Nice day today with plenty of child led learning happening hither and thither. Due to a communication issue (i.e text messages which stacked up and then all came through at once despite being sent about 2 hours apart – why we didn’t just ring each other I don’t know!) we spent most of the morning at home. We were supposed to be meeting Lucy at the park but it was raining and horrid so she text me to say should she come here or we go there. Curious to see her new house and ready to get out of the house even if it was just to go to someone else’s I text back to say we’d come to her and what was her address? Having not heard from her for about an hour an a half during which time Davies Zoombini’d some more and Tarly did some geomagging and general flouncing I text again to say it had cleared up a bit did she want to meet at the park after lunch. Four text messages came back from her all at once with her address, directions on where to park, asking if we were lost and saying OK to the park but we were very welcome there still!
Gathered up the small people and shot over there. Thoroughly embarrassed myself with my dreadful parking skills by attempting two different (but in fairness quite tight) spaces on the same street and failing to reverse park into either. The attempts were seperated by going round the block, but as I drove away from the second space the laughter which I heard even inside the car from two blokes standing chatting in the street led me to believe the whole thing had been witnessed by them! Parked in the next road in a nice easy drive in – able space and kept my head down whilst wearing an impromptu disguise of a drawn on moustache with an eye liner pencil I found in the glove compartment so they didn’t recognise me when I walked past them on the way to Lucy’s. 🙂
Had an interesting couple of hours there, Rebecca took a while to warm up to playing with Davies and Scarlett who were embarrassingly both squabbling over Baby Richard’s toys (sigh!) but they got there in the end. Lucy and I had some interesting chats about HE. The party was very reassuring for her on several levels – that all the children just got on with it and played so well together, that the older ones had such care for the younger ones and were so quick to ensure that pass the parcel had everyone winning a prize and so on. Her main observation however was that it was a party for ‘everyone’ – she was amazed at how many of the adults had dressed up and then participated fully in the whole day. She’d been expecting me to be the one running around organising all the games when I’d said that there would be lots going on. She said that it was apparant that a lot of us knew each other but she had mainly expected parents to be sat round the edge of the room with glazed expressions rather than actively joining in and making it ‘our’ party too. Something which tbh had never really occured to me but is actually very true, certainly in our circle of Home Educators – both myself and my children have our best friends in the same families and we do our socialising as families rather than independantly – something to cherish I thought 🙂
She’s a bit of a thinker is Luce, so she had stored up lots of observations, questions and posers for me about HE and parenting in general so we had some interesting chats about all sorts of things, leading with both of us deciding that we wouldn’t start going down the route of speculating on mass brainwashing, social conditioning and conspiracy theories! Deep stuff 😉 Lucy and I tend to chat very little about day to day stuff and much more about bigger picture stuff, she’s not really a gossiper (and of course she doesn’t know anyone I might know gossip about anyway!) so it was quite refreshing not to be rehashing various topics and talking about positive and life affirming stuff 🙂
Her husband came home and as his day starts at about 5am (he rides out horses) we cleared off to give him some ‘peas and light’ and went for a walk along the beach, which is at the end of her street. It was still slightly drizzly, but mild and the tide was just going out. Davies, Scarlett and Rebecca went straight down to the sea and played, collected various ‘treasures’ (which my pockets are now filled with and I must remember to empty out before putting my jeans in the washing machine!) and then my two played for about 20 minutes with some sort of rusty old iron pulley thing (it was obviously used to pull boats or other such heavy stuff and although it has long since gone it would have had a chain round it which a series of four cogs turned by a handle would have wound and unwound). Davies has a current fascination for cogs anyway due to a fridge magnet at Ali’s house so I showed him how they all turned each other as a result of the handle turning and explained a couple of possible uses. Him and Tarly then set about combing the area for other ‘stuff’ driftwood, large stones, a bit of crate which said ‘castrol’ and so on and in the style of Wallace and Gromit created some sort of machine. Wish I’d had the camera really – Home Education in motion!
We finally persuaded them away from there and took a walk along the pier. There is a sort of ramp type stage area leading off the pier pavillion which they climbed up onto and put on a show for us on with singing and dancing! Davies was thrilled to see the posters there for Shakin Stevens so we had his rendition of Green Door with Tarly as a backing singer, much to the amusement of a couple of pensioners!
Came home where Tarly went into meltdown mode due to been awake since about 4,30am (Ady had got up with her at ten to five, having looked at the heating timer which never got changed when the clocks went back and thought it was ten to six!). She stropped about everything finally ending with tears because I cooked her pasta with cheese which she last had when Lulah was here and they’d shared the bowl and she wanted Lulah to come and eat it with her. Tried to explain why this was unlikely to happen and then Davies started sighing about wanting Lije to be here too! Nearly phoned them so they could have a little love in chat between the four of them but then Ady arrived home and distracted them. They did eat the pasta and then were both asleep by 7pm.
Did at least two things off my job list!
I like the fact that my children count th adults of our friend families as friends too – it’s been very evident from Amelie’s assault on nursery that she doesn’t see adults as any different to children at all and i am quite sure that comes from our HE life.
It’s a good thing; i certainly don’t see it as lack of respect, which it would have been seen as in my childhood but more an accessing of friends from a complete spectrum of people and that just naturally includes the available adults. Why wouldn’t it after all? I like the various children so it’s great that the children like the adults!