Today was Archie’s birthday party, held over at Willow (no relation to the van) Organics where Caz and Bid are and with a Survival theme. When we woke up it was already raining and that pretty much set the tone of the day really.
Ady had woken me to say he was not letting the chickens and ducks out as it was still too dark (fox alert) but when I got up I looked out of the window to see the ducks and some of the chickens out with the chicken shed door closed. I assumed we’d not put them all away properly last night so dashed out in nightie and wellies and realised he had let them out after all but the door must have blown shut in the wind, leaving the chickens already out confused as to why they were shut out in the horrid wind and rain and the chickens left in looking all perplexed as to why leaving the she had been such a brief window.
We’d got Archie a fire steel for his birthday (am feeling a bit fretful about the fact we have given three firesteels as gifts in the last couple of weeks after firesteelgate, but reassured that none of the recipients are likely to be near duvets belonging to Chris and Helen ;)) so the kids wrapped that up and made a card and then we set off.
I was fully expecting my car not to start given all the rain but now it is living out on the road rather than the drive and was facing up the hill rather than down it started just fine (had always assumed the angle of the driveway, fairly steep with any rain running down into engine might well make it worse) so off we went. The spray on the road was making me twitchy though and about half a mile away from Caz and Bid’s as we went under a railway bridge with a bit of a puddle at the bottom the car lost power and died 🙁 I managed to get it going again, we got to their road (private road, full of pot holes) where it died again and I got it going once more and it stalled again as I reversed up their driveway. If nothing else it reassures me I’ll be fine with the van, all this experience with unreliable cars…
Once everyone had arrived (people operating on Home Ed time ;)) the party got going – there were 5 families totalling 9 children there, all of whom get on really well together (Scarlett only girl). They did a hunt for pinned up letters around the farm which spelled out ‘sausages’ and arrived back having cracked the code in time for getting sausages cooked on the barbecue :). They made flags with fabric pens, played a variety of crazy games and did loads of running around getting thoroughly filthy and mudcaked and soaking wet in the rain.
I really enjoyed chatting to friends – Caz and Bid, Debs, Olivia and Emma all of whom I adore and are interesting people to talk to. Olivia was telling us about her grandmother – Mary Norton, author of The Borrowers and Bedknobs and Broomsticks which was just fascinating and we also touched on education, marriage, parenting girls and boys, WOOFing and loads more.
The rain carried on and so I rang Ady and got him to come and meet us after work to bring us home and leave my car there until it stops raining (tomorrow is forecast to be dry). The kids decamped to the house before the adults did, but not before Bid and they had lit a huge fire. It was very smoky thanks to the rain but I think that made it all the more impressive to look at with great wafts of billowing smoke tossing about. The kids put a HP film on and all snuggled up together on sofas to watch that while adults cosied up in the kitchen to drink tea. Ady came and joined us and it was a really nice atmosphere – felt very similar to that we enjoy with our circle of scattered Home Ed friends when we all get together :).
We finally left realising we needed to get going before dark to put birds away and called into the supermarket on the way home for pizza supplies. We were greeted by a huge amazon parcel on the doorstep for Davies – one of the two Harry Potter lego sets he got for his birthday (eventually ;)) so that was fallen upon with great delight. They had a quick decontamination bath (they were wearing mud, rain, flour, grass and all manner of other unidentifed things) and then did some constructing. I made them a hasty tea and got the pizza dough on for Ady and I, ran him a bath and got a fire lit while poor Ady went back to Sainsburys to return the pack of mushrooms I’d bought as they were all mouldy 🙁
I read the last section of the Elephant in the Garden (lovely book, made me cry) and then they went to bed – reluctantly, they wanted to stay up and do lego. I battled with my wireless router which had taken against being wireless but seems to have gotten over it now in that unexplained, not really sure what I did to make it work again but I am very relieved fashion that computers have. I’ve been interestedly reading various school based things today (aswell as talking about learning and education IRL) as friends have been debating schools, if so which ones and whether to do it at all in at least 3 online places today (must be something in the air as they were not remotely related to each other). I did ponder worring briefly but then decided I have more years ahead of me HEing than I have currently spent HEing so the time to worry has not yet come upon me as I am reserving that for the halfway point. 😉