Productive, despite ailments

Scarlett got into bed with me this morning, which is always lovely. But she then described, in great detail, how horrible my breath smelt, which was less lovely, so I got up to clean my teeth! 😆

I’d promised Davies we’d explore his animation station today but first I had some online stuff to get done. This included contacting local paper and radio about the NBTSP tomorrow and a very last minute invite to our MP. It’s been hard gauging the timing for this as prior to going away last week I was not at all convinced we had enough prospective attendees at our picnic to contact press and MPs to invite them to come along – I *really* didnt want it to be me, Davies, Scarlett and a camera man and our MP 😆 or even two or three families which was all I had confirmed. I’m still not sure it will be a huge event but I do have about 8 confirmed attending families now so it was worth putting it out there. If we’d been home last week rather than camping I would have done more work on it earlier and of course with Davies’ birthday yesterday it did only really leave today. I think last minute is fine for press as they are either interested or not and tend to run with very tight lead times on stories anyway. Neither radio or newspaper have contacted me back but both have my mobile so may well do in the morning, if not I’ll send in some photos and a report about the event for them to use if they wish.

The MP was a different story though. He’s a Tory and is actually the shadow minister for children so quite a relevant topic for him. I have emailed him before and had supportive correspondance back but our consituency seems to be a bit thin on the ground of vocal Home Educators. He emailed straight back to say he would have come if he’d been given more notice to clear his diary, to confirm that he won’t be in Westminster on the day of the mass lobby as he is already booked to speak at a conference but continues to support us and would be happy to meet here or in Westminster and to contact his office to set up a meeting to discuss the whole issue further. Clearly a Conservative MP is likely to prove easier to get on side anyway but overall I have been impressed with his performance as an MP generally and feel he does tend to listen to local issues and work for us. I’ll speak to the other local people tomorrow and see if anyone wants to attend a meeting with him or whether to arrange it for just the children and I.

That done I did a few more emails including our income and expenditure to CCCS as it’s time for our annual budget review, I booked Longleat and rationalised our RI bookings a bit. I’d been panicked by losing bookings last season and booked everything in sight but looking through them again some of them were top end of KS2 (which I’m fairly sure is older than Davies, I don’t think Scarlett is out of KS1 yet?) and it is still £20 for the train to London so not a cheap day out. I decided against the one for next Monday and also one which had come with a warning of being suitable for older children. I’ve also managed to change our booked session that clashed with the mass lobby as even if our MP won’t be there I think being present to make up numbers aswell as the interesting experience of taking part is worth attending for given we are in London that day anyway.

Then I was done and ready to look at the animation station. It takes 3 AA batteries or says you can buy a mains adaptor at ‘all good toy or electrical retailers’. Turns out Currys is not a good electrical retailer 😆 We searched the house for something we could nick an adaptor from but found nothing and didn’t have any batteries and then I remembered that Davies still needed new goggles for swimming so we nipped to the local retail park and tried in Brantano and Boots for goggles (no luck. I bought some at the swimming pool in the end, very overpriced but as it was my fault this time for knowing for a fortnight and not getting organised to get some I can live with paying over the odds) and in Currys for the adaptor – again no luck so we bought batteries.

Back home we had some lunch and then set it up. It is very straightforward but very good. It plugs into the tv or pc on the video hole and has a webcam style camera angled down. It comes with four backgrounds (two plain colours, one a park and one a beach) and you just do your animated whatever on the flat base and press ‘capture’ then can play it back animated on the tv. You can hookit up to a computer and do fancy editing and add soundtracks and text and stuff too but the kids just played with it through the TV today. I found an old SD card which shows it as able to store 25000 shots so they should be able to make some good length films with it.

They worked together for nearly 2 hours making mini films with plasticine, coming up with plot lines and working as a team to animate. I think I’d have been impressed with it if we’d paid the full £50 for it but it was a stonking bargain at £15 🙂 🙂 They played til the batteries ran out and we definitely need to find / buy an adaptor given 3 batteries only lasted 2 hours and I could see this being a very used piece of equipment.

Then it was time for swimming lessons. My stomach is still protesting so I decided not to swim today and watched the kids’ lessons instead. Scarlett was first and is a nightmare to teach as she has such a short attention span and is so easily distracted by shiny things, like the lights reflected on the water 😆 She did so well with me a couple of weeks ago but really doesn’t do well in the ‘water classroom’ that is swimming lessons with 12 other kids. To her credit the instructor keeps reining her in (and to be fair it’s not just Scarlett by any means) and she is making good progress. She went off to the changing room alone to get dried and dressed and then came and sat with me to watch Davies’ lesson.

While Scarlett had her lesson Davies went off to the big pool. I watched him swim for a bit and then start going on the slide so I turned back to watch Scarlett and then couldn’t see Davies again when I next looked. I eventually spotted him, jumping off the lower diving board 😯 I watched him twice, really confident and loving it but utterly lacking in technique 😆

Davies’ lesson was really good. His front crawl is textbook and looks really strong and steady. His backstroke needs some work and that was what was being done today. He made progress just in the 25 minute lesson though and his group is smaller and with older children so there is virtually no chatter and messing about between the kids there.

Chip shop fish and chips for their tea. Ady came home and I headed out to the library to run reading group. We’d read Patricia Wood’s ‘Lottery’ which I read when it first came out a year or so ago and enjoyed then but have re-read to be able to run the session. We had 11 attendees and everyone liked the book which can make for a dull meeting but we got chatting about Home Education (I’d been recognised off the telly!) and happiness and success which was all very interesting stuff :).

Back home again for bath and dinner. Scarlett has a cold and is sniffly of nose and sore of throat, Davies does have a snotty nose but is always snotty anyway and I am still dealing with an upset stomach. Tomorrow we have to buy bubbles and picnic food and then go and be glittering examples of Home Education at the NBTSP – here’s hoping for good weather, a decent turn out and maybe the local paper coming along too. It’s also first Badgers for Davies and Scarlett (missed last week which was the actual first one back) so a long old day ahead – which reminds me I’ve not sewn badges on yet -oh poo!