We Hate Maths

Tony had a tricky problem lately, regarding fertilizer - if the ratio of fertilizer to water is 1 to 5, how many square kilometers of fertilizer do you put in a half bushel tank?  Even Google doesn't know the answer to that one.  And we're not going to tell you what kind of fertilizer we're talking about here - suffice to say it's free, comes in liquid form and most people don't want to know about it. (But if you're a bit short of cash and need some really good fertilizer, get in touch and we'll tell you the secret.)

Anyway, maths has never been one of Tony's strong points.  He's pretty good at reciting the times tables, especially when he's having a migraine. It goes like this: six sixes are 35, seven sevens are 48, eight eights are 63, nine nines are 80, ten tens are 99.  Some people have tried to correct him when he's doing this recital, but he knows he's right - he just never bothers to tell anyone that he's so clever he can instantly deduct 1 from each answer.  That may be clever, but ask him what nine fives are, or eight sevens, or how to figure out percentages, and he'll admit he has no idea and no intention of finding out.

Linda, on the other hand, is rather fond of dealing with numbers, but only when they have dollar signs in front of them.  Other than that, they're just boring.

So imagine our surprise when we learned that our grandsons Leigh and Joshua are both maths wizards!  Joshua recently got two As on his report card - one in PE and one in Maths!  And Leigh was featured in the school newsletter, for his prowess with numbers:























We know the Maths gene didn't come from the Hawkley side of the family, so congratulations to Leigh and Joshua's mother Rebecca, who is a very smart cookie, especially when it comes to the nine times tables - she has her own secret formula for that, which is too complex for us to understand - unless she puts dollar signs in front of it, which helps Linda's brain get into gear.