Yes, I've become one of those who hardly ever posts to their blog. I'm having a think about the future of this blog at the moment, wondering whether to carry on with a mish-mash of everything or try to be a bit more focussed. A good example of a well-focussed linguistics blog is languagelog which has multiple posters. I'm wondering whether to do something a bit more like that, and/or to focus more on using the blog as a resource for linguistics people. This partly has to do with my return to academia. I'm officially back now and I'm thinking about the start of the academic year and teaching and everything.

Meanwhile, we're all just back from our Woodcraft Summer Camp. 84 kids (ranging from 3 to 17 years old) and 16 grownups in a field in West Sussex. Me and Ohna were leaders for the 28 elfins (6-9 years old). It was hard work but also great fun. Highlights were: swimming, the day at the seaside, bivvying (sleeping outside) with the elfins twice, a merrymoot (kind of like a talent show where anyone can put on an act), a pea fair, and a walk with the elfins which left two hours late, meaning they didn't get their lunch until we got back at 4pm, and ended with an unexpected and very steep uphill climb. This was one of two occasions where I thought I might not get out alive, the other being when we had tickets for one ride each at the fairground but there were 5 spare. I made the mistake of giving them to the first five who asked and then nearly being lynched by everybody else.

Maybe the funniest part of the week was when 450 people from a different woodcraft camp moved into the field which we'd had sole occupancy of, causing much border tension. It's quite a challenge to stop all of 84 kids from saying or doing anything that might spark off a row.

We also had a bit of drama with two hospital runs needed on the last night. Both were scary injuries (one from an aerial runway and one from a fire) but both kids were OK after being treated.

While I'm thinking about what to do with the blog, I'll get back to posting a few things before I go off on holiday.

B-)

Hi Kim,

Rachel and Karl's wedding was great fun and we do have some nice photos of carthweeling bridesmaids and trampolining mothers-in-law which we'll show you as soon as we get a sec.

It's all go at the moment, though. Today was Apoa's last day at primary school so we went along to a leavers' memory service, which was fun and emotional. Apoa and Jessie shared their memory of when they wrote to the head teacher to try to do something about the dinner lady who kept telling them not to talk at lunchtime. Their opinion was that talking was what lunchtime was for:

The dinner lady would keep shouting 'less talking, more eating!' but the teachers in class would always tell us not to talk because we'd have plenty time to talk at lunchtime.

The head wrote a really nice letter back and had a word with the dinner lady for them.

B-)

Kim writes:

Begin forwarded message:

> Cumon you - I'm dying to know what you really thought of the wedding
> and to see some of your photos - I'm working on Jonathan to make ours
> sendable.
>
> Thanks again for coming
>
> Luv
> Kim
>

Many bloggable things are happening at the moment, but I'm afraid it's so many that I haven't got time to tell you.

B-(