Woke up this morning, with some dismay to the sound of rain drumming on the windowpanes. Dismay not because I mind rain particularly, I can find as much joy from splashing in puddles and getting freckles of mud on my nose as I can from stretching out in sunshine and adding more real, can’t be washed off in the bath freckles to my nose, plus I know the plants need the rain and all that sort of rationalising us optimists do to make the world around us fit our rose tinted view of life ;). But we had a plan today that I was really looking forward to a meeting a load of Home Ed friends and potential new friends (as in a stranger is just a friend you haven’t met yet) on Worthing Beach for a ‘Seaweed Picnic’ as organised by Caz and Bid and another friend Emma who’s garden C&B are taking over to grow veg in due to lack of garden of their own. Apparently seaweed is just fab for putting around your veg patches – rich in nutrients, great for seeing off slugs and other pests with its salty, crusty, sliminess and almost like an instant compost. Or so says Caz, to whom I defer on all things grow-your-own-y.
The picnic planning had really taken off from a vague idea on facebook to an event with about 10 people planning to attend. I was looking forward to sitting around chatting with friends and to Ady getting to come along to something for once as I am ever conscious that mine and the kids lives are great with lots of doing whatever it is that makes us happy whereas Ady is rather more timetabled and restricted to the whole 9-5 (or rather 7-6) grind.
But happily within an hour or so the rain had stopped, the skies were blue again and so picnic packed and seaweed collecting sacks at the ready we headed off. The meet up was basically outside C&B’s flat and another 3 families were arriving just as we were so we introduced ourselves and wandered across the road to the beach. Children headed off towards the sea, adults gathered seaweed and chatted and then we all decided we were hungry so broke for lunch. Davies, Scarlett, Archie, Eliot and another friend Hugo had wandered far away so I rang Davies (who for once had heeded my saying ‘if you take your phone with you then you can go much further away from me because I can ring you to check you’re okay’) and they came back.
The next couple of hours entailed all that I love best about life really, the sea, good friends, chatting, watching Davies and Scarlett having a ball, Ady nearby, meeting new people. Bid wandered back across the road to fill flasks with hot water to bring back and make cups of tea for us all, which almost instantly went cold as the wind was whipping them but we all clinked mismatched mugs and toasted life, home education and friends :). By then the tide had gone out and was starting to come back in again, all of the children had wet trousers and had founds crabs, created a whole world on the beach including Banana Island and defended it and won against imaginary intruders, we’d sat on the pebbles chatting and found all sorts of treasures of our own (I came home with pockets stuffed with sea glass, tiny beautiful shells and some little pebbles Scarlett had found and created biographies for – we had a giraffe stone, a snow leopard shell and pebbles we’d imagined once being rocks in faraway castles). We all decamped to Caz and Bid’s for yet more tea and the kids all disappeared upstairs to play while we continued to put the world to rights. At 6pm Olivia & Ben and Magdelen had to leave and we intended doing the same but Caz cooked eggs and toast for hungry children, marmite on toast for hungry adults and somehow it was nearly 8pm and we were still there :).
We came home and Davies and Scarlett ate more toast while I read to them, we’ve not read all week I don’t think. We started ‘Clockwork’ by Pulman which pulled us all in straightaway. Ady and I had a curry and having missed a call from my parents (they left a silly message on the answerphone though so I know all is well ;)) I did take a call from my Granny who had rung me to check I’d heard from them and they were okay.
Sounds lovely 🙂
Though I did wonder earlier if the seaweed picnic meant that’s what you were going to be eating.
Comment by Jan — 25 April 2010 @ 10:56 pm