One word? When seven would do…

This morning we had arranged to meet Julie, Jack, Maisie and Lorna at Littlehampton museum. It’s a really small but very well laid out modern museum that we have visited a few times before. We only had an hour or so thanks to cutting fine our timings for today which was enough time for the museum but probably a bit of a trek over there to not do something else afterwards to justify the journey. The kids all did trail sheets – Davies and Scarlett chose an I Spy sheet, while Jack and Maisie did a different one so we coexisted happily finding things and writing the answers. J&M then went on to do a second sheet while D&S found a ‘draw a poster of your favourite thing in the museum’ challenge which will be used to create a giant mural made of lots of childrens’ work. Davies drew a stuffed jay and Scarlett did some china from a fancy beachfront hotel from 100 years ago.

Julie took out a loan box and we cast a glimpse over the list of available ones which looked quite interesting so we might revisit that at some point and see about borrowing something else – we’ve had a geology one before which was good and they seem to have added plenty more to the list.

We left them at the museum and nipped home to grab a sandwich to take with us to the allotment where we were meeting Caz, Bid, Archie and Elliot. The children imediately went off to play in the woods while Caz, Bid and I did some digging over, some planting, some weeding and some chatting. They have offered people power and planning input on the allotment which we are very gratefully accepting with the promise of sharing whatever we grow.

We had a lovely couple of hours in the sunshine working and chatting about stuff while the kids were off playing together. They had to head off as they also had further people to see and places to go so we parted company.

The kids and I came home and they watched Black Beauty which I’d ordered in to work as part of next weeks Chatterbooks sessions on books and film adaptations but it didn’t arrive in time so I brought it home instead.

There has been much furtive Mothers Day making going on here too so they both spent some time holed up in their bedrooms doing secret things too.

Then it was time for Badgers. It was something of a free-for-all tonight as Julie, the leader wasn’t there thanks to her daughter having chickenpox. Neither I nor the other woman helping our group were there last week so we winged it really. We had 9 children in our group and 3 laptops to help them make newspapers. We called them into a circle and talked about news, what makes news, shared some news that had happened to us all today (something new they learnt at school, one girl’s shoe had broken, a birthday and so on), looked at a newspapers layout, coloumns, headlines, adverts, pictures etc. and then split them into groups to create their own. Some were great and could do stuff like editing text, others needed more help but they all created something. In the meantime another assistant leader was coming round with a camera to take their photos for another activity so we got them to take photos to accompany their news stories and go in their papers too. The group I was working with came up with the idea of a newspaper for a fantasy world they’d made up so we did a couple of news stories and some adverts, another group did an interview and the other group of older girls did a more newsletter style effort.

The children then went downstairs for their drink while we saved their efforts on the laptops and went down to join them. We found all of the Badgers on the floor with their hands on their heads having ‘been naughty’. Davies was sitting rather than lying and several of the kids looked pretty pissed off. When I asked them about it later they said some of the children (quite possibly themselves included) had been messing about and the leader had made them all do that. They were both pretty shocked by it and a bit fed up and I agreed it was degrading and unnecessary. I suspect she had found herself alone (which shouldn’t normally happen but I think we were still upstairs and the other helper was still in the kitchen tidying up and she’d not been able to maintain control so she went with that method. Not something I would ever do, or feel at all comfortable with but hopefully a one off and not too lasting an effect on any of the kids 🙁 Or maybe other people think that is okay?

Back home again Ady was still not home so I made the kids a quick tea of eggs and toast, got a fire lit, cleared up the kitchen and started dinner before he arrived home. We swapped then and Ady carried on with dinner while I watched Lambing Live with the kids. The later bedtime of 9pm for the last few nights seems to have helped with bedtime issues a bit – they are now properly tired when they go to bed and seem to fall asleep quicker despite going to bed later. Not sure it is something I want to run with all the time though – 9pm really eats into our evenings.

I am now pleasantly achey from the work on the plot this afternoon and feeling nicely tired from a good busy day :).

I had a course today, whenever I have my PDR I always say I’ll do whatever training is on offer and a couple of computer courses had come up, I’d been put forward for them and accepted so along I went. We were doing seat-of-our-pants childcare again and Ady took Davies and Scarlett out with him for the day.

I waved them all off before 8am, got dressed, ate breakfast, sorted the chickens out and then spent about 15 minutes wobbling about not having worked through the manual in advance of the course.

I drove there and found parking nice and easily and walked to the building which used to be a Southern Water HQ but is now shared by Worthing Police and West Sussex County Council. I got a drink and introduced myself to some other attendees – there were 8 of us from all around WSCC services including Children and Family Centres, Libraries, Working with Adults with Learning Difficulties and so on. The guy running the course reminded me of Bill Bailey with his delivery and he was very funny. By the afternoon he was putting me more in mind of Chris Tarrant somehow and I couldn’t see Bill Bailey in him anymore…

I’ve never had any formal training on computers, all I do know is self taught so I liked the idea of some proper training. The course was Word – in the morning we did formatting text and paragraphs, find and replace and other such stuff. I knew some and learnt some. We had a short lunch break and then four of us returned to do using pictures in Word including clip art, pictures from file, watermarks, captions, wordart, drawing tools including graphs and charts. Again I learnt some and knew some already.

If I’m honest I don’t know that WSCC will really get their moneys worth out of me being training as I’m not really doing much in the way of working with Word in my job anyway although I guess I’ll be doing a report of Chatterbooks so I’ll be sure to add in plenty of pictures and charts etc.

The course finished at 430pm so I drove home through all the coming home traffic which is dreadful on that 4 miles stretch. The course was held very near to where I went to sixth form so it felt odd to be sitting in rush hour traffic both ways nearly 20 years on from when I used to drive to and from sixth form in my little yellow mini when I first passed my driving test.

I beat Ady, Davies and Scarlett home by about half an hour so dealt with the chickens, chopped up some firewood and got a fire lit and put the kettle on before they arrived home. After lots of debate we’ve bought a little netbook for me and my laptop will become Davies’. One of the things we wanted to buy with the bonus as Davies is getting more able and keen on the computer so I wanted to give him more access to one, mine is starting to run slower and has been much loved and well used so is an ideal first laptop for him. Ady had done lots of checking and finally found a good one on special offer at Asda so came home with that. I’m very happy with it, it perfectly meets my online wants :). So I’ve spent most of the evening setting it up and moving across email addresses and rss feeds etc.

More Lambing Live before very tired children went to bed (will no doubt jinx it by mentioning but Scarlett had been much better the last week or so about bedtime generally and sleeping through. Fingers crossed for it continuing, I know extreme tiredness has helped ;)). We had a late dinner and watched Stephen Fry in America which we’ve been very much enjoying.

I woke with a bit of a cough which has worsened through the day and am hoping won’t develop into anything further. I suspect sleep would help…

Pulborough Brooks in the morning. I was expecting a big turn out as the weather was so lovely (clear, crisp and sunny, if still very cold) and we’d been hoping to finally cross paths with a localish Home Ed family we’ve made contact with online and been told by various people we have very compatible children with but sadly they didn’t make it.

Davies and Scarlett declined spotter sheets so we decided to just look for signs of wildlife generally and hope to catch up with some other HEors along the way. We found some deer footprints and some fox poo and then came to the area where adders hang out when the season is right. Sure enough there were three curled up along the path, all being photographed and exclaimed over by people. Davies spotted one and alerted the photographers to it, Scarlett was sad she’d not spotted one herself but did spend time chatting away to the various people along the route quite happily 🙂

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We finally caught up with someone we knew coming the other way so stopped for a brief chat with them before continuing and coming across Julie, Jack, Maisie and Lorna. They were quite happy not to continue their circuit and carry on with us back to the visitor centre and playpark.

We had lunch in the sunshine, the four older cousins viewed a group of school children on a school trip rather suspiciously and visibly relaxed once they’d left, then it was time to head for home. We bid Julie & co a farewell and took the scenic route over the downs which only adds a few minutes to the journey and is beautiful taking in stunning panoramic views of the sea, the south downs and all that’s lovely about where we live. Particularly lovely to see all the lambs already turned out into fields with ewes :).

We had time at home for a quick cup of tea for me before going to the library for Chatterbooks. It was the fourth session of six and after last week’s debacle I had assistance in the shape of Cara, the Childrens Services Librarian for our area. When we arrived she was in the throes of putting together some new furniture for the childrens library – Scarlett was horrified at the thought of the old furniture leaving and it looks like we might be adopting the book boxes :rolls:. Davies spent about half an hour assisting with flatpack assembly and offering what seemed to be helpful suggestions and input while I got everything ready for Chatterbooks and Tarly tidied the junior library up.

I briefed Cara on what the session was to entail and we assumed Chatterbook positions ready for the onslaught ;). Today was Storytelling and I’d deliberately planned for lots of input from the children and plenty of mixing them up with each other and breaking up the troublesome little cliques. Much to their horror ;).

I explained that we all have plenty of stories we carry around with us, from remembering books we’ve read and films we’ve watched to knowing fairy stories off by heart. I said that books are fab but being able to tell stories without books is just as good and we will probably tell them slightly differently each time and that each person would tell a slightly different version to each other too. I checked that they all knew the ‘classic version’ of 3 Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf and then read two alternative versions: and which between them perfectly illustrated humorous deviations from the story, merging different well known tales, repetition and familiar storylines, a story told in verse and plenty of twists in the tale.

Next I split them into groups of my choosing (very specifically chosen) and tasked them with telling a different section of the story each using different methods. First we had a group telling the beginning of the story where the mother pig sends her 3 little pigs off to start a life of their own – this group used a narrator and mime / acting. Chapter two was a house made of straw being blown down by the wolf and the group working on that used plasticine to create models to tell the story. Chapter three was the house made of sticks and the group used comic strip style storyboard illustrations to tell this part of the tale. Finally the last group got to make up their own twist in the tale and do whatever they liked with the ending, the wackier the better! They had no props although I suggested they write their section down to help prompt them in the retelling.

Cara and I worked our way round each group suggesting and supporting them with their ideas. The mime / narrator group worked well together – Scarlett was in that team and the three of them were all coming up with ideas and discussing how to do things. They quickly nominated roles and got on with practising. The plasticine group also did well – Davies was in that group. I put one of the stronger and slightly more difficult children in that group on the basis that Davies would ensure they didn’t take over and he has been pretty silent but strong in sessions so far. They worked out who was doing what and worked well as a team. The third group were less cohesive and tended to do their own drawings seperately without working together so well, the last group had the strongest child in it and she was getting frustrated by the inertia of the other two. I was hoping she’d rally them but they needed a fair bit of support (which Cara gave them) and the quieter two didn’t participate so much in the final retelling although they did have input in the ideas.

The children had about 15 minutes to do that and then we regrouped and told the story as a group. Unfortunately the library seemed to have filled up with about 5 people in there selecting books (we obviously remain open) which didn’t help with noise levels or concentration but the idea worked and the children all said they enjoyed it and got the idea of telling stories without books, using different ways of telling them and being inspired to get creative with your own spin on stories.

Davies, Scarlett and I had a chat with Yvonne in the staff room afterwards before heading for home. The chickens had laid 6 eggs yesterday so I collected them and was in the process of doing the kids’ tea when Ady arrived home. He’d been on a charity shop trawl and come home with a load of old videos including Flipper/Flippers New Adventure which Scarlett predictably fell upon. So we all watched that while the kids had their tea.

I nipped out to get a few bits for my dinner (Ady was having leftover curry from when Mike and Rose came round to not swing with us on Saturday). We all watched Lambing Live and the kids went to bed. We cooked our dinner, watched a few episodes of Lead Balloon on dvd and then I fell asleep on the sofa which accounts for why I’ve sneakily changed the time stamp on this email ;).

And to today 🙂

Caz and Bid arrived at 10am to collect the sofabed that has been in our playroom. We got it way back last year or maybe even the year before from freecycle on the basis that it might encourage the kids to use the playroom more and would be a spare bed. But all that has happened is it gets used to dump stuff on, it takes up a large area in the playroom and all of the friends who come to stay here are campers who could bring a camping mat to sleep on anyway. It just hasn’t earnt it’s large space in our small house. So when Caz and Bid were moving into a new flat with zero furniture it seemed an ideal chance to pass it on to someone who would use it :).

They stayed for a drink and a chat before Ady and Bid loaded the sofa into their car and they headed off. We breakfasted and got dressed and then went off out too. The sheep farm where I did my Lookerer training is lambing and had invited lookerers to come for a visit after several people had offered to help with lambing or just asked to come and visit. We finally found the right turn off (I’d not been driving when we went on the course and had been chatting rather than paying much attention to how we got there) and went in. I recognised a couple of people from my course. There were about 30 ewes in pens with one, two or three lambs each with some oddities. The first was a lamb wearing another fleece over his own – he had been a third lamb to a ewe and as ewe’s only have two teats triplets always pose a problem, the ewe he was in with had lost her lamb but had plenty of milk so they fleeced the dead lamb, made a little jacket of the fleece for this lamb and the ewe accepted it and was feeding it as her own. There was a very ill ewe who had had two dead lambs yesterday and was being left to see whether she would pull through. There was a black ewe with one black and one white lamb which apparently she has had for the last 4 years running. She has also killed off the white lamb every year so they were keeping a close eye on her and her white lamb this year. There was a ewe seperated from her lamb by a bar which prevented her turning around but allowed the lamb to feed as she was rejecting it but they were hoping if it carried on feeding it might come through. There were two lambs without ewes which had either been rejected, triplets or their mother had died so they were being bottle fed and were available to cuddle.

They leave their ewes to give birth out in the field and then bring them to the barn once they’ve been born. While we were there two ewes came down that had just given birth along with twins and triplets. The twins had been born just minutes before and so we watched them take their very first wobbly moves to standing and then first steps 🙂

Their cords were dipped with idoine and they were sexed – both girls. We chatted to Sam, the shepherd and his girlfriend for ages about various things to do with the sheep and lambs and then after cuddling the lambs once more we headed off leaving them to their incredibly busy weekend. The kids made friends with the sheepdog and once again we all had a yearning for a different lifestyle.

Home via the garden centre for more chicken food and the supermarket for some bits to go with dinner. A very late lunch and then we watched Aliens in the Attic and the first Disney Alice in Wonderland. Ady cooked roast beef and we watched Countryfile and looked at pictures of us in 2004 on Hadrian’s Wall (a feature on Countryfile about lighting up the wall next weekend, all 73 miles of it at 250metre intervals – if we lived closer I’d definitely go and see that).

Dinner eaten, we had the sorbet that didn’t get eaten last night and then having seen it advertised on Countryfile and with it being particularly relevant given our morning we all watched Lambing Live on BBC2. Once again I was surprised at how much knowledge about animals the children, particularly Scarlett retain. She knew loads about the tupping, enjoyed learning about how they chose rams and how auctions work, laughed like a drain at the ewes chasing the rams when they were first introduced and then went all gooey over the lambs, particularly when one was called ‘Scarlett’ :).

There, all caught up. A crazy few days with loads of fab things happening but barely room to be sleeping, let alone blogging! Next week is looking just as madly busy.

We don’t seem to stay still for very long…

Up and out early to Wildlife Explorers. Scarlett was first for an hour and her session was about cuckoos. They did some colouring, watched a film about cuckoos and then went out onto the reserve to look for signs of spring. Scarlett said they found buds and shoots.

Meanwhile Davies, Ady and I walked round the newly acquired land adjacent to the reserve, taking a slightly different route to last month. Ady has a bonus coming at the end of this month so there is much debate currently about how best to spend it. Davies was joining in the discussion really intelligently and sensibly, along with stopping to look at things around us such as the evidence of feasting squirrels. Oh and climbing up the odd tree here and there.

We went back to collect Scarlett and I noticed Davies looking very uncomfortable all of a sudden. He then said he didn’t want to go in for his session. He didn’t seem to have a reason for this and I put it down to tiredness so insisted he went in and waved him off. Ady, Scarlett and I were walking back towards the car to get a drink when I hear footsteps behind us and turned to see Davies, in floods of tears running after us. I walked back with him as I didn’t know if they would have realised he’d gone so needed to check. We sat outside and I tried to get out of him why he was so upset and what he didn’t like. I finally got from him that he feels he is expected to be able to do more than he is capable of – I suspect and infact he later confirmed, that this is mostly reading and writing tasks. He said that in the younger group the adults have more time and patience, the older group is bigger and they want to crack on with the rest of the activities rather than support reading and writing struggles.

While we were talking the leader came out and sat with us. She gave Davies a cuddle and asked what the matter was, explaining that if she knew what was wrong then she’d be able to fix it for him. I explained he was finding the transition from the younger group to the older group a bit hard, aswell as the longer session (Scarlett is there for an hour, Davies is there for 2.5 hours) and she agreed that lots of the children do struggle at first. She was keen to encourage Davies to go back in but equally keen for him not to be forced. I was worried that if he walked away then it would build up into an even bigger deal for next time so we agreed to have another 15 minutes composing himself time and then he might go in.

Davies and I sat on a bench in the sunshine and talked about it. We discussed doing things that scare you and how good you feel about having done them, assessing the risk of the worst that could happen about what scares you and how you would deal with it if that did happen, rising to challenges, compared it to a rollercoaster ride where there is that moment at the top just before you go over and hurtle down that pretty much anyone would jump out if they were given the choice but seconds later you are flying and loving it and so, so glad you did it. We talked about why he goes to Wildlife Explorers, what he gets out of it and what he would miss, how he could rise to challenges and so on. It turned out what had tipped him into running out was the first task on the table being paper to write down a list of birds you’d seen already this spring. We talked about how he could have had a go at that and he very easily spelt ‘robin’. I suggested drawing pictures if there wasn’t an adult to help or making a mental list and then asking quietly for some assistance with spelling or just having a go and risking getting the spellings wrong.

Diane the leader then came back out to say they were about to show a film so it would be a good point to rejoin the group but Davies said he didnt want to go back in today but would be back next month. Diane then suggested that rather than lose him she would be very happy for him to come back to the younger group again and be with Scarlett. Scarlett will go up at the end of this year and while I’d hope Davies feels ready to go up before that happens he is clearly not ready to be in the big group just yet. He leapt at this chance and is now really happy about going back next month and into the younger group again.

I am a bit worried that he has done a fair bit of avoiding things he knows he can’t do and possibly feels fretful that he should. He definitely bowed out of Sea Scouts for that reason and I don’t want him to miss out on things particularly if the fears are unfounded anyway – Wildlife Explorers is not school and they don’t as far as I know have any sort of literacy agenda to fulfil so I’m guessing they don’t care at all if he can’t spell bird names although I appreciate they don’t have a spare adult available to sit with Davies and hold his hand through all of the sessions either. I do think a lot of these stumbling blocks are in Davies’ own mind and either they would turn out not to matter anyway or actually if he gave things a go more readily he would realise they are totally achievable for him. Ah well, solution to this one easily found in the end and he will go back to the younger group again for now.

So, we left Pulborough Brooks rather earlier than planned and went to visit Tom at his Dad’s which is nearby. We were there for an hour or so and met their two Tamworth pigs that they are hoping are pregnant after AI last weekend – if so we’re hoping to go along for the birth or very soon afterwards to meet the piglets 🙂

We looked under some tarps to see if we could spot any just-waking-up adders. We weren’t lucky with adders but did find some sleepy lizards 🙂

Their bees are just starting to wake although their chickens are a bit behind ours in starting to lay again. We then went down to the lake where Tom’s dad and brother were chainsawing down some trees. They bought the house and land a couple of years ago and have been spending lots of time and money taming the land to how they want it which includes a couple of very large man-made lakes with fish for fishing to complement the fast flowing stream already naturally running through the bottom of the land. We were very lucky to see a kingfisher flying around the lake, three times which enabled us to point and say ‘isn’t that a Kingfisher?’ at the first turquoise flash and then have two more chances to be sure that yes it was. Amazing sight, I’ve never seen one before and they are far smaller than I had imagined them to be.

Davies and Scarlett adored running wild with the pack of dogs and crossed the stream at shallow spots, encouraged the dogs to leap in the stream and the lake by throwing sticks and generally loved being there 🙂

We spotted some toadspawn and then Ady and the kids (and one of the dogs) had a row round the lake in the little rowing boat. I declined on the basis I was fairly sure they were going to fall in and wanted to be on the bank to capture the photo. They didn’t 😆

It is just so lovely there with a lake to fish and row on, a stream to splash in, woodland and fields, horses, bees, chickens, pigs, a pack of dogs and loads of land for growing fruit and vegetables. Davies and I spent some time indulging a fantasy of ‘if we lived here…’ and Scarlett was practically in tears when it was time to leave she loves it there so much. A real ‘wrong life!!!’ alert moment I thought…

Back home again Dad came over to collect some logs and ended up staying longer than we’d planned. It was lovely to see him and he and I taught Davies how to play several versions of patience with his newly won pack of cards which was nice. Dad and I used to spend hours together playing cards when I was about Davies’ age.

But it did mean that a mere 3 hours before we were expecting Mike and Rose to arrive for dinner I was still googling recipes and writing a list to take to Tescos to buy stuff for 😯

We’d decided to go for an Indian food theme and cook curry, with veggie and chicken options (mainly so I didn’t have to eat vegetarian). Ady had already cooked the chicken curry last weekend and frozen it and was doing the rice, the bombay potatoes and had bought some breadmaker mix for naan breads which was already on. I found recipes for onion bharjees and vegetable samosas and so headed off for supplies.

When I got back we had 2 hours before they were arriving and I split my time up and tried to be all Masterchef about what was left to do. I made pastry for the samosas and got that chilling, made the filling for them and got that simmering. I made the mix for the bhajees, whizzed up cucumber and mint for one dip and coriander and garlic for another and then got the veggie curry on. It was a version of Helen’s much loved camp curry which clearly I can’t offer an opinion on as it was full of cauliflower and various beans but went down well :). I finally made the samosas (they tasted really good but I’d use readymade filo pasty next time as the recipe turned out nice but dry and fiddly to work with pasty so we ended up with sort of mini curried veg pasties rather than samosas).

Meanwhile the kids had a bath and some dinner, Ady got the house tidied up, found candles, lit a fire, got Davies’ bedroom ready for a sleepover for the kids and had a bath so that he could take over making the potatoes, frying the bhajees and samosas (I’m not allowed anywhere near hot fat), shaping the naan breads and keeping an eye on the curries while I had a bath and got changed.

All was well and I was just putting dishes of bombay mix and balti peanuts out when Mike and Rose arrived. We had a really nice evening – Indian beer and non-Indian wine. The food all went down well, conversation ranged from intelligent and grown up to downright silly, the kids reappeared a few times but were very tolerated and well behaved before they finally went to sleep around 1130pm. I’d got turkish delight and sorbet for dessert as Indian food tends to be little, very sweet puddings and this was the closest I could find, but everyone was so full up we only had some turkish delight and some of the chocolates Mike and Rose had brought with them along with coffees and liqueurs.

They left earlier than usual – still after 1am mind you, as Mike’s daughter who is 12 and is with them on weekends has suddenly shown an interest in attending church so they have been taking her to the morning Sunday service and Mike was conscious about needing to be up and ready for that in the morning.

Ady and I sat up awhile talking about favourite songs and playing some of them before finally going to bed ourselves sometime after 2am.

I worked all day on Friday. We’d had a last minute childcare crisis which meant Frazer came over to be with Davies and Scarlett in the morning. He was, predictably, late and stinking of cigarettes but the kids were delighted to see him and so I headed off to work, arriving a mere ten minutes after I was supposed to be starting work. I’d had a ‘chicken drama’ last week and Yvonne said to me she always knows I’ll be in if I’ve not already phoned to say so but assumes it will be due to a drama of some description, so ‘Childcare Drama’ was sufficient explanation to let me off the hook.

I did banking, rhyme time preparation, sending all the Rainbow Fairy books back to the libraries they came from as I took great pleasure in dismantling the ‘Fairy Magic’ display and made space for a ‘minibeaasts’ display instead, manned the counterm, dealt with the desk and generally had a good day at work :).

Meanwhile at home the kids had a good time with Frazer and then Ady arrived home and they spent some time off out with him in the afternoon.

When I arrived home they were already back and had eaten so I got busy with the face paints on Davies and stitched some pulling in stitches in the shoulders of Scarlett’s dress aswell as de-plaiting her hair. Davies’ outfit was very much of his own creation, face painting aside which was at his direction and he looked fantastic. Scarlett’s outfit was not as complicated and of course with her long blonde hair she was already Alice-esque to a point but we made a little blue waistcoat for her toy white rabbit along with a cardboard and string pocket watch so she had accessories to make up for less of an effort on the costume.

I’d bought popcorn, drinks and sweets from the pound shop at Lancing to take with us so fully equipt we headed off to the cinema. We have a trio of local theatres here in Worthing, all council run and arts council / lottery grant / state funded which I do like to support if possible – this year I have been three times to the cinema screens there. In looking at their website, which I regularly do I’d spotted the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party Gala Event and booked tickets earlier this week.

Davies had pretty much sorted his own outfit out after I’d shown them trailers of the film and dug out waistcoat, wig and top hat from the dressing up box. I found a scarf of mine to use as a bow tie, we dyed the wig ginger and got a patterned shirt from a charity shop for a couple of quid. Jeans and his red and gold star DMs completed the look with a bit of face painting from me.

Scarlett had a nightie from the same charity shop tied with another of my scarves, her hair was made wiggly with the help of 8 plaits put into wet hair the night before, she wore the boots she wears for Badgers and we made a waistcoat and cardboard pocket watch for her toy white rabbit.

I thought they both looked fab, proper home made creative costumes with heavy emphasis on having done it themselves:

We managed to park fairly near the cinema and followed the trail of playing cards stuck to the pavement and were greeted by staff dressed up as rabbits, Alice and the Mad Hatter. We nipped into the box office to collect our tickets and Ady saw the film posters for the first time that we’d modelled the outfits on:

As we went in we were given a box of cakes each and a cup of tea (or coffee, hot chocolate or selection of cold soft drinks) to get into the tea party theme. There was face painting (which we didn’t need ;)), hand painting, photo morphing (which the kids had done, Davies turned into a playing card and Scarlett a cheshire cat, we’ll get send those in the post) and an eat me / drink me competition with 10 different things to try and guess / identify to enter a prize draw. It was mostly fizzy fruit drinks and flavoured jellybeans so nothing too yucky or tricky.

There was also staff walking about chatting to people, photographers taking pictures of the dressed up people (he took some great ones of D & S, will have to see if they make it into the local paper) and some Pixar mini films (the ones from dvd extras, we’d seen all of them before I think ;)) showing on the big screen. It was really good 🙂

Then it was the fancy dress parade. They had children first, then adults (Scarlett was most cross with me ‘I *told* you that you should have dressed up Mumma!’ :lol:. There were probably about 30 children, lots of Alices, several Mad Hatters, a few white rabbits and some playing cards. They judged on audience applause and it was quickly obvious that Davies was going to be in with a strong chance 🙂 Sure enough, he and another Mad Hatter were named winners and got a huge goody bag from Pixar each.
I love Scarlett’s reaction captured on camera as Davies was proclaimed a winner 🙂

(you can’t see Davies as the nearest Alice stepped forward infront of him as I took the shot). He won loads of fab prizes including an Alice in Wonderland pocket watch which is gorgeous, a charm bracelet with teapots, playing cards, drink me bottle, key and so on on it, a magic key keyring, a tin of Alice in Wonderland playing cards, a torch and a voucher for 4 free cinema tickets to a film of his choice 🙂 Excellent haul 🙂

The adults were judged and winners chosen and then it was time for the film itself. It is also out in 3d and I imagine it would be well worth seeing in 3d as the effects in the 2d version were fab and there were some shots, eg Alice falling down the rabbit hole which would be excellent in 3d. I was slightly worried that Scarlett might find it scary as it is classic Tim Burton and on the dark side but she loved it. We all really enjoyed the film, thought it was very good :).

Yet another late night though as it was nearly 11pm when we got home and having eaten cakes and popcorn already still felt lacking a ‘proper’ meal so made pizzas which we were still eating at gone midnight.

we even talked about curriculums!

A much needed lay in all round this morning saw a lazy start to the day. Ady had picked up a box set of Simpsons videos yesterday in a charity shop so Davies and Scarlett watched some more of those until it was time to head off to Tasha’s.

It’s been way too long since we saw them properly so Tasha and I had loads to catch up on, which we did admirably over much tea drinking (for me) and some very fantastic cake. The kids disappeared and played inside, outside, upstairs and downstairs, only surfacing every so often for feeding. They also rather loved the cake :).

Tasha and I finally thrashed out some plans for getting a few local Home Eddors together for creative workshop type stuff which we’ve been talking about vaguely for ages but not previously managed to discuss at length. Feel very positive about that :). It was a really nice day 🙂

We got home just in time to collect another 4 eggs from the henhouse before they all started going to roost. That’s 11 in 3 days which suggests most if not all of the 12 hens are now laying 🙂 A few odd shaped ones these last couple of days means some of the new hens have laid their first eggs and I know our 2 speckled hens are both laying as they have very white shelled eggs. Hurrah :).

Dinner for the kids and then I got a fire lit, the washing up done, the house hoovered and a bath running and read them which is a version of the story for book club this month – we have other version ready to read too. I also read some which I’d picked up when a new copy came into work as it features several of our favourite authors.

Then I packed the children off to bed. Ady arrived home shortly after I’d done so so he went and said goodnight to them and when I popped in to check on Davies just after 830pm I was staggered to find him asleep. Davies. Before 9 o’clock!!! Unfortunately Scarlett didn’t get to sleep until nearly midnight and that included all sorts of nonsense which I fear I veer between dealing with really well and really badly, often within moments of each other :(. She went to sleep smiling at least.

After a rather last minute potential childcare crisis my brother is coming over in the morning to look after Davies and Scarlett as I am working, so woefully short on my usual couple of hours of everyone-free time I usually relish each night I am going to bed too.

I worked in the morning, Ady dropped Davies and Scarlett off with Julie.

Work was good, I like Wednesday mornings as they are very busy with all the delivery to unpack and the books leaving to get packed up. Wednesday is often the biggest delivery of the week as it tends to be the day that books reserved on Saturday arrive. We have four staff, two of whom are called Sarah. When I was at school about the half the class were always called Sarah, Nicola or James, clearly the most popular name choices back in 1974. It’s comforting to be at work with two Sarahs and a James 😆

I topped up my Jean Auel display which is proving popular – will get a photo of it tomorrow. I had a visit from one of the librarians to apologise in person for the whole Chatterbooks debacle on Monday and she showed me the email from one of the senior people that had been alluded to in an email I’d had and I was quite curious to see myself. It was very complimentary which was nice and the only real criticism was that I wasn’t perhaps aware of the ‘after school baggage’ that attendees come along with. An interesting, and true point I’d raised myself but for me yet another reason why we shouldn’t be trying to do an ambitious programme straight after school on a weekly basis.

I nipped into the book shop to pick up a couple of the WBD books as I know they sell out pretty fast and then drove over to collect Davies and Scarlett.

They’d had a lovely morning with Julie, Jack, Maisie and Lorna including a trip to Arundel to walk round the lake. They were all very muddy of trouser, rosy of cheek and bright of eyes thanks to some fresh air, exercise and time to be crazy with cousins :). I stopped for a cup of tea and a chat with Julie.

Home again for a very quick turn around of scoffing some of my hot cross buns and getting changed from work clothes into clothes that would see me through standing around on Brighton seafront for a few hours and then standing around inside the Brighton centre for a few more hours, then jumping up and down, singing and dancing pressed very close to many, many other people for a few hours- tricky wardrobe dilemma that, but never one where the answer is jeggings.

Ady and the kids dropped me off in Brighton and I walked through the lanes down to the seafront. I had a plan to find a coffee shop to sit in nearby and kill a couple of hours (they dropped me off as the parking costs more than the Mika ticket, it’s cutting it a bit too close for the last train home and I’d have to walk 15 minutes from the station through Lancing at night which isn’t nice. But they needed to be back in Worthing for Badgers so had to drop me off early). But when I got to the seafront there were already about 15 people standing around queuing. At which point I decided if I was killing time anyway I might as well do it in a queue really. So I chatted to the teenagers and their Mum (she didn’t stay) next to me for a bit who didn’t really believe me that I had a friend coming to meet me and kept saying things like ‘but do you, like feel that like all of us are your friends, joined in love for Mika and that?’ and sounded *just* like Catherine Tate’s Lauren.

I was very glad when Ros arrived nearly 1.5 hours later 🙂 and I was able to prove I really did have a friend! We spent the next hour in the queue catching up and finally got let in. Last time we went they were pretty good at maintaining the queue order from outside so being very near the front of the queue meant you were first in. This time they had several entrances open and it was a bit of a free for all when the doors opened. I was slightly pissed off that having been about 15th from the front we still ended up about four people deep back from the very front – we should really have made it to the actual front row. But we still had an excellent spot and when I looked behind us afterwards I realised just how many layers deep the standing crowd went.

We made friends with Colin and Emma who were standing nearby, to the extent that Ros ended up giving them a lift home as it was on her way and they were cutting it fine for the last train home. Lovely couple 🙂 although Colin did seem to have a very weak bladder ;).

So we stood for a further hour or so, then the support act came on and did about 5 songs. The drummer was very pleasing to observe but the music was not at all to my taste and just made me feel old. A further half an hour or so and then finally, a mere five hours after I first joined the queue outside Mika came on 🙂

He was fantastic, put on a fab show, sang wonderfully and utterly entertained us for the whole 90 minutes he was on. It was utterly fabulous, over the top, crazy costumes, glitter and balloons falling from the ceiling, women plucked from the stage door earlier in the evening paraded on stage with corsets and fancy headgear and we very quickly forgot our aching feet and need to have a wee and jumped up and down and sang our hearts out along with him. I was quite hoarse this morning :).

Ady and the kids picked me up and on getting in the car I realised just how tired I was. The kids went to bed as soon as we got in, I had a bath and ate the shepherds pie Ady had made for me before stumbling up to bed myself.

Today was a day with rather too many ‘in a minute…’ and ‘not right now…’s in it. Hate them as I always look back and wonder just what it was that could possibly have been more important than spending time with someone asking to spend time with me :(. Fortunately they don’t happen very often.

I was off to a bad start really by sleeping in Very Late Indeed. Davies had been up for a while but Scarlett woke even later than me. I did pledge to try and sort out their late nights but despite best efforts Tarly was very late falling asleep again even if she was in bed at a very early hour. That could of course have rather a lot to do with rising so late. An early morning tomorrow should combat that factor tomorrow at least.

Davies and Scarlett played Zoombinis for a while. They both have a game on the go now but still tend to play sat side by side co-operating and working together. I put some hot cross bun dough in the breadmaker to cook – Ady made some at the weekend which came out pretty well and challenged me to do better. I think we both agreed I have 😉 I did crosses and sugar glaze and everything and they came out really well. Scarlett helped with putting crosses on and dissolving the sugar to paint on.

Scarlett and I walked round the shop together to get some bread and milk and she selected some sweets for them both which she intended paying for but I paid for as I was so touched by her gesture. We had lunch and I spent some time, okay a lot of time batting emails back and forth with library people about Chatterbooks. As I predicted my email yesterday had put the cat among the pigeons rather and I had various reponses apologising, thanking me for what I had done so far and offering all sorts of help and assistance for the coming weeks. It won’t have won me any friends I suspect but I’ve never been that bothered about things like that ;).

I did some of a wooden doll making kit with Scarlett and helped Davies dye his wig orange using a mix of different coloured hair gels.

I also did a fair bit of looking at various local museums etc and booking places for Davies and Scarlett in some events and activities and workshops. Some for the Easter holidays, some for the summer half term and a couple for the Summer holidays aswell as a couple of Home Ed specific events over the next few months. The diary is filling up very pleasingly :).

Then it was time for swimming. The kids both had good lessons I think, we arrived a little late so I only had about 50 minutes swimming factoring in the brief pause inbetween their lessons when I have to wave at Carolyn the instructor as she releases Scarlett from her lesson and to get out of the pool and put my snapped necklace safely with my towel. Aside from my wedding ring, eternity ring and another ring which belonged to my grandma I only have two real pieces of jewellry – a necklace that Ady bought me for the first birthday we were together (20th) and a bracelet which my parents bought me for my 21st birthday. Both are now wearing very thin on every link and I suspect should now be either cashed in for scrap value and something else bought instead or put away and kept for sentimental reasons. The cost of having gold added to each link would be utterly prohibitive and I really should stop wearing them before they break and get lost.

So, digression about jewellry aside, I managed 42 lengths in my 50 minutes which is well over half what I need to swim in well under half the time I’ve allowed so bodes well for my sponsored efforts next month :). If you have already sponsored me thankyou very much, I’ve been really chuffed with getting so many sponsors so quickly. If you haven’t and would like to then please do, it’ll be ever so appreciated :).

Back home again Ady had just beaten us home so took over the kids tea while I lit the fire. In honour of the Chatterbooks film / book task I read some Cat in the Hat for bedtime stories as Scarlett is comparing the film and the book.

And now, to bed.

I wanted to take the jeggings back today. I felt slightly embarrassed about having bought them at all so wanted to reclaim the cash and pretend the whole sorry incident had never happened. Women of a certain size of a certain age should really get over themselves as far as following fashion is concerned, particularly when they have both economical constraints and ecological ethics about buying stuff they don’t need in the first place.

So, breakfasted, dressed, chickens dealt with and a minor diversion in the form of Zoombinis we dashed into town to return them. I did reinvest the money in some deodrant, having done long and fairly scientific testing into different types of aluminium free deodrant I have a definite favourite in Tisserand. I never sniffed under my arms or the armpits of my clothes before and suspect I have even become slightly unhealthily obsessed with whether I stink or not but I am aware that the claim of ‘slow release’ on Tisserand is indeed true and when reaching out to put a book back on a high shelf even in the late afternoon at work I get a waft of lavendar or lemongrass on days that I have used that. So having checked online P&P charges and checked the nearest stockists I was able to combine a trip into town to remove jeggings from my life and pretend they never existed (I won’t admit to it you know, if anyone mentions jeggings in my presence I shall snort with derision and ask ‘what’s a jegging?!’ as if I have no idea) with collecting anti-reek potions.

We also got some batteries for Davies’ Cube World which he’s been asking for for weeks and Scarlett persuaded me to buy her this really rather lovely book from the Works reduced from £17.99 to £3.99

We bumped into The Thankyou Neighbours (all three of them, David, Joyce on her mobility scooter and Annette / Jeannette in full on sparkly jeans finery) who insisted on kissing us in the street, apologised for not bring our wheelie bins back in to our back garden and asked me to pass on the message to Ady that David has a tenner to donate to Pompey should they need it (they do). The kids later berated me for not mentioning the highly amusing rear windscreen sticker in David’s car that had me crying with laughter when I noticed it last week ‘get off my ass’. If ever there was a person least likely to say such a phrase it is David. It’s become our new family motto it amused me so much.

We had discussions about choosing what to spend money on, investment purchases rather than ‘for the sake of it’ or instant gratification purchases and I used the sorry tale of the jeggings to illustrate my point. They have almost come in handy now.

Back home again for lunch, further Zoombini-ing, Cube World re-birth and plenty of looking at Scarlett’s new book.

I remembered an event at the local cinema I’d tried to book online last night and failed and after a final asking Scarlett changed her mind from definitely not wanting to go to actually really rather liking the idea so I booked tickets for all four of us for the Mad Hatters Tea Party Gala Event on Friday night. It includes fancy dress competition and parade, tea and cakes, eat me, drink me taste testing, Pixar mini-films and the premiere of Alice in Wonderland. We’re all quite excited and think it will be fab :).

Much googling for images later I showed Davies and Scarlett the 2010 incarnations of the Mad Hatter and Alice. They disappeared and Davies re-emerged with a magicians top hat, wig and waistcoat as a start. We talked about what we’d need to get them fancy-dressed up accordingly and headed into Lancing to raid the charity shops. We got a blue nightie for Scarlett which with a sticky-out dress underneath, a scarf round the middle and some stitches in the shoulder will pass very well for 19 year old Alice’s version of the blue dress. We’ll plait her hair the night before to get the crazy wavy wiggles in it. For Davies we found a crazily patterned adults shirt which will make a perfect jacket, a scarf of mine will make a bow tie and we just need to die the wig orange to have him looking like a Johnny Depp mini-me (steady girls 😉 ).

And so to Chatterbooks. I’ll document it all here for my own reference. My plan was rhyming stories and books today with the idea of a group poem about Chatterbooks as the activity. I’d already printed off various Dr Seuss worksheets, got in loads of books including some of the titles helpfully suggested by friends on brightkite and facebook that I’d familiarised myself with in advance.

I was expecting the children’s librarian today and was hoping she’d arrive early enough for a briefing you do that, I’ll do this type chat as the session was going to require a fair level of support in places, having 13 children of very different abilities and personality types. But no one turned up. Ady said to me tonight I should have just cancelled it which didn’t even occur to me as an idea.

So I ploughed on. We started with a catch up of books we are reading; this doesn’t really work, as indeed few of the group chatting ideas seem to, possibly because the group is that bit too large so some children are happy to chatter away while others are really daunted.

Then I talked a bit about poetry and rhyming in books – Dr Seuss who makes up whole stories around rhymes, Roald Dahl who’s done some great retelling of stories in rhyme and made the odd song or poem in his books (the centipede in James and the Giant Peach was one of my favourite bits of poetry as a child), limerick style such as Lear’s nonsense and stories written in verse. I read some of Lear’s work and we talked about how limericks work, which lines rhyme with which and who often the same word is repeated to rhyme in lines one and five.

Then I said I’d like us to come up with our own poem about Chatterbooks including all of us. We talked about words that rhymed with our names, if none did then other words that rhymed with things about us – eg girl or boy, where we lived, what our hobbies were, how old we were etc. As a group we came up with loads of rhymes for names, girl, boy, seven, eight and nine (the kids ages), Lancing and so on. This was the point I need support really as I had a couple of kids who totally got it and went off and wrote very credible rhymes and limericks about themselves and some others who were totally capable but needed more support and guidance. I had the usual toilet run issue with about five of them who all decided they needed to go ‘right now’ and two sets of boys who thought it was fun to scribble on each others work.

I did mention once again that noone had to be there, it was not school and my requirement was that they were there because they wanted to be and if they wanted to be there then I expected them to participate, cooperate and not be disruptive otherwise they could bring their adult to me at the end and we could arrange for them not to bother coming again. I hate tarring school and schoolchildren with any sort of brush but I really do see the difference with this group of kids who either by dint of pushy parents or genuine love of books are there after school but can be hard work with the home ed kids I know who just love these sorts of event and squeeze every last drop of value from them.

I then read -amazing how all 13 children are suddenly quiet and enraptured when I start reading, maybe I should just do that for an hour each week? while they all thought about a few rhyming words before going round the circle to see what they’d come up with.

We had a perfect recreation of a limerick which was then uncovered to have been one learnt in school rather than one made up there and then (like I care!), two very good poems doing precisely what I asked for of including the child themselves, several good lists of words that rhyme with names, a good poem about the days of the week that was no use for the exercise we were doing, a picture of ponies from pony obsessed girl who rarely does anything other than draw ponies, a couple of rhyming couplets from Davies, some silly rhymes including poo and smelly from some of the boys and that was about it.

So we talked about about what I wanted- some words that rhymed about or to do with each child. I made one of the more difficult children feel uncomfortable (and frankly good!) when all he could come up with were words that weren’t even words.I then said that was fine as long as if you were going to make up a word you also made up a meaning and read them a big chunk of Dr Seuss which perfectly illustrates this idea with made up words (or letters) and their definitions. So we then all guessed what we thought the words he came up with might be – creature, vehicle, noise and so on for him to guess. I noticed Davies and Scarlett being particularly good at this.

We broke out the biscuits and I talked to all the parents about the book and dvd loans -I’d paired up films and books for loan and got clearance for free one week dvd loan vouchers to give out so did that while making clear the films need to be back next week otherwise will incur fines, got the parents to have input in kids choice of book / film and explained we will be talking about them in 2 weeks regarding the differences between book and film as I really do want to foster greater discussion in the group and the kids sharing stuff about books and reading.

I was incredibly cross about there not being a librarian, spent nearly an hour putting the library back together, left the washing up of the juice cups and came home to fire off a fire shirty email to various high up people along the lines of having been disappointed to not deliver as good a session this week due to being alone and needing to know if that would remain the case for subsequent sessions as I would have to replan accordingly if so. I suspect that will have got people into trouble and pissed them off but I was pretty pissed off myself. I got a speedy reply from the most senior person to say she ‘d not been aware there would not be a librarian there and had emailed them to find out what was happening and if need be would support the rest herself!

Am calmer about the whole thing now and quite philosophical about my own slightly ambitious ideas and how feasible they are. I definitely have a skewed view of 7-9year olds. Literacy wise my children are way down the bottom end of the ability range but free thinking, creativity and the ability to voluntarily participate and get something out of the sessions they and most of the other children I know are just streets ahead.

The teachers pet, showy off types probably antagonise me more than the ones who don’t join in at all and a definite error, even with a second supporter has been that the group size is too large. I have a plan for next week though and hope that might mix things up a bit.

While I did all this and then got dinner on for the kids they played Zoombinis and then ate – mild versions of the tacos and fajitas Ady and I had later as they have expressed interest in global cuisine.

We don’t have anything suitable for bedtime reading as the most recent borrowings from the library are slave related thanks to a reservation frenzy after reading Michelle’s recent blogpost, so I read some picture books Scarlett had brought home instead.

Bedtime was very protracted as both kids joined me in the bathroom while I was in the bath to talk about what school is like, whether I thought being a parent was better or worse than being childless and the pros and cons of both. Interesting stuff.

Ady and I finally had dinner, watched Australian Masterchef and now I am very yawny indeed.

I woke to the smell of curry this morning, which is slightly odd on a Sunday morning these days (not at all so odd a few years ago) as Ady was cooking up one of the dishes ready to freeze for an Indian Extravaganza of cooking for next Saturday night when we have Mike and Rose over for a night of not swinging with Indian food.

Scarlett spent about 90 minutes in the bath playing, she experimented with some of her bath bombs and took about three cuddly toys in with her to keep her company and get thoroughly cleaned and scrubbed :). Davies, meanwhile was wanting to play Zoombinis. We got two of the three discs working but the third was being very tricky. I finally worked out it was because it was expecting the game to launch from the disc drive it had been installed from several years ago which is now defunct (the first laptop we had which was dropped and the d drive broken so it now operates with an external disc drive), so had to uninstall it and start again which got it working. Am always pleased when I not only manage to fix a problem but actually understand it too :).

Scarlett emerged, wrinkly, from her bath and sat and watched Davies. Between them I think they actually completed two of the whole games. Nice listening to them working together and really grasping some of the concepts. They don’t spent much time at all on pcs which I don’t think it a bad thing, particularly as they do spend a fair bit of time on DSs but it’s good to see them appreciating the resource and it’s possibilities.

We had lunch and Ady got the roast dinner on in a very low oven. I retrieved several eggs from the hen house, they are really getting into laying now and we’re getting a good 3 or more eggs most days, looking forward to that getting closer to 6 or even 8 a day in the height of the summer :). It is nice not to have to buy eggs again.

Towards the end of last year there was a movement in Worthing towards becomming a Transition Town. I looked into it a bit at the time and was impressed and thought I’d like to get involved but it came around the same time as my Lookering and the WPA course so I wasn’t in a position to take on anything else really. Caz and Bid reminded us about the movement last night and told us there was an event on today.

So we went along. It was called Food for the Future and included a film called A Farm for the Future which was excellent, all about the use of fossil fuels in farming and agriculture, alternative methods and permaculture, there was a group discussion afterwards along with refreshments, a graffiti wall to add your ideas and committments to change/ help and a seed swap where you could give in your own unwanted seeds and take away a packet in exchange. We got rid of all the flower seeds we seem to have collected and had no intention of sowing and got a great selection of vegetables and a few more interesting flowers that the kids want to try growing. The plan for next year is that people bring seeds they have harvested themselves to the seed swap as they will be super sustainable, locally grown and so therefore adapted for our area and beautifully complete the circle :).

The idea of the transition town for Worthing is to start making changes now to adapt for the inevitable changes we will face thanks to climate change and peak oil. Todays meeting was about how Worthing will feed itself when we can no longer rely on the unsustainable use of fossil fuel in farming and agriculture for powering farm machinery, adding fertilizer, insecticide and pesticide to the crops, processing and packaging and transporting the food to us. A really interesting example was a pre-packed sandwich from a garage or supermarket. The bread would have used fossil fuel at every stage of production from ploughing and sowing and harvesting the wheat, turning it into flour and then into bread, the ham from pigs fed on grains all requiring the same process, the token salad being flown or shipped from abroad, all transported to a factory to be assembled and then transported back out again to shops. Quite aside from the issue of the packaging of the sandwich it was as the reporter said ‘literally dripping in oil’.

The film covered different alternatives and ways of gardening and growing grops, tending land and preserving bio-diversity, different models of thinking and planning and permaculture. I have seen similar films and felt really bleak afterwards but this was a very empowering film that gave hope and made you feel you wanted to be part of the change and do something proactive. We spent some time chatting to people and coming up with ideas of changes we could make. Davies and Scarlett were particularly inspired by the idea of bartering, I pushed the idea of growing co-ops and sharing crops and gluts, Ady thought we should be finding out whether we can make more of our coastal location and beaches for food. We talked to a few people about Home Ed and it was all very promising and inspiring stuff :).

Caz had come along although she’d left Bid and the boys at home so we all piled round there for an hours playing and tea drinking. We carried on talking about bartering, communal growing and sharing crops, along with educational philosophies and the balance between ideological viewpoints and practicalities work out. All very interesting stuff :).

Back home again to turn the oven up and get dinner finished off, which we ate watching Countryfile. The kids did some drawing while their dinner went down – Davies drew some of the wild boars on Countryfile and Scarlett drew some Zoombinis.

Then we finished the last two chapters in the Creation stories and mourned having finished them, we’ve enjoyed them so much :).

Ady and I had baths and chats about plans and hopes for the future and watched Masterchef.

It’s been a good weekend :).

Friday Oh the things we’d been going to be doing on Friday. First we were going to the RI for a lecture. But then when I checked ‘my RI’ we didn’t appear to have booked it after all and despite emailing to ask if we were booked in or not I never got a reply. I could have chased it up but decided London wasn’t a great idea when we were having a late evening so didn’t bother.

Then we were going to take my car to the garage to have it looked at again. But it’s been fine all week so we didn’t bother doing that either.

We had a half-a-plan to visit Tasha and co but had a list of other things to get done and in the end didn’t manage to see them either – but have rearranged for next week when we have time to visit ‘properly’.

So instead we headed into town. I wanted to see if I could find some new boots and some navy blue mascara and eyeliner, thought we could pop in and see my Mum at work and generally have a potter around the town. So we parked, saw my Mum, utterly failed to find any boots I liked and were about to leave town when we passed a charity shop which had been temporarily opened and was closing that day. And there were the boots I’d been looking for and failed to find, in my size, pretty much brand new and for just £8.50 (rather than the £90 they would have cost new) :). When I say the boots I’d been looking for I mean the boots I knew I’d know when I saw them rather than actual boots I had already seen or even knew for certain existed. Also got my make up from the cheapo brand at Superdrug (hurrah!) and did pick up a pair of ‘jeggings’ (cross between jeans and leggings) which I really should have tried on first as they look dreadful and will need to go back sometime next week.

I’d been feeling all defensive about the kids being out and visible during school hours and sure enough a woman looked at the children for a while in one of the shops before asking me ‘are those your children?’ I was all keyed up ready for a show down and said ‘yes’ and she said to me ‘they are so beautiful, you must be proud’ 🙂 🙂

Next we went to Lancing to collect Scarlett’s ring from the jewellers. It had gotten too small for her and I’d cut it off then carried it round in my purse for ages before finally being with Scarlett near a jewellers a couple of weeks ago so we’d got her finger sized and had the ring enlarged with more gold added. It was not cheap and to be honest I suspect the extra gold and work probably cost more than the ring is worth but it was mine when I was a child, Scarlett loves it and I like seeing her wear it so I was happy to pay for the sentimental value. Yes I know, me, sentimental ;). The jeweller suggested she move it from her ring finger to her little finger before it gets too tight to take off and then next time we’ll have it sized large enough for her middle finger, then she’ll get three fingers worth of growth out of it. We also got a watch battery for Davies’ watch which had stopped working and he gave us discount on the lot along with showing the children how he changed the battery and chatting to them.

A quick stop off at the bakers and then home for a late lunch.

Davies had bought a Simpsons video in a charity shop so they watched that, I brushed Scarlett’s hair and put a plait in the side and helped the kids get their clothes ready. Ady came home and he and I had baths before getting changed and heading out again.

It is Roundstone’s (Ady’s work) 25th birthday so yesterday all of the staff spent the day at Butlins doing team building and fun activities such as go-karting, archery, fencing and football. Then all went back in the evening for a meal / disco. They had said we could bring Davies and Scarlett along and as evening childcare is even harder to find than daytime childcare we did.

Except when we arrived at Butlins they said there was a problem with bringing the children on site. Apparently the camp itself was being used for a 70s singles weekend for which they had a specific licence for over 18s only and could therefore not let us in. We sat for over 15 minutes before being delivered this news by an idiot in a hi-vis vest with SECURITY on it. He even had the cheek to insinuate we should know better than to bring our children into such an unsuitable environment. Predictably I went a bit mad and was very specific about how I was feeling and what was going to happen next. IE very cross indeed and demanding to have the most senior person on site to talk to me in person as soon as possible. He scuttled off and someone else was dispatched to tell us that actually it would be fine after all. I believe a similar conversation was being had with the woman from Roundstone who had organised the very expensive day and evening function there, particularly as it was a seperate entity to the 70s singles weekend with a fully self contained venue within the complex and nothing had been stated about the over 18s clause when it was booked.

So duly allowed in we made full use of the 2 free drinks vouchers. I was given a further 3 from people who were driving and so could only have one drink, I suspect I have some sort of reputation among Ady’s work colleagues ;). I have my small select group of favourites so happily hung out chatting with them. Scarlett very amusingly whispered and giggled to Davies when I got up to give one of them a hug and a kiss hello and when I asked her what she’d said she asked ‘is that your other boyfriend?!’ 😆 😆 😳

It was a ‘hot fork buffet’ which I’ve never heard of and actually the forks were at room temperature 😉 but the food was okay, the kids did a fine job of trying all sorts of things they’d not normally entertain eating and actually liked quite a lot of them. I repaired some of the damage from that fateful wedding with the welcome drinks back the year before last by chatting to the bride and groom in a sober and senisble manner about teaching and parenting. There were some very boring speeches and prize givings and then the dance floor opened up. Predictably no one was up for dancing straight away.

Except for Davies and Scarlett who were straight up there along with one willing parent. Anyone guess who?

Scarlett got the dj to play some Michael Jackson for her, Davies requested some Queen and they danced their little hearts out :).

We left at about 1030pm although it was going on until 1am and brought home large bunches of the fancy helium balloons with us. I was really tired (read into that what you will ;)) so went pretty much straight to bed, Ady followed not long afterwards but as Scarlett was still awake and didn’t want to be left downstairs alone she came up with him, which meant he didn’t last long in our bed before heading back downstairs again to sleep in hers.

Saturday I worked this morning and was very glad of having gone to bed early as it meant I didn’t feel too bad at all. I had a lovely easy morning though, the first hour spent putting up a display of Quick Read books, then teabreak and covering the desk, followed by another hour of display time, this time a Jean Auel one for which I made letters to spell her name in the same font style as her book covers and did chalk drawings of horses and mammoth and bears which looked pretty good. The final hour was spent back on the desk again where I joined a couple of new borrowers, identified a half sovereign with Victoria on it for someone and helped her find out what it might be worth (about £100) and some local dealers to try and tried unsuccessfully to help a man who had found out he was adopted recently, tracked down his (now 90 odd year old) mother and was trying to find more details about his (now deceased) father. And happily printed off loads of Dr Seuss activity sheets for Chatterbooks on Monday.

Home for lunch where Davies and Scarlett were playing Goddardopoly and very impressively working out the bank and money and change. Davies even demonstrated some ‘chunking’ 😆

We had a fairly lazy afternoon although Ady did make some hot cross bun dough in the breadmaker. Then we went to see Caz and Bid (via Sainsburys for some fizz to celebrate them coming home and a large chocolate orange cake just because) who are housesitter while Caz’s parents are away this week. Had a very lovely indeed evening with them and the boys. The kids charged round, joined us to eat, got all fire up with chocolate cake and then charged round some more. We sat, ate, chatted, drank, chatted, ate and chatted some more. We covered all sorts including politics and the weather and the economic climate and briefly felt like proper grown ups. And I didn’t even break any glassware or anything ;). So pleased they are home – and happy to report that they are too :).

Conscious of Archie and Elliots bedtime (they are, like most other children I suspect, earlier to bed and rise than Davies and Scarlett), a second late night in a row for Davies and Scarlett and the fact the chickens had not gone in before we left so while they would all make their way into the shed to roost once it got dark they are not capable of shutting the door behind them so the shed is open should a fox chance by we left at about 9pm ish.

Davies and Scarlett went straight to bed and were asleep fairly quickly (althoug it was still probably gone 11pm), Ady a bit later and myself even later than that.

I had a bad dream last night which stayed with me on and off all day. It was about Scarlett being at a Girl Guide event and Ady and I taking Davies off out somewhere while she was there (some sort of Science thing, I distinctly recall Dr Hal being there) and then forgetting to collect Scarlett. I remembered *hours* after we should have picked her up, was shocked that no one had rung to ask where we were and then struggled to get there in a succession of cars that all kept breaking down. I finally found where she was and the guide leader had taken her home with her rather than ringing me and was very reluctant to let me have her back. When I finally got her back she was all tear stained and had been told I wasn’t coming back because I didn’t want her. Oh it was horrible 🙁 I started awake and laid for ages convincing myself it was just a dream, was really tempted to go downstairs and cuddle her but finally drifted off back to sleep. All sorts in there from this week including breaking down cars, Scarlett deciding against Brownies and an accusation she’s levelled at me a few times lately about always talking in a nice voice to Davies and a normal voice to her (not true, infact I seem to be spending most of my time talking in placating tones to her at the moment). As Alison said in a comment a few posts back I really do struggle with needy and that pretty much sums her up a lot of the time at the moment. She keeps boucing back to the Scarlett we all know, full of sunshine and default state of happy but she’s tired from lack of decent sleep too and quick to tear up at the slightest thing.

Anyway.

An earlier start for all of us this morning as I was off to work so I got the kids breakfasted, the chickens sorted and was making sandwiches to leave for the kids and my Dad and sandwiches to take to work for me when my Dad arrived. I had time for a quick chat with him before heading off to work, via the other side of the chicken run where one of the cockerels was pretending to be the Kellogs rooster and had jumped onto the fence to crow. A hen had followed him and as the fence is deliberately *not* sturdy to discourage them from standing on it they were swaying about like drunkards, flapping to try and keep their balance and he was continuing to crow with a sort of ‘wahey, whoa’ tone to it as he wobbled about. Fools!

Work was good, a real party atmosphere as NC has finally left. There was a ceremonial ripping off her name from her locker and her tray which was all very cathartic. There are changes afoot with regards to opening hours which we will know more about in the next six weeks or so and I still don’t really know to what level they might effect me, if at all, so there is uncertainty about the future but short term at least the mood was very buoyant :).

I did some preparatory work for the next couple of Chatterbooks groups and whilst I didn’t manage to get any good feedback from the group generally I did talk to Davies and Scarlett about the next four sessions tonight and we’ve come up with a plan and some good activities so I have managed to get some child input if not the whole group. For my own reference (poetry, storytelling, tv / film, chatterbooks story).

I spent some time on the counter, lots of time on the desk and some time trying to find poetry related activities for kids.

Home again I beat Ady home by a good hour plus so poor Dad was here all day. He’d played Goddardopoly with Davies and Scarlett had done some bath bomb making (and stayed in her pyjamas all day!) but I’ve no idea what else. All seemed calm, well and happy though :).

I put the chickens away and got drenched in a very heavy downpour of rain so decided to stay outside and chop some sticks as I was already wet. I got the fire lit, washed up the lunch things and cups and glasses from the day (why does noone rinse their glass / mug and use it again next time they have a drink???) and cooked some pasta for the kids’ tea by which time Ady had arrived home so I went and got out of my wet clothes.

Scarlett had a wobble so I talked to her about all the things she has to feel happy about and got her smiling again, then read the penultimate chapter of the creation book and packed them off to bed while Ady was in the bath. He got out and cooked dinner, I got in and spent the whole time I was in the bath on the phone to Julie having a good old catch up. I was in the bath and she was feeding Lorna yoghurt while talking to me so neither of us could get to our diaries to plan to meet up so have arranged to speak again at the weekend and book several get togethers before our diaries fill up with other things.

We watched all the taped Masterchef UK and Australia we’ve recorded this week so we are fully caught up. Ady took the sitting with Scarlett while she fell asleep shift, which was good and now despite best intentions to be in bed sleeping long before it was tomorrow it looks like I’ve not managed it yet again!

The sun was shining this morning, so determined to get out, get the car started and give it a run and not fester in the house moping about feeling rough after breakfast and a bit of lazing around reading my book and watching Wild Tales and then Gastronuts (you were right Alison, it is *totally* up Davies and Scarlett’s street) we got spring coats on and headed off.

I’ve had an email from Hove museum in my inbox for weeks advertising the current exhibit called ‘Precious’ Be dazzled by the beauty in the overlooked and discarded.

Taking a highly innovative approach to contemporary craft, Hove Museum & Art Gallery commissioned ten artists and makers to create new pieces, and nine to exhibit existing work. Precious is the result, produced from objects which have had a previous life.

* 20 unique, show-stopping pieces – precious objects, all have had a previous life. Waste paper and fabric are transformed, landscapes made from computer parts, taps take on a new twist. Books, parts of furniture, drink cans are all reclaimed and re-made.
* 19 nationally and internationally known artists – explore where their imaginations can take you. Coming from all over the country and selected from 300 applicants, the makers reflect all aspects of contemporary craft in Britain today. For anyone who has ever glanced at a second-hand item and wondered where it came from, these artists explore where these objects can take you.

Nothing in this exhibition is what you expect.

So decided a drive over there was just what the car needed, free and a good thing to do and be able to delete the email which I’ve kept to remind me I wanted to do.

It was excellent 🙂 I paid for 2 hours parking and we were in the museum for a full 90 minutes. The Precious exhibit was mostly in two ground floor rooms and included some excellent pieces. Scalrett’s favourites were some cardboard sculptures made from old boxes of an owl and a flamingo (owl was a Cadburys box, the flamingo was rose Blossom Hill wine, I liked that ;)), Davies loved a piece with pieces cut out of a book (hard to describe and of course we couldn’t take pictures) and I was particularly taken with some framed bugs made from various bits and pieces including book spines, clock workings and watch hands. There were dressed made from paper patterns and chopped up pages from Vogue magazine, a rug made from beer cans, a fab spiders web decorated with the little circles of paper from a hole punch, mini creations from computer components and some beautifully painted computer speakers that looked like willow pattern items.

We looked in the first area and all picked out things we liked and talked about them before going into the hands on area for kids (and crafty grown ups). We were approached by a man with a clipboard who works for the museums and wanted to know what we liked, why were were visiting and what we’d like to see more of, so had a bit of a chat with him about museums, Home Ed and recycling generally. Davies and I had a go at some origami and did pretty well to get to picture 14 of 15 before we simply couldn’t work out what to do with the paper any more :). There were various collages on the walls to be added to, a wall of butterflies, a tree full of birds and a dinosaur needing scales so we collected a pack each from the front desk with templates, glue and scissors and all made a bird, then added them to the wall:

all made with recycled museum leaflets, newspapers, toilet rolls and other scraps :).

Next we went upstairs to the ‘Wizards Attic’ which is children’s toys through the ages. It’s a real memory lane trip with loads of stuff I remember from the 70s and 80s through to the likes of the Teletubbies and Toy Story that even has Davies and Scarlett feeling nostalgic :). We spent some time looking at the bedroom which is half modern and half Victorian comparing abacus and calculator, candle and electric lamp, hanson carriage and horse for playmobil racing car, slate and chalk for etchasketch. There are loads of little details it’s easy to miss like little mousehole doors in the skirting boards and so on so we lingered there a while.

We looked at some paintings and then spent some time in the ‘local’ area which talks specifically about history in Hove and surrounding areas. Scarlett listened to an audio talk about bombing in Portslade while Davies and I looked at some old pictures and architecture. Then we sat in the little cinema (only 8 seats) watching some old silent movies from 1900, 1901 and 1903. They included one about a fire complete with hand drawn and horse drawn fire engines, a comedy about someone called Mary Jane who lit the stove with too much paraffin and died and a couple of others. Very charming :).
My Dad used to love watching Harold Lloyd when I was a child and they reminded me of that. A quick look round the old fashioned cameras and then back downstairs for the second half of the Precious exhibition.

We had half an hour left on the car and were hungry (it being gone 1pm and therefore lunchtime) so peeked in at the very fancy looking tea room with proper china and cakes on doilies. It looked very lovely but I only had £10 in cash and imagined tea and sandwiches or cakes for the three of us would be more than that so we left the museum and walked up the road a little way hoping to find somewhere. It was beautifully sunny and a real feeling of spring in the air, the crocus were out in the musuem gardens.

We came upon Tescos before anywhere else so decided to nip in and get some stuff to bring home for lunch instead. I rather foolishly had misjudged quite how far we’d walked from the car and decided to pick up the few items I knew we needed at home such as flour, brown sugar, milk and butter (from my bake-off yesterday) which I regretted walking back to the car again with such a heavy bag.

We were home again just before 2pm so I made a late lunch with the french bread we’d picked up. Then as Chucklevision came on to groans all round Davies played X box for a while and Scarlett made full use of the big bag of bath bomb chemicals that had arrived in the post (finally, over 2 weeks since I ordered them) by mixing and creating potions and fizzing things. I read my book, drank tea and took some tablets for the headache I’ve been battling all week.

It had started to rain by then so I called Ady to ensure he would indeed be home as promised before Badgers so I could use his car and discovered he wouldn’t be home after all :(. So I had to allow plenty of time to get there just in case. The car was fine again fortunately, both there and back despite very heavy rain.

Badgers was really good, we had a visit from some volunteers for Hearing Dogs for the Deaf. I think we had intended to have a talk from them for half the session but due to a late start waiting for latecomers who didn’t come at all in the end, and the volunteers being passionate enough about their subject to carry on talking, plus some (actually very good) questions from the Badgers it took the whole session. They were not that used to talking to children and possibly pitched their talk a bit above them in places, also they were both quite elderly and not terribly animated or concise in their speaking but aside from the odd stifled yawn and a bit of fidgeting the kids all did really well. It was particularly timely for Davies and Scarlett having met Rupert the puppy in training for being a wheelchair assisting dog on Monday and we spent most of the drive home comparing the two and talking about Guide Dogs for the blind too.

Due to their late lunch the kids also had a late dinner with Ady getting it ready for when we got home from Badgers instead of before we went as usual. So I read while they ate and we now only have two chapters of Ted Hughes left. Rubbish gettting to sleep from both again but everyone is up early tomorrow as I’m off to work so perhaps that will help?

nothing to see here.

My feeling rough continued and I felt crap by the time I’d sat on Tarly’s bedroom floor while she went to sleep. She then woke in the night and came into our bed where she lay, sprawled out, hogging most of my pillow coughing and sniffing 🙁 for what felt like hours until finally we got back to sleep.

This morning it was still raining, having rained all night so the idea of driving to Barnham for Book Club was a non-starter. If I’m totally honest I was ever so slightly relieved as we’d not read the book. It was Beedle the Bard, by JKRowling and I was very bitter about having to read any of her work having avoided all the Harry Potter books / films / everything. We read the introduction and the first chapter and none of us enjoyed it at all. I’d said we’d read a further two chapters so Davies and Scarlett could go along having listened to the first three chapters and explain what they’d not liked about the book. They are au fait with HP having seen most of the films and I did try hard not to let my feeling cloud their view. I think making a considered decision to not carry on with a book based on sound reasons is perfectly fine and life is way too short to read bad books. I also don’t buy into the idea that anyone *needs* to finish things they have started necessarily and don’t feel it is a life skill the children need to develop. Infact I think it is a far braver and greater thing to be able to recognise that finishing something you started might be a waste of your time / energy / a pointless exercise / may even do harm and be able to know when to throw in the towel. So we had already talked about what they would say to contribute to the discussion at Book Club but it never happened anyway.

So I did some laundry processing, made some plans for Chatterbooks next week, did some baking of comfort food to make myself feel better (flapjacks, chinese chews, cheese scones) and did some hefty amounts of moping too, whilst drinking tea and reading a book I *am* enjoying myself (One Day
).

Davies spent some time yesterday creating a landscape and some characters for his own version of the creatures in the Hughes Creation stories we’ve been reading so he and Scarlett spent most of the day with the plasticine making more including the whole breathing life into them, giving them names, characteristics and stories. I love it when something inspires them like this into such creativity :). Infact I wonder if maybe I should get some plasticine for Chatterbooks next week instead of drawing?…

We watched a documentary about The Whale That Swam to London which was really interesting (if sometimes a little gratuitously graphic with it’s scientific shots of disection I thought) and as I became ever increasingly crap feeling and the rain continued to fall I decided I was not up to risking my car breaking down on the way to or from swimming lessons so we didn’t go.

Scarlett has decided that Brownies isn’t for her. I’m not surprised, or infact particularly disappointed. She tried it, I could clearly see it wasn’t something for her and would have been more surprised if she’d loved it really I think. I have made contact with a very local street dance class for them both which we’ll go along to when Chatterbooks finishes (it clashes but there are only four more Chatterbooks) and see if that suits them and could potentially be the way to get their back flip ambitions met and I’m looking into athletics for Tarly too. I’m quite happy that they get enough group after-school stuff from Badgers for now with the added things like Wildlife Explorers and other things we attend with Home Edders. I never want to feel we’ve not explored every opportunity but at the same time I can’t deny it’s a relief to have less things of a week day evening to rush about for and feel committed to, particularly in the winter when it’s cold and dark so early and turning out of the house feels like a huge effort.

We watched some of the debates in HoC on Parliament tv which led to interesting conversations about child protection, serious case review, who was ‘Baby P’ and all the details of his case. Tim Loughton, who has been on Tower Block of Commons and was talking a lot in Parliament today is our MP so we talked about him too. We listened to debates about smacking and corporal punishment which were interesting and talked about whether I think it should be against the law to ‘batter’ a child and why. A bit sad that such major issues are being discssued in such a sparsely populated HoC really but good to be able to watch MPs in action. I remember the channel being launched and how exciting it was at the time to be able to see inside the HoC.

I cooked the kids’ dinner, chopped some kindling and got a fire going (which promptly went out half an hour later when I tried to put some logs on that were just too damp 🙁 ) and then slumped. Ady came home and took over dinner preparation and got the fire going again while I had a bath and a couple of the cold and flu tablets he brought home which had me feeling much better.

Watched Survivors (yay, to the reunitedness :)) and had lengthy chats with both children about getting to sleep earlier, which clearly went right over both their heads as they were still awake at 11. If I had the arsedness myself to get them up and out at 6am for drill on the front lawn I would…

Up with the alarm this morning and into the car to head off for a seed bomb workshop. I’m not fully sure what a seed bomb is myself, hence the need to attend a workshop really but as the website advertises it as ‘everything you need to grow a seed except the water’ it seemed rather ironic that it was torrential rain that prevented us from getting there 🙁

I’ve started to take my car starting forgranted again and today, after three solid days of very heavy rain, and not having been started since I got home from work on Friday, it refused to start :(. I was persistent and it did eventually fire up, I let it tick over for a bit and when I was fairly confident it was running okay we set off. I’d allowed plenty of time to get there so the 10 minute delay was fine but as the rain seemed to be getting ever harder I was seriously considering the wisdom of the journey as we still haven’t gotten round to sorting out breakdown cover for the car. It seemed fine and coped with a fair few stops, pulling away and braking incidents which are the usual dodgy bits with a car that might stall so I was feeling confident until we got to the other side of the Southwick tunnel at which point there must have been pooled water on the road, and I picked up speed which would have meant more water splashing underneath and it started to lose speed and power. At a really crucial slightly scary bit of the A27 where the slip road joins and cars often dart across 3 lanes to get to the A23 turn off I was pretty convinced it was going to die, leaving us in the middle lane of traffic doing 70mph plus in very poor visibility. At which point I got slightly wobbly about having the kids in the car with me.

I then made the decision that all the time the car was still running we should probably be heading for home rather than a very expensive per hour on street parking, leaving the car in the pouring rain for two hours and then hoping it would start again and get us home in time for Chatterbooks. Quite possibly the first time I’ve bowed to a sensible decision over an airy ‘it’ll be alright’ type one and we were all disappointed but it was the right, grown up thing to do.

We got home okay with much talk about cars I have previously owned that object to the damp and stall every time you hit the brakes and how I coped with them, what ‘tickover’ means and why Scarletts suggestion that we ‘get a new set of wheels’ was even funnier when Davies misunderstood her meaning and tried to explain to her that 3/4 of the tyres had been changed earlier this month! 😆

Back home again I emailed my apologies and rearranged another date for the seedbomb workshop as they are running over several weeks so at least we’ve not missed out. I booked Okehampton, spent some time discussing ‘making things happen for yourself’ with the kids and a bit of gentle prodding about thinking what they’d like to spend their days doing when they are adults and planning some sort of route to making that happen which may or may not have included Things A Mother Should Say like ‘and if you want to spend all your time sitting playing computer games young man, you are going the right way about it!’ 😆 Honestly I do believe my physical being was inhabited by some sort of Proper Grown Up spirit for a good part of this morning 😆

So Davies did some animation – a really good one using lego figures, while Scarlett did a fab picture of a bear catching a salmon.

We had chicken soup (made by Ady last night) and home made bread (put on by Ady this morning) for lunch which was delicious and seemed to pre-empt me feeling a bit rough later this afternoon with a cough and headache. Surely you’re supposed to have the chicken soup after you start to feel pants? I even took some paracetomol for my headache which is something I almost never do, I hardly ever use medication (mostly because it can interfere with my drinking ;)).

Davies and Scarlett were itching to get to Chatterbooks and I was ever conscious that we may need to walk so we left home just before 2pm. The car started just fine but stalled almost right outside the library in the middle of the road, when I had to brake to let a car come the other way. It simply refused to start again despite about ten minutes worth of trying and one sweet middle aged woman came and offered to push, which was lovely but I declined on the basis that last time we pushed my car three of us struggled and that was without two kids in it too. Eventually a strapping bloke came over and offered and I accepted as I literally needed pushing round the corner into the library carpark. I did say ‘it’s a big, heavy car’ to which he laughingly replied ‘s’fine, I’m a big, heavy bloke, I’ll just lean on it!’ 😆 and as it hit the slight downward slope of the carpark I managed to bumpstart it :). I revved it and let it run for a few minutes before reversing it into a space mindful of potential jump start requirements and content that it could be left there for however long if need be as it was safely in a staff only spot.

We nipped to the pound shop for labels and marker pens and then to the library to set up for Chatterbooks. I photocopied some blank comic strip pages, did a quick 9 section line drawing version of Little Red Riding Hood to demonstrate that if you know the story you can fill in all the words and even missing bits of a story, got the flip chart ready and was reading Davies and Scarlett ‘ish’ when Russell arrived and we had a quick chat about plans for today’s session.

We then became aware of a lady and a labrador wearing a ‘helping dog in training’ vest in the library with a small boy and a man and Scarlett and Davies were speculating on what sort of helping the dog might be doing one day. I started chatting to the woman and she came over to sit on the floor with us, introduce the dog, Rupert, and tell us all about it. He is a dog for people in wheelchairs and will be trained to pick things up that have been dropped, empty the washing machine/ tumble drier, put a credit card into a machine and retrieve cash from cashpoints, press the button at pedestrian crossings and loads more:shock: He was absoluetely gorgeous and even I was more than happy to have him slobber over me :). The woman is a ‘puppy parent’ who has dogs for the first year full time and the second year part time while they spend some time in kennels. Rupert is only about a third of the way through his training and is doing really well. Davies wandered off but Scarlett was enthralled and asked loads of questions about various kinds of helping dogs. We also learnt about various crosses and breeds and what their speciailities are eg German Shepherds are great police dogs, spaniels are great sniffer dogs, any poodle cross (labradoodle and another silly name I’ve now forgotten) are good for people with allergies as they have wool rather than fur, some dogs are slower breeds which is great for people with eg MS, others are more energetic and good for younger disabled people who might need a dog at work with them all day matching their busy pace. Really interesting chat and the woman was equally interested in Home Ed :).

Then children started arriving for Chatterbooks. Another full house today. We started with the book cover jigsaws I’d forgotten last week and recapped a bit on what we’d talked about then. One of the children had brought in a book she’d made which was fab – fully illustrated, a cast list on the inside cover, a really strong story, beautifully written with a happy ending and she’d even ‘done the blurb on the back’ 🙂 Was very impressed :). Some of the children wanted to talk about books they’d read / are reading this week and then we talked about illustrations. I had a whole pile of books with different, interesting or just beautiful illustrations including some that had no words, some that simply went with the words to tell the story, some that strengthened the story or added greater depth and some that told another story again to the words. Good examples included the fab Lauren Child, these Colin Thompsons

and a couple more because he is just such a wonderful illustrator, some George
you can’t talk about pictures without a bit of Where’s Wally, some wordless books including the lovely
and then some books about art including
and
(love Anthony Browne).

So we looked at those and talked about various pictures, how they made us feel, what mood or tone they set for the story and so on. Next everyone had some pens and paper to draw their own illustration. Some copied illustrations in books, some made up their own, some started writing and illustrating. Davies did a full colour story in comic strip, Scarlett couldn’t think of anything but did look through The Flower Man with another girl and they came up with their own version of the story together.

It wasn’t as calm and smooth as last week and I did have to call a couple of them to order once or twice and remind them they were there out of choice, didn’t have to be and could call their mum over and go home if they didn’t want to be part of the group. I have two I suspect will be the tricky ones but have some plans for next week to try and ensure they don’t spoil it for the others, or indeed me.

I tried to get some input from them all about what else they’d like to do but either the group dynamic prevented good thoughts / suggestions or I have a skewed view of how well children can respond to being given wide open choices like that. It’s fine as I have ideas for all the subsequent sessions anyway but would have been more than happy to shelve them in favour of something the children had suggested. They seem to work better when kept busy and not given too much ‘do it your way’ which I find slightly hard given my own experience with my own children but actually I do from the group of friends we have that lots of the children prefer proper guidance so I’m sure I can strike the balance.

Home Ed came up as obviously everyone other than Davies and Scarlett were in school uniform and one of the children asked me what school D & S go to so I explained they didn’t. I’d sort of rather it hadn’t come up as I don’t want them all to go home and talk about that and suspect several of the parents would rather they didn’t either but a direct question requires a direct answer…

We had squash and biscuits and then I read to everyone and we embarked on a group doodle. This involved me doing a random squiggle on the flip chart and then everyone coming up adding something to it. I encouraged them not to talk about what they could see too much and then we went round the circle saying what we thought it looked like. One of the children had drawn a deliberate horses head but all the rest were similarly random marks to mine. We had a great selection of ideas as to what the groups piece could be- some children saw mountain ranges, some clouds, some cars and planes, some satellite dishes, I saw kites and Scarlett saw a planet. That worked really well and everyone was utterly engaged with it and would happily have done that a second time. But we were already a good ten minutes over our hour so I got them all to come up and sign the piece and we finished up. Most of the children took at least one book each, plenty from the pile of illustrated books I’d got in so that was good too :).

After they’d all gone Russell remarked on what a difference there had been with them being cooped up at school all day and how restless they’d been compared to last week. I’d not given it a thought but of course that was what the change in behaviour was – straight from school all day to the library, no wonder they needed some down time. Maybe next week we’ll try something energetic first then follow with a story to quieten them down.

It was another good session though, great feedback from parents, Davies and Scarlett said they really enjoyed it and one of the mums was nagging Russell about the ongoing need for such a thing :).

Back to the car which again took a while to get started but did get us home fine. We’re supposed to be going to Book Group tomorrow over in Barnham (about 20 miles) and I just think we’d be silly to try with it being unreliable in wet still unless the day dawns bright and very dry. 🙁 Will have to go back to the mechanic who did the leads and see what he suggests next, along with breakdown cover so that at least if I can get it started I don’t need to fret so much about it conking out again somewhere.

Home for the kids’ tea and me to slump with a cough and a bit of a shiver. I got a fire lit and drank tea til Ady came home and took over things like hoovering, making our dinner and running baths. I read a chapter of Creation stories and a couple of the picture books Tarly had picked up at the library before proclaiming myself all read out and packing D&S off to bed.

Watched the last of the Tower Block of Commons and then some taped Masterchef, dealt with children who don’t sleep (Davies appeared with a plasticine box containing lumps of plasticine and googly eyes with ‘my making kit’ on the front), ate dinner and coughed.

Friday I worked all day. I did Baby Rhyme time in the morning and it was a frustrating session as a couple of the mums didn’t bother singing along or even paying attention to their babies but instead chatted with each other 🙁 Really hard to deal with that in a non-confrontational way and it is frequently an issue at Storytime but I can understand it then when the older children are engaged in listening to a story, but Baby Rhyme time is all about the adults joining in too, with the songs, the actions, the shaking the instruments and so on.

I employed my usual two default measures which is 1. to sing louder myself, to drown out their conversation, to make up for the dip in volume from the group and to try and get their attention back and 2. to sing stuff like row, row, row your boat and say ‘right, everyone, back on Mummy’s lap’ which means they have to participate too. On Friday I was feeling slightly more evil so I made everyone stand up to do Grand Old Duke of York twice over and Heads, Shoulders,Knees and Toes – 3 times, progressively faster each time! 😆 Definitely a market for a nursery rhyme work out, but given how out of breath I was after that I am perhaps not the person to be leading it ;).

In other work news I got clearance to give away free dvd loan vouchers to all the kids at Chatterbooks so started ordering in books and film / tv shows to give out, probably next week and ask the children to come back having read / been read to and watched the dvd and compare the different types. So far have some Charlie and Lola, some Mona the Vampire and some Horrid Henry for the more modern stuff and Carrie’s War, Swallows and Amazons, Charlottes Web and Stig of the Dump for the older children / more classic stuff. Will need to get some parental input / approval on that before I dish them out though I think.

One of my colleagues had had a cosmetic procedure done on some thread veins in her cheeks and was suffering from bruising and blistering so she was heavily made up and worried about it cracking, holding an ice pack to her face at tea break and therefore the target of much trying to make her laugh 😆 We spent some time ogling Max Beesley on the internet and ordering in anything on the catalogue that he’s appeared in :). The whole atmosphere at work has changed since NC handed in her notice (she leaves this coming week) and it’s a nice place to be again at the moment :).

Davies and Scarlett were home with Ady for the day. He worked from home in the morning on paperwork and emails – his work laptop was taken back last year which he was utterly unfussed about and now they’ve all been issued with smart phones so they can pick emails up again, which he is rather fed up about but does negate the need to go into the office so often. After lunch they went out to visit some stores but Davies suddenly felt unwell and was all cold and shivery and pale so Ady brought them home again. Davies seemed to make a miraculous recovery once home although he was quiet again later in the evening.

I know we had pizza for dinner but anything else that happened other than me reading some more Creation stories utterly escapes me now about Friday evening.

Saturday Davies was supposed to be at YACs but it was an indoor craft event rather than a dig or or site visit anywhere and as it would have meant getting up and out early when he didn’t wake we left him to sleep and he was fine about missing it. Must email them to let them know he will be back next month though. We had a fairly quiet morning, the weather wasn’t great and everyone was happy to just hang out at home. Ady and Scarlett tidied her room up a bit and moved various things into other rooms to make space / remove precious things ready for Em and Oscar to have her bedroom for the night while she went in with Davies for a sleepover.

Davies did some xboxing, Tarly did some DSing, can’t really remember what else. We had lunch and then Ady and Scarlett went off to the pet shop, Tarly armed with notepad and pens to draw the pets she saw she might like (she was veering between turtles and hamsters, she has currently decided on hamsters) just as Em and Oscar arrived. We’d arranged an overnight visit when Em dropped Eve and Rei off with their Dad for the weekend so Em and I could get some proper time together as having been at Christmas Camp, New Years Eve at the Fishes and Centerparcs in recent months we still felt we’d not have much time just to hang out and chat without other people or children.

Davies stayed with us and was excellent at entertaining Os with pens and paper, various soft toys and the spinning octopus they’d brought with them. He is pretty good with babies considering he hardly ever spends any time around them. Scarlett is less good, viewing them as living incarnations of Baby Anabel :lol:No idea where she gets that from ;).

We drank tea a-plenty, Ady was a splendid host serving snacks, providing tea, cooking a delicious steak and offering to delay his own meal and entertain Oscar while Em ate – everyone was lovely really – LovelyEm, LovelyOscar, LovelyAdy, LovelyDavies and LovelyScarlett :).

Oscar had me all gooey by wearing one of Davies’ old bodysuit/vests and then even more so when Em changed him into his babygro and it was one of my favourites of Davies’. I went and found a photo album which had Davies wearing both the top and the babygro and got all misty eyed thinking about how the years have flown – along with relief that he has grown a little bit after all 😉

Davies now, next to a picture of Davies then wearing the babygro that Oscar is wearing now next to Oscar now wearing the babygro, with added Em and Scarlett for glamorous assistant type duties 😆

I sold most of Davies outgrown clothes on ebay once we had a daughter but had always hung onto a few treasured items I couldn’t quite part with for 99p each and didn’t know anyone ‘special’ enough to pass them on to that I’d have been happy seeing wearing them. When Em announced she was having a boy I was thrilled to be able to pass on those items and it’s been lovely to see him wearing them 🙂 On looking at a picture of Davies on his first Easter wearing a cute dungarees and shirt outfit Em said that had been Oscar’s Christmas outfit :).

Eventually everyone else went to bed and fell asleep, despite a couple of currently-typical-Scarlett moments of being upset and needing lots of talking and attention from me 🙁 She’s been even worse tonight and is really acting in a hormonal way I think with mood swings between the happy, carefree Scarlett I know and a sad, not at all the Scarlett I know little girl. I’m trying to be consistent, loving and reassuring while not so indulgent she continues relying on me for her happiness and feeling better. We’re doing lots and lots and lots of talking though and whilst she can’t articulate what the matter is she can at least articulate that she doesn’t know what the matter is, if that makes any sense at all!

Hmm, have just been googling ‘what to expect…’ type stuff about seven year olds and it all sound terribly familiar. Maybe I am having a brief period of a textbook child after all, just magnified all the more by being with her all the time.

Anyway, I digress. Em and I stayed up and really had a proper catch up which was lovely 🙂 And we were in bed before 3am 😉

Sunday I was last up, well actually Davies was last up but we were all up by about 9am. Ady carried on providing food and drinks in the way of breakfast, lunch and countless cups of tea. There was some DSing, Em and I had a PurPals face off, we watched some Winter Olympics, played some snakes and ladders, coming up with a new rule about being able to make your moves in any direction which vastly shortened the game length and made it much more tolerable. Ady and Davies played Goddardopoly which is a make-your-own monopoly kit that we got about 6 years ago and I painstakingly made and printed off but had never really been used. Their game continued into this evening and Davies is now hooked :).

Ady got some of the toy animals out to entertain Oscar although I suspect they were more entertaining for the rest of us. The foam shapes which I then got out on the pretext of being for Oscar were definitely more enjoyed by the rest of us. We built a replica Empire State Building which Davies then noticed Oscar looked like King Kong next to so we tried to recreate the iconic image 😆

But mostly we just chatted :).

LovelyEm and LovelyOs left just after 3pm. Ady and Davies carried on Goddardopolying, Scarlett and I spent some time snuggled up playing on her DS, she did some Big Brain Academy having been reminded of it in a conversation earlier and surprised me with how well she did on some of the tasks including the one where you have to say which box has greater value in coins as she clearly knew all of them and what they were worth.

Ady cooked a lovely roast dinner, we watched Natural World which was very good, then Countryfile while Ady and Davies finished their game. A further upset with Scarlett before bed which she recovered from, then dipped back to before she finally went to sleep – so exhausting – and now, unsurprisingly I am also very tired so am off to bed – busy day again tomorrow.

I had a lovely long lie-in this morning which was much needed after waking with the alarm every other morning this week (I hate waking with the alarm and suspect every life choice in the last ten years has led me to the fortunate situation where I only have to wake with the alarm 2 days out of 7 for work in a sort of reverse weekend type deal. Home Ed has little to do with philosophical educational and parental choices and much to do with innate laziness 😉 ).

Our original plan was to have the morning at home and head out to the Pop Up Play Space this afternoon but a quick text exchange with Tasha revealed she and Toby wouldn’t be there and as they were the main draw we voted and decided against going.

The morning disappeared pretty quickly thanks to geomags, toy animals and playmobil and then we went to Sainsburys for a few bits including popcorn, picked up a dvd -Over the Hedge (we’ve seen it, I think it was one of our first filmeducation screenings but for £3 it was worth it for the second disc full of extras and animation info alone) and cooed over the turtles in the aquarium shop next to Sainsburys. I called in on my Dad to say ‘hello’ and drop off / collect some paperwork from Mark The Plumber about our boiler.

Back home again Davies and Scarlett tidied up the lounge and got the dvd ready while I popped corn and made toffee sauce to go with it. We watched the film then carried on with other things while the extras ran.

I did some diary coordinating and made some plans for the coming weeks, Davies and Scarlett played. They did a couple of board games and then went back to the toy animals again.

I made their tea, chopped sticks and got a fire lit, cleaned up the kitchen after having made popcorn and tea and then read a chapter of the Ted Hughes book about how God got golden hair and the bat was created.

Ady came home, a complicated deal with struck with Tarly regarding a bedroom based pet (she’s torn between hamster and turtle) in return for both getting rid of the plastic dressing table she got for her (I think) 2nd birthday in favour of a desk / more sensible furniture given the limited space in her room and her cracking reading. I don’t like the idea of a reward for learning to read outside of reading itself but I guess I always knew animals would be Scarlett’s motivation, I just thought it would be reading about them rather than owning them! 😆

We also have a plan to get a new netbook for me as my laptop is struggling to cope with the level of use it gets and Davies is desperate to have a laptop, so he can have this one and I’ll get a new one. Oh they’re growing up! 🙂

Bed for the kids, Scarlett seems to be coming down with yet another something and has been complaining of achey legs and has a croaky voice 🙁 She is currently in our bed with Ady so I’m hoping there is room for me!

Davies impressed me at bedtime with his ever more complicated mental maths and his huge levels of enthusiasm for my sponsored swim :).

This week while I was doing my lengths (42 number watchers ;)) I noticed a sign up for the Swimathon. I enjoy my weekly swim, in as much as I know it’s good for me, it beats sitting in the rather nasty, run down, too hot environment of the spectators area listening to the other swimming mums boring conversations and I get to try and beat myself each time.

Last year I set myself the target of 50 lengths and did it fairly easily, I’ve lost a bit of ‘condition’ due to not being as regular an attendee this term but I liked the idea of a challenge so I wombled over to the website to see what it was all about.

There are various challenges including ‘just swimming’ (not enough for me, I need a goal to aim for and some pressure to make me perform), 1.5km (I can do that fairly easily so again not too big a challenge), 5km (would probably kill me and never in the 3 hours would I manage that) or the ‘happy’ medium of 2.5km (75 lengths, enough to stretch me past my usual comfort zone, enough to celebrate if I achieve it and a decent enough level of exersion for me to feel happy asking people to donate to charity in honour of it).

So I’ve signed up, uploaded a picture of me in the pool, set a nice target worthy of 2.5km (£250) and will now have a firm goal to think about on my weekly swims for the next few weeks.

If you could sponsor me I’d be ever so grateful 🙂 Link to my page is here. .

And in addition, if anyone would be up for coming along to the pool to offer some support it’d be great to make something a weekend of it. The swimming takes place between 630-930pm on Saturday 17th April so overnight space here can be found for anyone wishing to stay – I can’t promise I’ll be up for dancing afterwards but I imagine I’ll be happy to celebrate with the odd glass of wine or two. 🙂

I worked this morning. It was busy but went very quickly. Ady took Davies and Scarlett out with him for the morning and dropped them off at the library at midday for the last hour of my shift. Unfortunately they squabbled and I did some hissed grring at them which upset Tarly. Childcare is being problematic again at the moment 🙁

That aside all was well and I had a nice productive morning including some writing up of the Chatterbooks first session for my own records so I can submit some kind of detailed report to my bosses about how it’s all gone when the six weeks is up.

We nipped home for lunch and to get changed and then went up to Rose’s. Rose is my Not-Swinger friend who works 3 days a week as a primary school teacher. She is one of the most ardent supporters of both Home Education generally and autonomous Home Ed specifically I know. And all due to meeting and talking to me and my kids :). She’d sent me a text at the weekend asking if I was free to get together during this week with the kids as she has two dogs she knew Scarlett would love to walk and thought we could take the kids and dogs for a walk on the downs and then go back and watch one of the several books-made-into-films we’ve been talking about seeing together for ages on dvd while the kids played.

We walked up the downs, the dogs had a splash in a dew pond, we looked at the amazing panoramic views of the downs, sea, airport and all around. Rose was saying they try and bring the schoolchildren up there as it shows all of the aspects of the countryside in one quick hit – the river Adur running into the sea, the airport, main A27 road with various bridges, roundabouts and other feats of civil engineering aswell as ferries out to sea and boats on the river to demonstrate transport, open downs and farmland to show argiculture and farming complete with cows, sheep and horses, Lancing college and the amazing chapel to show historical buildings and architecture aswell as Lancing and Sompting bungalows, houses and flats to show towns and villages where people live.

We walked back down the very steep hillside through some woodland where the kids paused for some tree climbing and then paused awhile at the playpark for some swinging and climbing frame activity for Davies and Scarlett while Rose and I sat on a bench and talked about teaching and Chatterbooks.

Back across the fields including one which is full of rabbit holes along with countless old fashioned glass bottles, jars and old ceramic plates and bowls. Apparently it was a tip going back a couple of hundred years ago and is just full of ‘treasures’ to be excavated including all sorts of fancy shaped bottles and jars. The kids and I collected about 10 different shapes and sizes and are keen to go back for me. All currently soaking in cleaning chemicals to bring them back to life they are going to look fab filled with Tarly’s potions. Might try and fashion some stoppers from fimo or similar to finish them off. Photos to follow when they’ve been cleaned up :).

Back at Rose’s we had tea / hot chocolate and cookies, then she showed them the massive stash of lego left from her son Jamie (now 19 and living with his girlfriend) while we watched The Time Travelers Wife which we’d read for book group. Thought it was quite good as far as book adaptations go actually, although it’s been a while since I read the book so can’t recall how true to the format or book it was.

Davies and Scarlett were stars, loving playing with the lego or cooing over the dogs :). We said goodbye and came home about 530pm. I had a lovely text from Rose later telling me how fab my kids are :).

Ady arrived home soon after us and I dashed off to the supermarket for a couple of bits while the kids had tea. I read a chapter of the Ted Hughes book we’re reading and the children went to bed. Obviously not to sleep ;).

As half terms go it’s being quite a good one considering we normally hate them and go into hiding for the week 😉