La Cigale - Day 12 - 30 November - On distractions & clowning around

Day 12 - 30 November - Clowning around

The value of clothes pegs has gone up on the boat now since the kids have devised a bartering system. Catherine started it off, latching onto Harley's game of surreptitiously sneaking a peg onto Helen's collar, or hair, when she's not looking. The others soon joined in, sending the worth attached to being in possession of a peg soaring. There is a scale too, correlating to availability, whereby scarce wooden pegs are the most valuable, worth 15 points, followed by metal ones at 10, orange plastic ones 5, yellow 2 and turquoise 1. Pegs are as likely to swap hands for cuddly toys as a percentage of battery used on each other's iPads. The protective barrier of netting that the Skipper has just erected at the stern, below the citrus nets, has become the "bank". "On what grounds does the bank dispense pegs?" I wondered, and received a perplexed look. "Maybe" I quickly went on, "you could earn them by chores around the boat? Washing up? Unfurling the gennaker? Hoisting the jib? Scr
ubbing down the decks...?" To my surprise the kids went for it. Could be onto something here...

"I miss Circus, Mum" declared Catherine the other day. "I miss the clowns, I miss the trapeze artists..." After three years training in aerial skills and tightwire, and blogging on the circus scene in London, while taking the family along for the ride, I miss it too. But in La Rochelle I picked up one of those doodle colouring-in books, Circus-themed, obviously, and now, we are all addicted. I joined in this morning, inspired by Helen, who is in a league of her own. Next to Isabelle, chatting away with stories as vibrant and colourful as her pictures, I coloured my first page of designs from "The Circus Girl Colouring Book", an ebook illustrated by Sue Mochrie, edited by burlesque artist Tallulah Blue. I chose one of a siren, whose mermaid tail weaves into the rope suspending the aerial hoop on which she sits, putting the Sea into C-ircus. It was very therapeutic!

In the afternoon we set upon a double sided wooden jigsaw covering the world, and also doubling as our table's decorative centre-piece. Catherine won it at the ARC "Under The Sea" fancy dress parade and it keeps us entertained for hours... we are still going! Meanwhile, the Skipper is making a delicious apple crumble for supper, and having a go at a DIY vanilla custard to boot. I reckon that's worth at least a wooden peg, if not two ;-)