There is a local Home Ed group that I have been aware of for a while called SHE -Sussex Home Educators. They seem to be a bit freemasonesque in that nobody seems to know quite what they do or how to join them but they posted to the local list recently about a couple of sessions they had spaces on for HE kids over 10, one of which was a green woodworking course. Four 2 hour sessions, held with a professional green woodworker. Davies is very interested in such stuff, so when the email came through, starting just at his tenth birthday and just after the Campcraft sleepout which also involved green woodworking I asked him about it and he was interested.
I emailed the contact to see if missing the first session would be an issue as it fell while we were away last week and she said no, but we’d still have to pay which seemed fair. The price was £7.50 per session, so £30 in total and I thought £10 was a fair price per session still for three sessions so we signed him up.
The sessions started today and are for the next three Thursdays, two of which I am working. Now our childcare is and always has been so very seat of our pants I decided to just book it and work the logistics out afterwards. Which meant I assumed Ady would find a way to work round it if I’m honest. Except Ady had the dentist first thing this morning. This would have been fine normally as he was back home just before 10am which would have just meant Davies and Scarlett either went with him and waited at the dentist, came with me to work for the first half an hour and he collected them from the library, or they just stayed home until he got back. But we knew he wouldn’t be home in time to get Davies there for 10am so I finally arranged to take some of the lots and lots of time owing the library owes me for various things and arranged to start at 11am today meaning I could take Davies myself.
So Ady went off to the dentist, Scarlett and I took Davies over to Woodingdean for the course and on the way I watched him getting more and more nervous in the rear view mirror. We talked about what he was nervous of and what all the worst possible case scenarios were and how he’d deal with them. I promised to stay until he was happy for me to leave, he had his phone to contact me if needed and Ady would be there within an hour of me leaving (I’d already clarified that it was a drop off and pick up again later arrangement which I’d assumed it would be for the older age group).
Luckily the building is one Davies knows as we used to go to Magical Mondays there for several years and when we arrived the green woodwork professional turned out to be Peter, one of the rangers from Forest School. He’s pretty flakey, introducing a piece of wood and going off on one about how amazing trees are, all a bit soppy and spiritual for me but he certainly knows his stuff and it did give the whole session an air of peace and love, which is never a bad thing when you have a load of kids working with knives I guess ;).
Davies was quickly engrossed so I bid him goodbye and headed off home with Tarly. Ady was already back from the dentist so he and Scarlett dropped me off at work and headed back to Davies where they watched the session from afar. Davies made a mallet – they had the choice of mallet or rolling pin – and explained to me in technical detail how he’d done it and all the tools and methods used. I think they idea is they make something each week in the two hour session, next week I’ll go along and the week after Ady will be around again. He really enjoyed it and I’m really pleased to have found something to reinforce the Campcraft stuff, with a tutor he already knows and likes. A wise investment :).
I had a good day at work, finishing off and putting up a display, catching up with what had been going on while I’d been off and ordering in a load of Morpurgo books for a display for next month. There are so many changes at work just now and so much stress at the levels above me that it has really changed from the relaxed, happy atmosphere it used to be. I am already feeling quite detached from it all and glad to have an exit route planned really. I have made some great friends at work who I intend staying in touch with and it has been an excellent working environment where I have learnt loads, been offered lots of opportunities and really made the best of my 11 hours a week but regardless of what we’re planning next year I can feel the time is right to be thinking of moving on.
Ady picked me up and we did an inventory of the freezers as we’ve another month of scrimping and saving and trying not to dip into saved funds set aside for the campervan. Birthdays, Badger subs and holiday always make September a costly month but I think we’ll scrape by. Weather permitting we’re considering one more car boot sale on Sunday.
We finished reading King of the Cloud Forests at bedtime, Ady and I watched Gareth and he is now determined to start reading to the kids 🙂 .