I realised late last night that I’d cocked up on when I was expecting a payment to go into our bank account so had a sleepless night worrying about that and managed to be up and ready to go with the children trailing limply behind me at 830am so we could get to Horsham in time to get to the bank before the filmeducation showing we were booked at for 10am. I hadnt banked on Monday morning rush hour traffic though and sat frustratingly still despite using a couple of ratruns from back in the days when I was always out of the house at that time in the morning with somewhere to be.
We got to Horsham, parked and then had a brief wander round trying to find the bank. Horsham is a lovely town, Ady and I used to go there often and I did my Bhs training in the store there so spent a month working in the town and got to know it pretty well. Hadn’t known where the Halifax was before today though! There was no queue so we made our transaction nice and speedily and got directions to the cinema from the cashier. He also asked about the children being with me ‘I assume it’s half term then?’ to which I replied no, we home educate. He was quite interested but asked obtuse questions which I answered but didn’t really give much detail on as I wasn’t really in the mood for discussing how my 5 year old will get GCSEs, given there is about zero chance of them existing anyway in 11 years time!
We had about half an hour before the film was due to start so decided to whizz to Argos and collect a fused socket that Ady had reserved online for our single plug point that we use for both kettle and washing machine – as anyone who knows me well will appreciate having to regularly choose between boiling a kettle for tea or doing the laundry is an ongoing dilemma – this now puts an end to it :). We also got some drinks and popcorn from the pound shop and then headed to the cinema.
We arrived about 10 to 10 which to me is perfect, sitting in the cinema for half an hour before the film starts means Scarlett is already fidgeting and has eaten all her popcorn before the film even starts. The guy on the front desk seemed surprised when I replied ‘just us three’ to his question about how many of us were attending, presumably expecting a coach load to be following me in – just as well they weren’t…. We had a quick use of the loo and headed to the screen only to open the door to a wall of noise, packed full with no seats at all.
As one the whole place turned to gawp at us with the schoolchildren turning in their seats to get a better look and starting at us as though we were about to start acting the film out for them or something. One woman caught my eye and hissed something about ‘no seats’ and a very flustered teenager with a torch said to me ‘uh we’ve not got enough seats’. I said it would be fine, we’d sit on the floor then, to which he looked horrified and ran off muttering about speaking to the manager. There was no bloody way I was driving all the way home again without seeing the film and we’d have been quite happy to sit on the floor.
It turned out there were actually two seats – one right at the very back in the corner and one nearer the front on the end of a row so he returned with a spare chair and plonked it next to the empty chair near the front and tried to tell me one of us would need to go and sit in the corner at the back. Clearly this was not going to happen (send a child? abandon them and go myself? I think not) so I firmly said we would be fine and one of them would sit on my lap and issued him with a ‘you are dismissed’ glare which worked and he scuttled away. Not at all sure what went wrong there then – I understand that Filmeducation pay for the seats and we’d had booking confirmation so either the cinema had hoped some no shows would mean their overbooking would be fine or the school had brought along additional bodies as it appeared to be just one school and one other HEor and us.
As it happened it was fine; Scarlett often sits on my lap at the cinema anyway (she is prone to draping herself upon me) and Davies said his view wasn’t brilliant but was okay. I would imagine from a H&S point of view they were doing all sorts of things wrong but that’s not really my problem.
We really enjoyed the film – I know several people are seeing it later this week so I won’t say too much about it. It wasn’t the best film ever, didn’t have the greatest script and wasn’t very complete in terms of a beginning, middle and end BUT I loved the non-Hollywoodness of it and how real the actress who played Nim was – she reminded me lots of Scarlett with very long, very tangled hair, barefoot all the time and happiest with her animals. Nim is ‘home schooled’ and gives a fab introduction speech which is just so autonomous HE 🙂 I found this review from an ‘unschooler’ which sums it up well :).
I had to explain some of the plot line to Davies when we left although he had surmised most of it accurately and been able to follow the film even though I clarified a few things for him afterwards. I’d say it was the film which has so far captured Scarlett’s attention the best of all the cinema trips we’ve had and we all three said we’d like to see it again. As we left the other Home Educator said hello and we exchanged names – she was another Nic, agreed the film was great and we liked the fact Nim was HE’d and then went our seperate ways.
We came home via Sainsburys for food for dinners for the week and some ingredients for making the Christmas cake. We had another ‘No school today then?’ from the cashier to which I replied ‘no they are Home Educated so no school for them anyday!’. She said ‘ah yes there are lots of people doing that now aren’t there?’ I agreed that yes, numbers were on the increase. She then asked if we liked that then, being home educated, which seemed a rather odd question so we all sort of nodded and said yes, we liked it, thank you. Felt quite odd to have been so visibly doing something different and comment-worthy today as we usually feel fairly invisible.
We had lunch and then I went off and did some baking (banana and chocolate chunk muffins) while the children did some painting. Davies did a fab autumnal tree with a badger and Scarlett did a bug of some sort, must photograph them tomorrow. They came to assist with the Christmas cake stirring and wish making and then went off to play upstairs.
I retired to the lounge with a cup of tea and couple of muffins still warm from the oven while they continued to play. They were missing out on having fresh air and exercise today for certain and were quite rowdy. The game seemed to mostly involve chucking soft toys down the stairs and then awarding points for their ‘flying’ technique but I was feeling tolerant and they weren’t hurting anyone or anything and aside from me their noise wasn’t effecting anyone else so I left them to it.
I was very efficient and rang the membership association secretary for the allotment association and joined that so should get the next newsletter and invite to their AGM / social evening next month. I also left a message on the answerphone of the local Woodcraft Folk group contact and confirmed with Drusillas that Scarlett’s keeper for a day is booked and they got the payment from yesterday.
Inbetween chatting online to Ali, dealing with the chickens and making all my phonecalls I made the childrens’ tea and they settled down to eat and watch Sarah Jane Adventures and Dino-Sapiens. Ady was home very promptly so I did stories (a lovely Shirley Hughes collection and the first couple of chapters of Olga Da Polga) and then Davies and Scarlett went to bed, I got dinner for us in the oven and had a bath while Ady tidied up and lit the fire. I have reading group tomorrow and have been trying to read a Terry Pratchett for it which just doesn’t appeal. I am over halfway but doubt I will get much further as I really don’t care enough about it to invest the couple of hours tomorrow it will take to finish it.
I spent an hour or so tonight sorting out Ady’s-workmate-Tom’s cv for him as he is job hunting. It’s the second time in a week I’ve been doing CV writing / careers stuff and made me remember how much I enjoyed it. I’m wondering about approaching some agencies to see if there is any chance of freelance work like I did a couple of years ago…
Ooh which Terry Pratchett are you reading?
There were some empty seats at the Brighton showing this morning coz someone forgot it was on and went to MMs instead. It was Arctic Tale though not Nims Island which we’ve already seen and really liked. A said it was a much better representation of home ed than Horton was.
Funny that you were suddenly so visible, maybe your cloaking system is malfunctioning.
Good idea about freelance CV-ing – it would be loads easier this time round too with older children I would think.
Nim’s Island a fav here. We saw it when it first came out but the reviews put other people off. We were in a cinema with us, C’s schooled friend Agnes and her mum, Mimi (who had been HE-ed herself). The opening was so funny. I had to swear to Mimi that I did not know it was a pro-HE film!