and attention to get it right and also we do not want to eat too much red meat.

It just so happens this year that Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday fell on the same day this year. Ash Wednesday is not celebrated much here in the UK, however in Jamaica it is a national holiday so we wanted to touch base with some family and friends there. We did this by sharing a ‘live’ broadcast on our YouTube channel and wishing one and all both a lovely Valentine’s and Ash Wednesday.

Sharing with Friends

During this half-term week too, Jo was able to meet up over hot drinks with a former teacher friend. They had a nice catch-up, natter and nibbles. They also exchanged gifts which they often do whenever they meet.

Sharing the work with Family

I have been wanting a garden diary/planner so that I can document what I do here at home in the garden. I want to make plans, make notes of what worked well and what didn’t, and also at some stage, insert some photo evidence. I was not able to find any online that I wanted mostly because some of the captioned pages I would not have any need for.

As well, I considered something that Jo says a lot these days: ‘The same thing they are waiting for, is the same thing I want – money’. So on a whim one night this week I decided to make my own garden diary/planner. Jo and I came up with different ideas for the pages and designed them in Canva and one of the girls printed the pages out for me. The pages have been inserted in an old folder I have had since my teaching days that I almost threw out a few weeks ago. Now I am glad I kept it. The pages are exactly what I want. I can adapt them to suit what I need in the future. Plus I have the originals saved on my computer so that I can print more whenever I want.

As a family, we also shared in quite a bit of garden work this week too. The installed garden shed looks really lovely and there is ample slabbed space on the outside of it to make a lovely patio, so that is what we did. Whilst one of the girls had an appointment, the others of us went to B n Q to pick up some items for a planned improvement work we decided on together for the space at the bottom of the stairs. Well, they did not have in stock what we needed for that but they did have lots of outdoor stuff ready for Spring and Summer.

So we went ahead and got some items and together, the 3 of us shared the workload in transforming a great deal of the back garden. There is a little patch left to be done which hopefully will get done soon. The weather was surprisingly lovely that day too so it helped. From B n Q we got an outdoor rug and solar lanterns and then we went to TK Max and got planters, Spring decor pieces, and a few other bits. We worked hard at it and are really pleased with the outcome.

This week on Wednesday too we took part in another YouTube collaboration of Come Dine With Me. It went very well and we would love to share it with you too! We made desserts this time and let’s just say we were very creative in usung up what we had without extra shopping. And Christmas chocolates came in handy.  You can watch it here:

How can we forget… on pancake day we were pleasantly surprised to receive some yummy, hot, and homemade pancakes from one of the neighbours. They were very well received and we feel blessed to live in such a caring community where we look after each other.
It has been a very good week of sharing. We are happy that we can share it with you and happy too that Anne allows us the opportunity to share every week what our week has been like on this Linky. Thanks, Anne.