Sutton in the Sahara

Today we studied stones in our Nature class. Went out and collected as many as we could find, and then sorted them into sedimentary (top left), manmade (top right), metamorphic (bottom left), and igneous (bottom right). We then rang up my youngest brother, who has an Oxford degree in Earth Sciences (and Blips, so will correct any mistakes I've made)(see his comment below), and got him to tell us what he could about them. Fascinating to learn that the Sahara desert used to be in Sutton Coldfield, and is why most of the stone here is SANDstone. And that the the flint was brought here by glaciers, which ended around London somewhere. And that the schist in Mourão is an even more intensely metamorphosed rock than the bit of slate we found. We also talked about coprolites, which is fossilised poo - used to find those in NE Brazil, where we lived.

This was after PE with Daddy, schoolwork with Mummy, Bible class with Dada, art with Mummy, and was followed by Portuguese and Music with Dada and I. No wonder Zion needed a lie down in between classes. He is five, and Allegra is three. 

Lent verse is Isaiah 5v8:
Woe to you who add house to house
   and join field to field
till no space is left
   and you live alone in the land.

Enough said.


At 8pm we all went to the front door and clapped the NHS workers, as moving here as it was in Spain; why is it so emotional?? I think it's gratitude for those on the front line, but also realising we are all in this together, even though we're all avoiding each other the rest of the time. And a release of the tension that's exhausting us all.

Gratefuls:
- the best night's sleep since we left our home in the Alentejo, and waking up to sunshine streaming across our attic bed, see extra
- Sam making chicken kebabs on the BBQ, ate inside, though - it's 6C (42F) atm
- watching the same Venus shining clearly that we see from our Land in Mourão, as we clapped