One word? When seven would do…

We had two potential plans today – one was Amberley working museum which has a local residents discount offer running again and a group of HEors were going along with a loose plan to meet up for coffee. The other was meeting up with Caz, Bid, Archie and Eliot in the woods. But when I put both plans to Davies and Scarlett this morning they both said what they *really* wanted to do was stay home. This suited me just fine as I had plenty of things I wanted to do too.

So Davies set to building a huge brio track in the playroom with many obstacles and added twiddly bits and Tarly got the ducklings out for a run-around in the lounge. They were far more interested in snuggling up with her though so she ended up with them both curled up asleep in her lap for about an hour.

Ady nipped home as he was presenting a large bouquet of flowers to an ex colleague at B&Q as she was retiring today. We’ve known her for 20 years since we first started at B&Q and Ady was her direct boss for about 10 years. In his current Roundstone capacity he still worked with her a fair bit and had been called in to do a little speech. B&Q is just up the road from us so Ady nipped home for a coffee first.

I did several loads of washing and cleared out the chickens coop into the composter as it was quite smelly and in need of changing so I put fresh sawdust down and swept all around the area. One of the hens is particularly bold and friendly and how I didn’t maim her with the shovel and the yard broom I don’t know. I then cleaned out the ducklings too as I was shovelling sawdust anyway. Tarly will normally do it but as she was keeping the ducklings busy I regarded that as assistance from her :).

I then made some flapjacks with the oats we bought from the farmers at the Green Fair – freshly rolled and very nice :). Scarlett had been going to help but she got distracted by playing with Davies. I then debated sowing or sewing and sewing won. I chopped up a load of red, blue, beige and pink patterns of sofa material from a swatch book and have been trying my hand at random patchwork. I’d got it all sewn up and about the size of a single bed duvet before lunch.

Lunch and Scarlett did some painting and sketching while Davies did some DSing and I watched the news as cabinet members were announced and then the press conferance of Cameron and Clegg. I’d told the kids we’d nip out after that to the fabric shop for some wadding so I could quilt my patchwork. But then Ady rang to say his car had broken down and could I collect him? His company car should have been replaced on May 1st but thanks to one of his colleagues being inept the new replacement wasn’t ordered in time so the new one is still in transit. This meant his current car needed an MOT and is now overdue a service which the leasing company refuse to have done because the car goes straight into auction when Ady hands it back so they don’t want to spend any money on it. Until today when the gearbox seems to have gone so it’s now in a garage awaiting it’s fate once it’s decided just who is paying for it.

So we nipped along to collect Ady and stopped at the fabric shop on the way home. A lease car was delivered home her shortly after we got home so Ady has a short term Ford Focus while still waiting for his new car. I suspect we won’t see the silver Touran again now. I did the bulk of the sewing the wadding and backing together before it was time for Badgers.

Tonight was tent pitching but as it was heavy rain showers we did it inside. It was pretty chaotic with various children being hard work. Julie told me I’m doing my own badge next term, probably without help but I can choose which one. I’ve also got the older half of the group which are the more challenging but probably the most interesting. Davies can come and help as a cadet and Ady said he’ll probably come to most of the sessions too.

Back home again I finished the quilt, which I’m really pleased with. I should have done stuff like measuring, ironing and pinning but despite a few amateur obvious errors I really like it. It’s currently on the back of the sofa but will probably become a camping quilt to go with my camping blanket. I nipped out to Sainsburys for a few bits while Scarlett had a bath and Davies did some more DSing, then came home and they went to bed. Must get back into stories at bedtime again, we’ve slipped the last week or so with various things happening in the evenings.

We watched Junior Apprentice and when Ady went to bed I laid out his presents for the morning in little labelled piles – we have fancy coffee and pastries ‘for birthday breakfast’, his favourite pot noodle and chocolate milkshake ‘for birthday lunch’, two Pompey tops, new socks and some aftershave ‘for birthday wearing’ and some posh loo roll (we only ever buy basic range), a huge slab of Cadburys chocolate and a jar with a whole truffle as Ady mentioned while watching Heston last night that he’s never tried a truffle and it’s shocking he’s gotten to 46 without having done so. 46!

We went to Safety Day today. We went two years ago and it’s a really good educational day organised up in Berkshire for HEors from various South East corners of Sussex, Hampshire, Berkshire and more. It’s one of those events that looks good on paper, is nice and cheap and nicely encompasses the sort of visits to school assembly type experiences that I remember but Davies and Scarlett don’t get. I doubt we’ll bother next year but I think every other year is worth attending if only for the stranger danger talk, first aid refresher and fire safety stuff that gets reiterated there.

Ady was able to arrange his week so that he was visiting stores up in that area which made the day even more affordable as I didn’t have to worry about petrol costs. I knew Alison was going so I was looking forward to catching up with her and the day panned out precisely like that with Alison and I sitting around drinking an endless supply of tea (for bargain price of £1 per family for tea, juice, biscuits 🙂 ) and chatting with various people. Davies and Scarlett were in the group with Lije and Lulah and very delightedly bounced between the park and talks from the RNLI, Fire Brigade, Police and First Aid. Davies most enjoyed the fire brigade, Scarlett the police and their observations from the day on the way home were: RNLI – tha man had a High School Musical body board, Fire Brigade – don’t put Christmas and birthday cards on the mantlepiece above open fires, Police – the back of the police van is quite bouncy when eight of them are bouncing about yelling ‘we are innocent!’ and first aid – ‘nothing we didn’t already know from Badgers!’ 😆

I enjoyed chatting with Elizabeth who has been an online / blog / facebook friend for a while and an in real life met person only for the third time today and a fairly new to Home Ed woman and her nearly 8 year old boy who had been playing with our children and was all newly passionate and inspired by the whole HE thing – always lovely to hear someone new all enthused and zealous about the path :).

We drove home and managed not to hit too much traffic. We called into the Co op for a few bits and Davies came with me while Tarly waited with Ady in the car (she’d still been awake gazing at the ducklings when I went to bed last night around 1am so had struggled with the 730am start this morning, felt ill on the way to Basingstoke and then napped on the way home). We picked up various bits for dinner, snacks tomorrow and fruit and then Davies took over loading them into the checkout. As we were queuing I told him I often rearrange stuff in the order I want to pack it in to ensure stuff doesn’t get squashed so he did that putting tins and bottles and carrots first and crisps and grapes last. We had a debate about rice cakes and crisps with me saying I thought crisps should go on top of rice cakes as a pack of rice cakes is heavier and might squash crisps. When we got to the cashier (called Dan) he said he disagreed and would have put rice cakes on top of crisps as you often get broken crisps which are still edible but rice cakes need to retain their shape to be easy to eat. We ran out of space in my onyaback bag anyway so kept out the controversial crisps and rice cakes as a compromise for me, Davies and Dan 😆 I got a voucher for £3 off when I next spend over £30 and Davies straight away said ‘so you’d only spend £27’. We’d just been talking about how I feel learning through curiosity, relevance, asking questions is the right way to be educated rather than following a curriculum and how literacy and numeracy are of course important but I fail to see how anyone could grow up illiterate and innumerate in that sort of environment anyway so I explained that Davies had just done numeracy with that bit of mental maths and literacy in reading a cereal packet with ‘free feast of football’ on the front in that brief supermarket trip along with some numeracy in calculating weight, mass and volume of stuff in the whole placing it on the conveyor belt / shopping bag thinking along with forward planning, critical thinking and loads more. We then talked about what percentage of £30 £3 was.

Back home Ady got some tea on for the kids while we gave the ducklings their first proper swim. Yesterday was a shallow paddle introduction to water they stood and waddled around in, today was putting them out of their depth to test their swimming skills. We put a towel at one end so they had some semi-solid ‘ground’ to clamber on to and filled the bath to about 6 inches deep of room temperature water. They were straight in there proving the saying about taking to something like a duck to water :).

They had a lovely swim about being incredibly cute before going back into the brooder to warm up and dry off under their lamp. Am loving this learning alongside Scarlett and the ducklings themselves :).

I tend not to talk too much about all things political, knowing that that others mirror my own fairly strongly held political beliefs with contrasting views of their own. I can’t think of any issue I would feel strongly enough about to sway my vote or alligeance for one party on and indeed still hold the same political views I did at 16 when I embarked on my politics A level. True it is now tinged with a huge leaning towards anarchy and whilst I’d happily talk about politics in real life I feel it’s a lot like religious beliefs really, personal, deeply held and almost innate.

I do feel very strongly that everyone should vote, if only to go and spoil their paper in protest, I do feel very strongly that we are largely politically ignorant in this country with way too few of us knowing who we vote for, why we vote for them or questionning and challenging our ideas about who stands for what. I do have respect and tolerance for others views and a hell of a lot more so for those how have researched and genuinely discovered the party most in line with their views regardless of whether that is in line with my own. I’ve been quite dismayed at the HE community rather blindly following Graham Stuart and the Tories like some sort of messiah without looking at the bigger picture.

All that said I am happy at tonight’s news as it brings for me personally the closest to my political ideal I think possible at the moment. My local MP is the one I voted for and the one I feel both best represents me in parliament and is the best person for the job in terms of really making a difference locally. I’ve been impressed with the correspondance I’ve had with him and with his performance on Tower Block of Commons tv show. I like the fact we have a hung parliament meaning all of the extremes are diluted, all needs to be discussed, debated and compromised on, I am hugely relieved Ed Balls won’t have any position of great power any more.

So I’ve raised a glass, to resolution of days of uncertainty, to my personal best possible result and to getting on with life again having bought a big old chunk of time for my lifestyle to carry on as before. Selfish? Yes. Honest? Yes. Bloody relieved? Yes.

And there ends me talking about politics publicly.

Today was an at-home day so Tarly could bond with her ducklings, Davies could bond with things you plug in and I could get several loads of laundry processed.

We all slept in – much needed and then Tarly set about getting to know Lucky the yellow duckling and Sploosh the black duckling 🙂 She’s been talking to the eggs lots and they really do seem to think she’s their mama 🙂

Sploosh particularly is most happy when snuggled up on Tarly’s lap, they both try to follow her when she leaves the room and cheep loudly til she returns. They are very cute with their big beaks and webbed feet and fluffy wiggly bums :).

We took a trip to the pound shop to try and find a roller tray in which to introduce them to swimming. They didn’t have one but we did get a foil roasting dish instead which I was quite amused by the idea of ;). They have had three swimming sessions in it so far and have taken to the water like, well ducks to water I guess 🙂

They both seem really strong and healthy and will be ready for swimming in the bath by the end of the week I reckon. We even took them outside onto the lawn for a very short time this afternoon in the sunshine but they got chilled so we brought them back in again. Tarly is doing an excellent job of caring for them and it’s come at a really good time when she is still mourning for Candle.

I did indeed process much laundry, Davies watched a Star Wars film he’d only seen once before (not even going to attempt to recall which one it was) and then caught up on 2 of the 3 most recent Doctor Who’s as he’s missed them for various reasons. Just the Saturday just gone to catch up with and he’s up to date again. Just as well he’s not in school, I suspect he’d be a playground outcast for getting so behind ;).

It’s been a nice lazy day and we all enjoyed it :). Ady arrived home and cooked roast beef as we’ve missed at least 3 Sunday roasts lately and the kids really miss their roast dinners. Ady cleaned out his car as his new company car is due any day and I spent some time sewing. I’ve been stitching together loads of cut up fabric from swatch books into a patchwork which is probably about single bed cover size. I’m debating what to do with it next…

A late night all round which is probably not that sensible given we’re up early (for us) tomorrow to go to Safety Day in Berkshire organised by some very organised Home Educators. Ady has managed to be doing local stores to where it’s being held meaning we save money on petrol making it a nice cheap day out :).

We all reek of it despite baths and hair washes :). And my gorgeous camping blanket smells like camping again, after a winter draped over the sofa losing all it’s scent.

Friday I’d intended to stay up late but like many people once the exit polls started to look pretty accurate and I got my head round Jeremy Vine not looking at all like my mental image of him (I’ve seen him on tv before but every time I am shocked anew!) I got bored and fell asleep over my laptop. I woke at 130, saw very little had changed and staggered to bed.

I woke again at 530am, got up for a drink and then laid there wondering what was happening with the election and the ducklings (which had pipped the morning before then done *nothing* for 24 hours). So eventually I got up to check on both. The ducklings had still done nothing but the election tv coverage was hotting up a bit so I ended up staying to watch. Everyone else drifted down and I explained the whole thing to the children, ending with the idea of a hung parliament. Davies’ suggestion of ‘rock, paper, scissors’ to find resolution to the whole things made me laugh and made sense. I do wonder if that is what is happening behind closed doors 😆

I’d intended going back to bed as 530am is very much the middle of the night for me but never quite made it, so got dressed and then debated with Scarlett what to do about the ducklings. We concluded that they were not getting where they needed to be by themselves and although I tend to have a policy of non-intervention I could hear their cheeping getting fainter and decided to have a bit of a go at helping. So with tweezers I made proper breakthrough holes in the eggs, cleared an inch or so and moistened the membranes which were very dry. Ducks are not built as well as chickens for breaking out of eggs, having cumbersome, flat bills rather than sharp little beaks and indeed the mother duck would leave the nest for a swim every so often and return with a wet breast and underside to sit on the eggs which would keep them softer than in an incubator so it’s not that uncommon for incubated eggs to need a bit of a hand. I went off to work having seen both beaks and knowing we had one yelllow and one black and yellow duckling from the peep we could get inside the egg and having prepared Scarlett for the knowledge that they would either now make it to hatch on their own or not get any further but I’d done all I could. It’s really important that they break out of the actual egg themselves as there is a final part of the hatch where they take the yolk into their body and it seals (somewhere round their bums, umbilical cord stylee) which gives them their first meal and completes them. If you forcibly remove them from the shell this doens’t happen and it all goes rather wrong.

I went off to work for the morning, leaving my Dad here with the children and having talked to him about the possibility of duck care over the weekend. I’d been hoping to leave him with established eating, drinking, ducklings in the brooder rather than unhatched eggs as he’s done chick-watch many times for us but never egg-watch or hatch-watch.

Work was fine, I was in that slightly manic, not enough sleep state and Sarah was equally election-excited so we talked politics most of the morning and kept checking the bbc website for updates. It was Rhyme Time and I was very keen to do an election themed session which Cara the childrens librarian who was with us for the morning was equally keen on but neither of us could think of any suitable songs. We debated rewriting some but felt maybe that would be a bit above the audience’s heads (small children and our very lovely, but not particularly politically aware mothers) so didn’t bother – lavenders blue dilly dilly might have worked but then again it might not 😆

I finished work at 145pm and was home just before 2pm. The eggs still hadn’t moved on much but were still alive and cheeping so I set the brooder up, assembled food and water dishes and told Dad to remove them from the incubator once they were fluffy and into the brooder if they hatched, to just turn the incubator off if they didn’t if they died and to ring me if he wasn’t okay with anything and I’d either help over the phone or come home if needs be, being only an hour away. He did say ‘but I’ve never bred ducks before!’ to which I had to reply ‘well no, neither have I!’ 😆

We chucked the last few bits in the car and set off. We did mention that we’d never have gotten out the house quite so fast if Ady had been with us ;). I called into Sainsburys for a few bits and Screwfix for a mallet – we’d decided to just have a mallet in each tent bag. That was an experience – I’ve never been in a Screwfix before and they operate a bit like Argos where you take your item code number to the till. So I had to look through the caterlogue, find the code, queue up and then the guy serving wanted my name and postcode. I was in there about 15 minutes in the end and he was moaning about the rubbish system. We decided he’d be better off borrowing my mallet to bash the computer in 😆

Arrived at the Sustainability Centre at about 4pm and after trailing round for a bit trying to find someone (always a problem there, trying to track someone down to check in with) I found a guy in the cafe who had a list of who was expected and where we were to pitch. We were in Hazel bay so I drove down and got the tent out. You can never park right next to your pitch so there is a bit of carting stuff across the field but I’d been in charge of packing my own car, which in fairness does have a lot more space than Ady’s so I’d already accounted for that and packed in reverse order of when I’d need stuff so the tent was at the front. I’d already warned Davies and Scarlett that a) I’d need a small amount of help holding poles in position and b) that I was likely to be bad tempered and easily riled while putting the tent up so not to ask silly questions or distract me while I was getting on with it. So the plan was to hang around to help briefly before buggering off out of my way into the woods. Unfortunately they forgot pretty much straight away and headed off leaving me to get the tent up alone. They then came back and started drawing my attention to things like half buried bent tent pegs. They got a lecture ;). Scarlett then told me I should see the silver lining of their actions which was that I’d managed to put the tent up all by myself even though I thought I couldn’t and that I should be proud of myself rather than cross with them. Don’t know where she gets that glass half full ness from ;). Then Ady arrived.

We put the porch up which had me swearing several times as we butched the tent and the porch together. Ady just can’t get his head round which bits rely on each other to stay up so was pulling on things in the wrong directions and it kept pinging off. He also insists on calling pegs guys and the other way round which irrationally makes me want to stab him with the peg and remind him that one hurts far more than the other and he’d do well to recall the names in future! 😆 But it all came good and although it looked rather random it was the perfect set up for the weekend – we only really used the tent to sleep in but spent lots of time sitting in the porch with the fire pulled close when it drizzled and all the kitchen area stayed dry with plenty of space to pull chairs etc into to keep dry without needing to be inside the main tent.

Camped opposite us (infact we’d done a straight swap of pitches from last year when we were in Olive and they were in Hazel) were Leah and Nicky – Nicky is Campcraft man and Lia his partner who we’d chatted to a little last year when Davies and Scarlett made friends with their twins on the Sunday and they’d identified us as Suspected Home Educators. The twins are now 6, identical girls called Marli and Nikita and they have a toddler called Cushla too who was very cheerily bimbling about in her waterproofs having been a babe in arms last year. This year Marli and Nikita came over as soon as they spotted us and teamed up with Scarlett for the whole weekend. The three of them had a ball together running wild and free, playing with the newly installed chickens and generally having the run of the place. Ady observed that Tarly only seems to make friends with children who look like her and indeed lots of the kids friends have the same colouring and general look about them as they do.

We called childrens’ bedtime around 930pm I think and they fell asleep really quickly. Having been up since 530am I was pretty tired and ready for bed not a lot later. That is clearly the secret recipe for a good first nights sleep camping because I was asleep really quickly and woke feeling great on Saturday.

Scarlett spent pretty much the whole day with M and N coming back when they were hungry and cooking things on sticks over the campfire 🙂

Davies felt slightly left out of the equation – nothing deliberate on the part of the girls, they simply weren’t playing games he wanted to join in with. So he spent lots of time with Ady, did several watercolour paintings and got the fire going with collected straw and birch bark and his fire steel. It was grey and a bit drizzly for most of the day but we sat in our porch and enjoyed that outdoors but undercover feeling. Ady said he felt a bit like a smug caravanner 😆 so we kept the campfire burning all day long.

I very much enjoyed being able to make a hot chocolate with brandy, marshmallows and whipped cream while remaining seated infront of the campfire as everything was within armchair reach :). I nipped down to the local shop for a couple of bits and had a phone call from my Dad to say the ducklings had both hatched and he’d moved them to the brooder :).

When I got back Lia nipped out to the shops leaving M and N with us then came back and sat round round our fire with us chatting. We didn’t do the ‘do you know?’ about local to them HEors (Devon) but I suspect we do know some of the same people. The girls got on so well we’ve exchanged contact details with Lia promising to call in on us next time she’s passing (her mum lives in Newhaven so they pass us quite often) and us to visit them if we’re down Devon way and a tentative meet up planned while we’re at Okehampton – she loved the idea of YH camps :).

There is a new camping warden, called Seb who came round to introduce himself and chat for a while. He said he’d already heard about us and it was lovely to be there and see all the various staff over the weekend look so pleased to see us and call ‘good to see you back’ – it’s so nice to be ‘regulars’ there :).

Suddenly four families arrived, all with at least two small children each, in great big tents with very little space to pitch them in. They were all very posh and incredibly irritating. At least one of the families had just hired the entire tent and contents including camping beds, sleeping bags and even chairs off the internet (I didn’t even know you could do that!) and although they were very irritating and if they’d been staying very long I would probably have had to leave (or stab them with tent pegs) what they brought in irritance value they more than made up for in entertainment value. They must have had at utterly miserable stay – they arrived about 2pm, set up with much arguing between couples in the rain – all the children (head to toe in expensive wellies and waterproofs) spent their time falling over guy ropes, touching nettles, getting muddy and mostly crying. Ady and I sat under our porch, next to our campfire, drinking cider and inwardly smirking (we’re so mean ;)). They spent ages putting wailing children to bed, all of them taking it in turns to go back into respective tents as the children continued to not sleep and make lots of fuss instead. Finally at about 10pm they donated the rest of their firewood to us and all went to bed 😆

It was a very rowdy night as there were about 10 pre / early teens staying for a birthday party with a couple of adults in the tipis who were up singing and being noisy til about midnight – which didn’t bother us as once Davies and Scarlett are asleep it takes a LOT of noise to wake them and we were snuggled up warm in our sleeping bags and quite happy to listen to it all going on, but seemed to disturb the smaller children a fair bit. And of course they were all awake pretty early on Sunday morning as little children tend to be. I laid in the tent listening to an ongoing saga about bacon for about 25 minutes (seriously!) as they were doing some sort of communal cooking and had rationed bacon at one rasher each which took all sorts of diplomatic discussions and talks. Then they all packed up and left! No staying for the Green Fair or anything. A trip of less than 24 hours with pretty much no actual enjoyment at all.

Nicky did wander over to Ady on Sunday morning and mutter something about hotels being a better option for some people 😆

So Sunday dawned dry and with sunny spells as the forecast had promised. Bright sunshine all day would have been even nicer like we’ve had for the past couple of years but this was just as acceptable. Scarlett carried on hanging out with M and N and they spent a large portion of their day at the chalk carving.


Davies did a lot of free ranging too and spent some time with Ady and I too, but in the main Ady and I got to wander round just the two of us which was a bit lovely :). We did lots of chatting to various stall holders including a woman selling goats cheese, the bat and beekeepers associations, various eco educational places and some carbon footprint reduction ideas. We went back to the tent for lunch and a beer and kept the fire burning for most of the day again. We made friends with a lovely couple who mill their own oats, grain and corn to make flour, cornmeal, rolled oats, oatmeal, spelt flour etc. They needed some hot water to make porridge for people to try so we supplied some and in exchange they spent ages with Davies and Scarlett teaching them all about the various crops and letting them do some hand grinding and tasting the results and gave us a significant discount on the few bits we bought from them. I spent ages talking to a woman who makes creams and lotions and potions and bought a couple of bits from her – still a very appealing thing to learn about for me, maybe I’ll do something about it this year.

I really enjoyed listening to a tree and went to several talks (which were a new feature this year) including one by Maddy Harland from Permaculture Magazine and one by Mary, the Sustainability Centre manager which were both really interesting.

It was much busier this year which is great as it brings in more revenue, spread the word of what the centre is all about and so on but there was also a rather trashed feel to the place by the end. We stayed with our tent later in the afternoon as loads of people were sitting nearby and letting their children and dogs wander around our tent and even through our porch! We had been really pleased to see the leftover house god we’d brought back from Butser last year and left in the compost loo there as a ‘toilet god’ still in situ when we arrived on Friday and were really sad to see it smashed on the floor by the end of Sunday :(.

The Green Fair started to get quieter and I walked up to the cars to get the bags for the tent, sleeping bags, mats, tables, chairs and kitchen and bumped into Olivia and her boys. They came back to our tent for a chat and went into the woods with Davies for a while. Ady and I started a leisurely packing up process. We were done fairly quickly and then brought my car down to load it up. The Sunday night is something of a party night for the staff and some of the regular exhibitors and the bands stay on to play. I remember last year feeling sad to leave and this year several of the staff expressed surprise we weren’t staying – next year we’ll definitely stay for Sunday night too and Ady can go straight to work from there on Monday morning while the kids and I pack up.

We said goodbye to everyone and Tarly and I went in my car, Ady and Davies in his. Thanks to a stop for petrol they caught us up and we arrived home together. Duckling worship – they really did seem to know Scarlett’s voice, she did spend a lot of time talking to the eggs 🙂 – and we moved them into her bedroom. The kids had a bath followed by bed, Ady and I unloaded the car and packed stuff away.

I concede the bath was a bit more relaxing than the now completed and operational strawbale solar powered showers and my bed was cosier than my sleeping bag but I swear arriving at the Sustainability Centre on Friday felt more like coming home than getting back here last night.

We did sleeping til we woke up this morning. And yes we all always sleep til we wake but we don’t necessarily wake naturally.

We breakfasted, packed sandwiches and checked addresses then headed off to Brighton to do Lookering. Nine sheep all fine, the water needed topping up so Tarly did that from one of the containers on site. She asked me how long and how often we’d be doing the whole lookering thing and when I replied ongoing into the future but certainly at least once a week throughout May she was delighted :).

We left there and headed over to Olivia’s. We’ve been meaning to go at least twice before. It’s a regular weekly get together at Olivia’s house which at best we could only manage fortnightly as I work every other Thursday but I’ve long looked at and thought Davies and Scarlett would love. Today seemed equally ill-fated given we were running late and there was a road closure diversion which utterly threw my scrawled directions from google maps into disarray, let alone me not knowing the house number anyway. We drove around for a good half hour before finally happening on it. I rang Olivia to say ‘we’ve come to your house, now what number is it?’ and were there :).

They have a very cool living space but a super cool garden including fab treehouse (pretty much full size shed) which is above a trampoline for dare devil leaping onto, free ranging chickens, bottle fed lambs (aswell as gerbils and degus and a gecko inside the house) and fab features such as a mound with a concrete tunnel. Davies and Scarlett disappeared straight away and didn’t come back til I called them to go home a full 3 hours later :).

Ben (Olivia’s husband) was there doing all sorts of cool woodwork with interested parties, Magdalen (another HE mum) was there doing belt pouches with leather scraps. I made one each for Davies, Scarlett and I for fire steels and penknives. Scarlett was in her element bottle feeding the lambs twice, holding gerbils and generally soaking up the animal-tastic atmosphere. 🙂

I enjoyed sitting around chatting to various other grown ups before finally coming away just after 4pm when I was aware we’d hit serious traffic on the way home if we didn’t. We got home at 5pm having gotten slightly lost again coming out of their village and having decided to drive over the downs rather than risk the usual traffic hotspots.

Back home we were expecting ducklings as two of the eggs were pipping this morning. Not a lot of progress had been made though which has us all slightly concerned as I had timed it with precision for leaving ducklings with my Dad to look after rather than eggs still hatching…

A busy evening loading my car up ready for the weekend, Ady got the brooder ready for ducklings-to-come, the kids got their bags packed for the weekend. I cooked dinner and Ady and I watched Outnumbered (so brilliant that show). Am now feeling tired and aware of getting up for work in the morning as well as wanting to stay up to watch eggs and election results.

I worked this morning and Caz had Davies and Scarlett. Due to my haphazard style of airily saying ‘we’ll talk online to confirm’ when Caz and I parted last week I’d not been fully confident it was properly arranged and had been texting both Caz and Bid last night with no replies. So I rang at 730am when my alarm went off to check. Not sure I’ve ever rung anyone so early in the morning ever :). I cajoled children out of bed and dropped them off, staying for a far longer ‘quick’ chat than I really had time for and dashing to work.

Work was fine, uneventful, not much else to say really. I did an hour of shelving, 90 minutes of the counter and an hour of ordering in yet more dinosaur books, more audio books for Tarly and clearing out my tray which was brimming over with old paperwork.

I nipped home to change into jeans and headed to C&B’s to find Caz sitting on the doorstep supervising the four children playing outside. We sat on the doorstop chatting while the three boys carried on putting on a sort of dancing / martial arts type show ‘Britains Got Talent’ style (I was Simon apparently ;)) and Scarlett gathered as many snails as she could find around the garden. She really lucked out when she found an old coconut that must have once been used as a bird feeder but was now home to about 25 snails all packed in :). Talked about Scarlett’s animal breeding ambitions to Caz who knew a girl in NZ who bred guinea pigs. Further discussion needed and more research to be done but I see a wealth of educational opportunities in the idea from genetics and animal husbandry to animal welfare, mating, gestation, observation of life cycles to small business set up. I suspect, whilst we need to be very responsible and consciencious about it this request needs to be met. Am considering small rodents as ideally it needs to be indoors (I think).

Bid arrived home while we were chatting and made lunch for them so we headed off for a very late lunch of our own. Scarlett painted my nails for me, Davies played with Ben 10 characters and then we all headed off to Badgers.

Tonight they learnt about the contents of a first aid box, what essentials you’d pack for camping. Then we took them outside and did more vinegar and bicarb experiments and played some games. It was mostly enjoyable although I get really fed up of the crowd control aspect.

Back home again and we arrived shortly after Ady and shortly before my parents. They came armed with plenty of postcards, a few small token gifts for the children and plenty of stories of things they’d seen, people they’d met, things they’d eaten and more. It sounds like they had a wonderful trip full of rich experiences and exciting times 🙂 .They stayed far later than we’d expected but had come having already eaten as their jeg lagged body clocks needed feeding at 6pm and only left just before 10pm because they were both yawning constantly and feeling like it was the middle of the night.

Ady and I whipped up a dinner from leftovers and stuff we had in the kitchen, had baths and were sitting down before 11pm ;).

Tomorrow along with voting and shepherding we have an invite to some new friends which we may or may not take them up on depending on how we all feel.

The plan was a lay-in for all Goddards not getting up to go to work this morning. But Miss Goddard woke just the same and having gotten bored watching Ady unpack his car and decant it into the playroom she came and tried to wake Davies and I up instead. I did wake, Davies didn’t.

I woke up properly around 9am and came downstairs to provide breakfast etc. Davies had also woken by then. I got the first of several loads of washing on and ran a bath. Davies had first bath although he lucked out rather as Scarlett went to chat to him while he was in the bath and ended up getting in with him anyway. They stayed in there for about 90 minutes but were incredibly grimy so probably needed a good long soak :). They helped each other to wash hair and overall did a good job of convincing me that more than one child is worth two labours ;).

I left them to their own devices while I caught up with online stuff and booked various things I should have booked already such as campsites and mid point travelodges for our Scotland trip in July. They played with Lego, Davies did some animation on the animationstation and Scarlett declared her wish to do some animal breeding. I’ve sort of been expecting that as the next logical step but we have a current deal that she can choose some sort of bedroom pet when she can read a book about caring for it so I reiterated the need for reading as a skill for such endeavours which hopefully saw off such requests for a while. I’m torn between feeling that actually breeding animals is a pretty cool activity for a 7year old and worried at trying to make it happen. More discussion needed I feel… Ady and I have been discussing in idle moments scary stuff like The Future and I suspect we will drift towards it again in the right environment. A weekend at Sustainability Centre might well prove just such a place. Animal breeding could well be a possibility then.

I made lunch. The children ate it and requested more – maybe we didn’t feed them enough this weekend! 😆 Chatted to Ady at length on the phone about roofboxes. Concluded very little.

Then it was swimming. I wasn’t in a swimming place today and I am undecided as to whether I should be rallying against what could be an unconscious ‘Swimming. Tick.’ mentality or listening to myself and taking a bit of a break. Today I listened and quite enjoyed watching snippets of the kids’ lessons and reading my book. I’m definitely not done with swimming but maybe a sabbatical is in order. Or maybe come next Tuesday I’ll be raring to go?

Scarlett came and sat with me while Davies has his lesson – she snuggled up and played her DS leaning into me while I read. I love that physical closeness without engaging with each other state that Tarly is great at pulling off. I like being physically entangled while being involved in seperate things too but Ady and Davies are less able at that than Scarlett and I seem. Am I talking nonsense or does anyone else know what I mean?

Back home I cooked their tea and did laundry rotation. The secondary cockerel is desperate to be mating but can’t seem to get a hen to acquiese so the primary cockerel is doing lots of watch and learn type demos which the secondary cockerel goes all around the mating pair viewing from all angles. It is hilarious to watch and I am really enjoying this glimpse into the world of the bantam male.

Ady arrived home and we all had half an hour catching up with each other before I headed off to Sainsburys. We seem to be low on basic stuff like tins, bags of sugar and flour and frozen vegetables so I went off to do a top up shop. I half expected to bump into my parents as at least 50% of the visits I make there in the evening see me meeting my Mum and sure enough my Dad and I spotted each other simultaneously at the end of the cereal aisle. I’ve missed them several times this last 3 weeks – when Candle went obviously, in looking after the chickens this weekend and particularly my Dad in just being there. I’d worried about them so far away, fretted about them getting stranded with volcanic ash issues and just low-level felt their absence in the UK. We had big hugs and brief catch up chats – not told them about Candle yet as it would have been a blurting out type thing and I suspect that is Scarlett’s forte rather than mine :(. We parted with a promise to see them tomorrow sometime.

Back home again I put away the shopping, Ady cooked dinner and we lit a small coal fire to celebrate being indoors again. All the camping stuff is stewn about the playroom as it will be being packed up into my car again on Thursday night ready for Sustainability Centre on Friday – perfect camping really – less than an hour from home if it’s too cold or horrid, campfires allowed and encouraged and Hazel ;).

Saturday Work for me in the morning – Ady ran me in and I pottered about ordering in more top up books for my rather successful dinosaur display, sorting out the Reading groups folder and then covering the desk. One of the resident ‘characters’ is a man who claims to have written a book about Arsenal FC (mostly based on the wikipedia information he gets us to print out) and has now turned his attention to Liverpool. He is quite rude, very demanding and incredibly smelly. I am quite curt with him and match his tone of rudeness back as it really puts my back up to be spoken to like that. He often brings in scrappy bits of paper with misspelt things on them and expects us to decipher his handwriting and creative spelling while sitting back and demanding we print things off for him. Last week in my 11 hours I dealt with him 3 times and once handed him over to someone else to help him with the photocopier he had annoyed me so much. It’s rare I feel disinclined to be helpful at work but he certainly has that effect on me.

Ady and the kids picked me up at 1pm in a fully loaded car. This weekend, where we travelled fairly light but still in a jam-packed car has decided us that a roof box really is a necessity. I really feel we have cracked packing sensibly in terms of not bring loads of stuff we don’t need but we were full to bursting and that was without the larger tent or things like windbreak, clothes for a longer period and the toilet. Davies and Scarlett are getting too big to have much stuff stacked around their feet and I’m very aware of a long car journey to Scotland in July being made as comfortable as possible by not having the car stuffed full. Ady also tends to be in charge of packing the car up and gets very stressed about what goes where and in what order so it would be nice to have more space to play with to allow the tent to be taken out first when arriving but packed in last when leaving if that makes sense.

The drive to Norfolk was long and pretty boring, mostly motorway and increasingly flatter with less to look at the further north we went. It took 3.5 hours and we drove through all sorts of weather conditions but arrived in bright sunshine. We were really impressed with lots about the site – friendly staff, excellent toilet and shower facilities, large central park area for the children with climbing frame, sandpit and swing, a pen with a load of goats (that was Scarlett happy then!), a small shop that was reasonably priced on essentials and had a nice selection of penny sweets and goat food for the kids to get their retail hit each day. There was a small woodland area which Ady, Scarlett and I went off for a walk into once and the children all had another wander into one evening and the site had a friendly, safe feeling.

On the downside despite the pitches being very flat and generous with cute little hedges seperating them it all just felt a bit ordered and organised. Our favourite campsites are the ones where campfires are allowed, you pitch where you like and experience a real feeling of being away from civilisation and out and at one with nature. This campsite with it’s hook ups and high proportion of campers and caravans with satalite tv, strings of fairy lights and wireless broadband felt a bit too much like suburbia with the odd tree on each street corner to offset the rows of terraced houses. I liked it, have nothing to complain about it but it’s not what we love about camping. And it was quite a long drive.

But as usual it’s friends that make all things worth the effort and it’s felt like far too long since we’ve been with friends. Lovely to be with Marcus & Michelle, Chris & Helen, Jax & Tim, Bob & Katy and all assorted children and meet Zoe and Wayne aswell :).

We pitched nice and quickly – the new tent went up really easily and the new camp kitchen fitted nicely in the porch so the cooking area was all undercover-ish. Really pleased with the set-up for shorter camping trips :). We didn’t quite manage to pitch totally straight though and the first night’s very heavy rain did puddle a little on the roof of the second section and come through in the night to create a few pools inside the next morning. Easily remedied by more careful pitching next time though.

The first evening there was a hog roast on site and as our planned meal of bolognaise hadn’t defrosted yet it was very welcome. Ady, Scarlett and I had hog roast, Davies had some beans. We really enjoyed it :). We sat out all evening on Saturday although it did get quite cold. As usual I didn’t sleep much the first night and the very heavy rain at dawn meant I was pretty tired on Sunday.

The rain did cease around the time I got up and Ady cooked a lovely cooked breakfast. Davies wasn’t very sociable for much of the weekend and I’m pretty sure hook up didn’t help as the lure of sitting next to the heater watching dvds in the tent proved stronger than playing with friends in the park. Scarlett hooked up with some other small girls goat worshipping so she didn’t spend as much time with friends as I’d expected either. They both say they really enjoyed the weekend though but were not as much a part of the group as they usually are. I wondered if that was due to a large number of the group being more regularly meeting-up friends. I also watched Davies for a while with some of the older girls getting pulled and prodded about and called ‘Boy’ in a slightly derogative tone. I didn’t talk to him about it and if it was worrying him he could have said so and I’m sure they’d have stopped but Davies’ first line of defense tends to be retreat so several times when I asked him why he’d come away from the group he simply said he didn’t enjoy what they were playing so had left.

Michelle and Chloe returned from a walk in the woods having seen a herd of deer up quite close so Ady, Scarlett and I went off for a walk too but didn’t manage to see anything. A nice walk though :). The others were heading off to a local museum which sounded quite interesting but Scarlett very vocally was against museum visiting, Ady was happier just hanging out at the site and Davies was also just as happy staying put so I nipped into Cromer for a few bits from the supermarket, some more socks for Ady, some socks and a hat for me and returned with the sunshine. Davies and Scarlett were very happily at the park, Ady and I had declared it alcohol-o’clock and were sitting in the sunshine and the Salmon’s arrived, soon followed by Chris & Helen and Marcus & Michelle.

A very enjoyable evening followed with special entertainment laid on by Chris and his tarp :lol:. It was cold but stayed pretty much dry and most of us decamped into Chris and Helen’s tent. Ady stayed in our tent chatting with Davies and Scarlett who had snuggled into bed already when a nighttime woods walk was mentioned. We didn’t tell them as getting them up and dressed again seemed too hassly but those who went enjoyed it. I was already one glass of wine over sure footedly walking in woods in the dark so I didn’t attend either ;).

I slept much better thanks to socks. Hate to say it but like tables I have to concede they may have uses ;).

Monday was Bewilderwood day. We’d planned to leave in convoy but we were all up and ready to go and I get all stroppy hanging around so we headed off. We expected everyone else to catch up but in the end we had most of the morning just the four of us as the others had taken a different route and stopped at the storytelling. As it happened we had a really nice time and it’s rare Ady gets to enjoy stuff like that with us so it was no bad thing. We had loads of fun on the wires, bridges, giant swings and crazy slides.

I really liked Bewilderwood, I loved the little tree houses and things like the shoe tree. I love the low environmental impact of a theme park based on your own energy instead of rollercoasters and other electric fancies. I thought the cafes and kiosks were very reasonabily priced and we loved the free crafts. All four of us made a mushroom to bring home and Scarlett made a butterfly feeder too. I thought the shop was disappointing and we didn’t buy anything in there as it was either plastic tat unrelated to Bewilderwood or ethnic ethically traded stuff that was lovely but expensive and equally unrelated to Bewilderwood. I’d already ordered the books from the library so no need to buy those and we have a lifetime supply of soft toys already. The man at the exit gave us handfuls of badges though so we all left with about 4 of those each :).

I thought the educational price Michelle organised was a fair price for the day, I’d not have wanted to pay full price though. Thankfully the weather (and it wasn’t nice, it hailed twice) kept away what I would expect to be usual bank holiday crowds but the crafts and interactive storytelling would probably not have been around on a normal term time week day so we got the best of both worlds for braving the elements.

Some of the others were heading to a local walk on the way back to the campsite but we decided to head straight back as we had the tent to take down. Ady was working Tuesday which meant either packing up and heading for home Monday evening, arriving late but having the kids and I home for Tuesday meaning we could do swimming lessons, get washing done, be around for the possibility of early ducklings hatching (due on Wednesday), plus my parents are due back. Or packing up early Tuesday and spending the day in the car with Ady visiting garden centres on the way home. We went for late home Monday.

The weather was a bizare mix of sunshine and showers with lots of wind blowing the clouds about so the kids played and we packed up as the weather allowed, finally leaving just the tent. We stopped for fish and chips for dinner and a final cup of tea and chat before loading the tent and the kids into the car and finally got off about 845pm. We had a very easy run home, both kids actually dozed and we pulled up a few minutes before midnight.

Thanks to no Candle to deal with the house was exactly as we’d left it, we stripped sleepy children off and into pjs and bed and they fell back asleep in moments. Ady and I had a cup of tea, enjoyed having the heating on and sleeping in our own bed. A late night but definitely the right decision :).

I have photos so will drop them in later. A really nice weekend with lovely friends, not the most perfect first camp of the year weather wise but equally could have been a whole lot worse and a great way to kick off the season. Bring on the coming weekend! ;).

Woke with my very late set alarm this morning and had to rouse sleepy children. We’re so rubbish at mornings :).

Caz had already sent me a text while we were still breakfasting, then Archie rang and I said we were about to leave but then we had a drama involving Davies’ phone and the garlic and onion sets. I am quite happy for the children to roam in the downs and woodland at the allotment, totally out of sight for large chunks of time if they have a phone so I can check in that they are okay and alert them to iminent leaving. Davies has a phone that we gave him when he went to camp last year. My children don’t have many responsibilities, mostly because I feel quite strongly that they are children and the time for responsibilities will be upon them soon enough but I do expect them to be in charge of things like knowing where their belongings are, maintainance such as keeping things charged up and letting me know if they need more credit etc are. Basically this extends to DSs and Badger uniform I think – they need to gague whether their Badger clothes need washing and if so put them in the washing basket, if not put them away tidily so they know where they are next time they need them, putting their DSs on charge each evening so they know where they are and they are fully charged for the next day. For Davies this also includes keeping the whereabouts of his phone in mind and ensuring it is charged. So he couldn’t find his phone, when we rang it it went to voicemail suggesting it was flat. I explained I wasn’t going to get cross even though I was a bit cross because the natural consequence of that was that I wasn’t happy with them going out of sight for very long. The phone got found, it was indeed flat and then I couldn’t find the garlic and onion set that I’d been planning to put in today.

We finally arrived at the allotment, Caz gave the kids her phone and off they went. Caz and I did weeding, seaweed spreading, digging, watering and HUGE amounts of chatting. I love Caz, she is so unlike most of my friends, amazingly easy company and I don’t think we’d ever run out of things to talk about :). At one point the children reappeared with sweets to check they could eat them. They’d come across a couple walking their dog, been asked why they weren’t in school and explained all about Home Ed and then been given sweets by them :). It perfectly illustrated something Caz and I had been talking about about trusting the children to listen to their own intuition, not be blanket wary or naive about people they come across and trusting their instincts :).

We suddenly realised it was 3pm and we all had places to be so we gathered up the children and parted. Davies, Scarlett and I dashed to Sainsburys for last minute supplies for dinner and camping. We hit a big traffic jam and were cutting it very fine for getting home and infact pulled up behind Frankie outside our house. She is chicken sitting for us while we’re away and had come to see how everything worked. I showed her and her son Harry round, Davies and Scarlett introduced them to all the chickens and gave them a load of eggs to take away. They got an impromptu chicken biology lesson too when I explained to Scarlett about a chicken’s crop :lol:. We waved them off and all had something to eat then Davies and Scarlett went off to play while I chopped up and sewed together some material and debated a patchwork cover for the sofas. Ady came home and we attempted an interesting conversation but were too interupted by Scarlett who sensed something being discussed so kept chiming in with nonsense.

We gathered everything together for the weekend, the kids had a bath and some tea and we littered the playroom floor with more stuff than looks feasible to fit in the car let alone for just a weekend.

Scarlett and I candled the eggs again and two are just too full to see anything but the air pocket is intact so that’s promising, the third is quite veiny but we clearly saw lots of movement so that was exciting :).

Pizza for dinner, last bath til Tuesday, children finally asleep and I still have a mornings work before I’m released for first camping trip of the season :).

Ady took Davies and Scarlett to work with him today. He is doing it fairly regularly and while I suspect the three of them spend most of their day in charity shops lunching at McDonalds and he often comes home rather exhausted by them I think this is in general A Good Thing. I do worry that Ady still maintains something of a Novelty Parent status which I don’t think is healthy or great for anyone really. Maybe I’m lazy and not really trying hard enough but I do feel that Parenting is something I do very little of and just spending time with Davies and Scarlett rarely feels like a chore or work or effort. I am aware I can be a bit controlling though and maintaining a hands off approach rather than meddling in other peoples relationships is something I struggle with, so the more time they all have in each others’ company without me around the better really ;).

So my day was fine. I did some reassuring and comforting a colleague who freaked out when Storytime got too big and rowdy for her to contemplate doing, enjoyed talking to an old American guy who came in and when I asked how I could help him tried to persuade me to to adopt him. Apparently my children and chickens were potential deal breakers although he thought he’d get on just fine with Ady. Then he told me about his property in France and I tried to persuade him to adopt me instead! 😆

I had part two of my PDR (personal development review) which was about setting objectives for the coming year. I reiterated once again that I am happy to take on as much responsibility as they can offer me whilst remaining very aware of the constraints of 11 hours a week. There is a long term opportunity possibly for the next grade up position but would required more hours per week and the hourly rate is not really sufficient for the amount of additional responsibility but I might give it more thought when it becomes a real possibility. I suspect at least one other of my colleagues is thinking the same however and I’m definitely not in the market for competitive stress for the brief hours I spend at work as it is by far the smallest and least important parts of my life. A combination of pushing myself forward with the Chatterbooks thing, volunteering my time and being ever helpful and up for taking things on and being a bit over familiar has definitely got me in the loop with the important people though and it’s nice to feel recognised and more than just an assistant.

Back at home I finished sewing my first patchwork project, rainbow squares from a swatch book. The resulting rectangle wasn’t really big enough to do much at all with so I have made a bag with it and used some denim scraps for handles. It’s very long and shallow so perfect for stuff sticking out the ends, like french bread or rolled up towels. I’ve used it to pack my clothes for camping this weekend so it’s already proved useful :). My next project is definitely trying to recover the sofas which will either prove way easier than I’m expecting or totally impossible – place your bets now! 😉

Scarlett rang to say they were all stuck in traffic so I had a chat with her and Davies (and Ady shouting in the background) and got their tea on ready for their arrival home. Ady and I looked out the camping stuff from the Cupboard of Doom (under the stairs) and I chucked out one bin liner full of stuff, a load of cardboard boxes into the recycling and three bags of clothes that are too good to be chopped up for scrap material but I’ll realistically never get round to ebaying either are now by the front door for the clothes bank / charity shop tomorrow.

Davies and Scarlett went to bed, Ady and I had dinner and I’m hopeful of decent weather tomorrow as we’ve an allotment visit planned.

We were up and out early again this morning. Thanks to various confusions we were off to Home Ed book club for one of the craft sessions as the group is doing the Summer Reading Challenge display for Bognor library. (As an aside I am very envious of not thinking of this idea first for Lancing ;)). There are four sessions planned with various Space related themes and ideas. But before we went there I had some books I was waiting for to collect from the library. So we dashed there first, handily used my key to go in before they opened (causing much confusion and consternation 😉 ) and came back out again. We needed petrol so stopped for that and were still at Caz’s by 930am as she needed to follow us to Mel’s house as I could take her there but not give any sort of coherant directions.

Arrived there for 10am and chatted with Clare and Mel who were running the sessions. Today Clare was doing Factual Planets and had cut out more or less to scale planets from the solar system along with the sun to be decorated. Scarlett chose the Sun and Davies chose Neptune. Clare had brought loads of newspaper to tear out small sections and cover the planets with words to tie in with ‘facts and figures’. Various words jumped out for various planets though so they particularly chose those to be obvious (eg ‘energy’, ‘star’ ‘hot’ and so on for Scarlett’s sun). I read to Davies from one of the many books there about Neptune and he chose 1846 (the year it was discovered) from sudoko numbers, the words ‘freeze’ and ‘sea’ and then found all the letters from ‘Neptune’ and stuck those on too. Next he used green and blue tissue paper to colour it while using lots of glue so the letters showed through. It looked ace 🙂
. Finally I read a section of the book out and Davies recalled the most interesting facts about Neptune and I helped him write them out for an information card to attach to the planet. He wrote ‘A Neptune year is 165 Earth years, Neptune has 8 moons, Neptune is 4.5 billion km away from the sun’.

Scarlett decorated her sun with red, orange and yelllow tissue paper and then was persuaded to write ‘the sun is a star, it is in the centre of the solar system’. Her sun also looked fab and will be the centrepiece of that particular display :).


I was really proud of her on several occassions this morning as she willingly gave things to other people that they wanted and although she found it really hard she was good about not being allowed to go outside. Mel has a dog, kittens, guinea pigs, ducks and chickens so her garden was something of a paradise to Scarlett but she’d asked if she could go out and Mel had said ‘not today, there are too many children and the animals need a space to escape to’ which was reasonable (and actually even if it wasn’t, it’s Mel’s house and she gets to make up the rules ;)) but not everyone paid heed so Scarlett was in the tough position of having asked and been directly told no but watching other people out there.

We headed for home as we were getting hungry and had decided to have the afternoon at home playing for D&S and sewing for me. I’d found a pattern for some reusable sandwich wraps to make with plastic backed fabric and had got some yesterday so was keen to have a go at making some. I’ve made four, one each for all of us and decorated them too – well I decorated Ady and my ones, Davies and Scarlett decorated their own. I think they all look great and will be so much nicer than using cling film for our next picnic aswell as wipe clean afterwards.

That done it was time for tea for Davies and Scarlett before we went to Badgers. Tonight we had a talk from the man who runs Badger and Cadet camp with his wife. He talked about setting up a campsite and where to put everything then handed out sheets of paper with ‘cadet and badger tents’ ‘adult tents’ ‘kitchen tent’ ‘food preparation area’ ‘toilets’ ‘bins’ ‘marquee’ and so on on them and split the Badgers into teams to set up campsites with them. The twins who can be tricky were tricky today so I had to do some squabbling refereeing which I struggle with a bit. Justine (another adult helper) and I then took them outside to play games on the lawn. We started with stuck in the mud by popular vote and then I set up 3 markers (using coats from my car) and split them into three teams to do relay races. I’d been encouraging them to be quite loud and Julie came out and told them off which I thought was a bit mean :(. She then gave the Badgers a bit of a lecture about behaviour and talked about some sort of sticker chart type reward scheme for them behaving well. I *really* struggle with that and was trying very hard not to pull faces and heckle her :lol:.

We got home and while the kids made themselves some toast I dismantled the swatch books I’d got yesterday to get the material out and chopped some of it up to make patchwork with. I now have a small rectangle of very lovely rainbow patchwork but not enough to do anything with really – will ponder further. But I am loving my sewing machine :).

Scarlett was keen to get to bed and listen to an audio book so Davies and I took the opportunity to read part two of Clockwork which Scarlett had found too scary. I then did more sewing til dinnertime before having a late bath and spending far too much time unsucessfully trying to sort out the old laptop which is virus ridden again :(.

This morning I finally did my first lookering stint. I’ve been waiting since the beginning of December last year and this weekend when a plea went out for some last minute availability for lookering I stuck my name down for this morning. It was rather shortsighted and reckless really (so typical me!) as I’d been meaning to get on the ‘refresher session’ list first or visit for the first time with another experienced lookerer as quite apart from not entirely recalling just what I had to do when I was at the site I was also not at all sure just where the site was! There are about 6 sites they have been grazing sheep on and not being local to the Brighton area really I didn’t actually ‘know’ any of them but figured I’d find them and know it’s only about a 15 minute drive to that part of Brighton when it’s not rush hour.

So last night I was frantically googling press releases of the whole lookering scheme and peering at pdf maps with faded street names then google mapping the street names. We headed over there this morning with a loose idea of where the sheep might be and the knowledge that on every area with Brighton & Hove sheep grazing there would be signage explaining the grazing scheme and details of the shepherds contact details so I’d know when I’d found them. We drove up and down the same street three times, found one field with cow in it which I knew couldn’t also contain sheep (the whole point is there are there to graze to prevent mowing so cows wouldn’t also be there) and then Scarlett spotted sheep but we couldn’t work out how to get to the field. Finally we saw a sign on a narrow patch of ground between two houses which led up to where the sheep were, so we parked and trudged up the hill and sure enough there were the sheep and the grazing information sign I’d been looking for :).

The fence was not an electric one so there was no need to check the voltage which is one of the possible duties of lookering but we did walk the perimeter to ensure there was no damage anywhere on the fence. We checked the sheep had clean and full water supplies and got all of them to get up and walk before doing a head count of nine and then heading back down the hill again. I couldn’t remember whether we had to text to say if everything was ok or whether we only texted when things were not okay so thought I’d err on the side of caution. I also wasn’t entirely sure how many sheep should be grazing so went with a ‘nine sheep at Bevendean all fine’ message hoping I’d not get a reply of ‘What???!! there should be 22’ or similar but got one back to say ‘ok, thanks’ from the shepherd and we felt quite pleased with ourselves :).

We were only ten minutes late to Tasha’s too which was pretty impressive given we’re normally at least that late when we’re coming from home, let alone when we have been driving around for ages looking for sheep ;).

We loaded everyone into the car and drove over to Chichester. Tasha and I wanted to look at The Eternal Maker which I’d heard people talking about and raving about and planned to stop somewhere on the way home again for the kids to have a play / run around / stop for a picnic. We were in there for a while but didn’t find anything to tempt us although I got lots of ideas. Scarlett has suddenly got into the idea of making stuff too and the woman there talked to us about some ‘mother / daughter’ classes they are running in the summer which might be interesting. I said I thought I was on their mailing list as I’d emailed them yesterday so she checked and sure enough I was. She has emailed me this afternoon with details of all their classes, some of which sound really interesting so I’m glad we went even if we didn’t buy anything.

After some debate about who wanted to go where on the way home – we had votes for fields to run around in, proper play parks with equipment, woods to go adventuring in and so on, we ended up in Burpham which had both fields and playpark and while Tasha and I ate our food the children visited us to eat sometimes and played in the park and the fields too. Davies came and sat with us for a while and was most bemused by Tasha and I telling him our full repertoire of ‘what do you call a man…’ jokes (my faves are still the two with punchlines ‘Eileen’ and ‘Bob’ :lol:).

Eventually everyone had hit points where they were too hot, needed a wee or had simply had enough so we loaded ourselves back into the car again and headed for home. Back at Tasha’s the children played inside while Tasha and I sat on her back door step and drank tea and chatted. Then they had to leave for Circus Skills and we had to leave for swimming so we drove back towards town. We had a spare hour so parked up and visited the fabric store for the plastic coated fabric I wanted for my next sewing project. I got that, along with some offcuts and three old swatch books which will be fab for patchwork projects all for a bargain price, particularly when they chucked in the third swatch book for free :). My parents know the old owners of the store and it turned out to be their son who now runs it who served us. I am fairly sure we played together as youngsters but will need to check with my Mum when she gets home from China :).

Then back to the swimming pool. Having decided to have a go at training a bit to see if the 5km is within my reach for next year I really need to crack front crawl and getting my face wet. Step one of that was getting a pair of googles so I can put my face underwater. I wear contact lenses so keeping my eyes open is just not an option and I need to be able to see Davies and Scarlett so not wearing my lenses is also not an option. I’ve never had goggles before but was prepared to try. I also invested in a nose clip as the thing I recall most about swimming as a child when I did used to leap in the water was the dreadful sinus headache I’d get afterwards.

We were about 15 minutes early for lessons so Davies and Scarlett had a play while I tried some lengths. I did really well with face in the water and have conquered that issue already and the nose clip did help me not to suck up loads of water through my nose but I have quite a task to crack my breathing I think. I’ve been googling and need to do some proper research I think to get my head around what I should be doing when as I quickly realised today that the extra effort and speed that putting my face in the water allows me to get means I am exercising to a level that puts me out of breath which of course means I need to gasp and having my nose closed doesn’t help. I’m sure it’s achievable so that’s my next thing to work on.

I did about 40 lengths fairly easily but kept losing count as I was trying to do breaststroke and front crawl with my face underwater. There were lots of people in the lane swimming area lurking at one end or the other which really annoys me and makes it hard to push off from a wall when there is people stood all along it so when I started to get cross with them and bored of losing count I went into the main pool and found Scarlett to play with who was delighted to see me :). We did some touching the bottom, sitting down and floating stuff, all a big novelty for me who doesn’t usually get my face wet and that was all fine so I was pleased at my progress there :).

Back home Ady arrived not long after us and was feeling much better today, which is good as he’d been worried he had flu yesterday but an early night seems to have seen off whatever it was. The kids had tea and we read another couple of chapters of The Scarecrow and the servant while Ady watered the various plants in the garden, must get to the allotment tomorrow, if only for watering duties although we do have a day planned up there on Friday too.

Dinner, some children finally asleep, others not. Didn’t get round to sewing but there is always tomorrow.

Yesterday we had nothing going on this week aside from work for me on Thursday and our regular evening stuff. But we’ve quickly filled the week up again :).

Today though we had no particular plans other than getting to the street dance lessons I’d been emailing the teacher about way back in February when we couldn’t make them as they clashed with Chatterbooks. Scarlett had wanted to make smoothies today though and needed bananas and yoghurt for her planned recipe so after a lazy morning (they watched CBBC and played with some construction block style toys).

Then we gathered up all the needing to be returned library items and went into Lancing. We called at the library to take things back, pick things up and arrange for Frankie who is chicken sitting for us this coming weekend to call round and find out what happens when. We called into the various charity shops and picked up some cds / dvds in one (some of those given away free with newspaper ones) which the volunteer on duty who happened to be a regular library user let us have for the bargain price of a £1 for the whole big bundle. We also called into the CoOp for some food bits and bobs including the ingredients for Tarly’s smoothies.

Back at home I made pancakes for Tarly and I for lunch, Davies stuck with peanut butter sandwiches. Then Davies did some Xboxing while Tarly painted my toenails in rainbow colours and told me animal facts.

Street Dance was pretty good, it’s held in the hall Davies used to have Badgers in years ago and is a local dancer running twice weekly classes for local kids. It’s pay as you go which suits us perfectly and she runs a half hour group for 5-7 year olds followed by an hour class for 8-12 year olds. Scarlett had been allowed to join the older group but actually she struggled a bit. She loves music and loves dancing but for her it’s all about flinging herself about to music and flailing her arms and legs about. Which is joyful but not the controlled use of a body that dance classes call for. I did quite a bit of dancing when I was a kid from various dance classes (it was called disco dancing back then ;)) and school stuff – for most school productions I was in the chorus by virtue of being passable enough at singing and dancing to do both in a crowd. Davies loved it and looked pretty good, he picked up the moves fairly quickly and understood the moving to the beat of the music. At the end K the teacher said he had done well and had natural rhythm. He really enjoyed it and is very keen to go back next week. Come September if he continued to like it he could step up to twice weekly when Badgers finishes for him on a Wednesday.

Scarlett initially said it had been too hard and she didn’t want to do it again but her and I had a long chat about some stuff being worth putting effort in for and not giving up just because it doesn’t come easy. We talked about my sponsored swim and how I had struggled in the middle but kept on going, not because I had to, because I could have just stopped, but because I wanted to do it, I wanted the feeling of having conquered something challenging. I think Davies is more self motivated and able to do well despite not having huge external expectations on him, Scarlett tends towards the lazy ‘well if noone’s telling me to do it I just won’t bother doing it then..’ which could be potentially dangerous for our approach to life so every so often we have these chats which hopefully help her reevaluate what she wants and how she’s going to make that happen.

Then I remember she is seven 😆

Back home again for tea – S had scrambled eggs ( I had toad in the hole later, it’s been an eggtastic day). Ady arrived home feeling rough – another relapse in the Goddard Family Cold we’ve had circling between us for bloody weeks. The kids and I started reading The Scarecrows Servant. Ady went off to bed early and I’ve been half watching a film (Love Happens) which is nice and tidily just ending as I come to a close with todays blogpost :).

Woke up this morning, with some dismay to the sound of rain drumming on the windowpanes. Dismay not because I mind rain particularly, I can find as much joy from splashing in puddles and getting freckles of mud on my nose as I can from stretching out in sunshine and adding more real, can’t be washed off in the bath freckles to my nose, plus I know the plants need the rain and all that sort of rationalising us optimists do to make the world around us fit our rose tinted view of life ;). But we had a plan today that I was really looking forward to a meeting a load of Home Ed friends and potential new friends (as in a stranger is just a friend you haven’t met yet) on Worthing Beach for a ‘Seaweed Picnic’ as organised by Caz and Bid and another friend Emma who’s garden C&B are taking over to grow veg in due to lack of garden of their own. Apparently seaweed is just fab for putting around your veg patches – rich in nutrients, great for seeing off slugs and other pests with its salty, crusty, sliminess and almost like an instant compost. Or so says Caz, to whom I defer on all things grow-your-own-y.

The picnic planning had really taken off from a vague idea on facebook to an event with about 10 people planning to attend. I was looking forward to sitting around chatting with friends and to Ady getting to come along to something for once as I am ever conscious that mine and the kids lives are great with lots of doing whatever it is that makes us happy whereas Ady is rather more timetabled and restricted to the whole 9-5 (or rather 7-6) grind.

But happily within an hour or so the rain had stopped, the skies were blue again and so picnic packed and seaweed collecting sacks at the ready we headed off. The meet up was basically outside C&B’s flat and another 3 families were arriving just as we were so we introduced ourselves and wandered across the road to the beach. Children headed off towards the sea, adults gathered seaweed and chatted and then we all decided we were hungry so broke for lunch. Davies, Scarlett, Archie, Eliot and another friend Hugo had wandered far away so I rang Davies (who for once had heeded my saying ‘if you take your phone with you then you can go much further away from me because I can ring you to check you’re okay’) and they came back.

The next couple of hours entailed all that I love best about life really, the sea, good friends, chatting, watching Davies and Scarlett having a ball, Ady nearby, meeting new people. Bid wandered back across the road to fill flasks with hot water to bring back and make cups of tea for us all, which almost instantly went cold as the wind was whipping them but we all clinked mismatched mugs and toasted life, home education and friends :). By then the tide had gone out and was starting to come back in again, all of the children had wet trousers and had founds crabs, created a whole world on the beach including Banana Island and defended it and won against imaginary intruders, we’d sat on the pebbles chatting and found all sorts of treasures of our own (I came home with pockets stuffed with sea glass, tiny beautiful shells and some little pebbles Scarlett had found and created biographies for – we had a giraffe stone, a snow leopard shell and pebbles we’d imagined once being rocks in faraway castles). We all decamped to Caz and Bid’s for yet more tea and the kids all disappeared upstairs to play while we continued to put the world to rights. At 6pm Olivia & Ben and Magdelen had to leave and we intended doing the same but Caz cooked eggs and toast for hungry children, marmite on toast for hungry adults and somehow it was nearly 8pm and we were still there :).

We came home and Davies and Scarlett ate more toast while I read to them, we’ve not read all week I don’t think. We started ‘Clockwork’ by Pulman which pulled us all in straightaway. Ady and I had a curry and having missed a call from my parents (they left a silly message on the answerphone though so I know all is well ;)) I did take a call from my Granny who had rung me to check I’d heard from them and they were okay.

Davies had YACs this morning so we all were out and over at Glynde where they were meeting for a hill fort visit. I’d told Tarly we’d visit Raystede Animal Shelter while Davies was YACing so when we were invited to stay and join the YACs she was reluctant. So I suggested Ady stay (he’s quite into the archaeology anyway) and I’d take Tarly. This was a win:win situation as far as I was concerned, Ady got to do something with Davies, Scarlett and I had some one to one time and nobody got dragged along to anything they weren’t interested in.

So while Ady and Davies and the rest of the YACs walked to the top of the hill, recreated some fort defending and marauding and ate flapjacks, oh and then marched them down again, Tarly and I drove through some very pretty countryside between the downs and looked at the llamas that graze on part of the downs before arriving at Raystede. Scarlett asked about the various orange and blue posters (no red ones :)) on display so I explained about them being for MPs in the upcoming election. I told her what the orange and blue meant and who I’d be voting for but explained that my vote wouldn’t be for any of the names on the posters as they were local to where we were rather than our constituency. She wanted to know what other colours there might be and we talked about the main parties and some of the alternatives.


I let Scarlett lead the way round Raystede so we collected some duck food, looked in on the cats and dogs, checked out the goats and tried to identify the ones sitting in the sunshine to their photos. We looked at the rabbits and talked about house rabbits and were surprised at how long rabbits can live. We then walked round the ducks, geese, chickens and other birds and Scarlett taught me the difference between coots and moorhens and some other animal facts. She really is quite knowledgable but has this habit of saying all sorts of things with utter confidence even if she is secretly not at all sure 😆 We had a look at the small animals, checked out the onsite charity shop, grabbed a drink from the cafe and had a quick look round the caged birds.

It was a lovely couple of hours in the sunshine :). We drove back to where Ady and Davies were and had about 10 minutes so took a brief walk along the river bank, looked at the (what I think were) reedwarblers and talked about cuckoos. We could see the YACs up the hill so decamped to the playpark nearby and went on the swings to compete for who could get the highest fastest :).

Ady and Davies joined us along with another father and son they had been walking and chatting with. Ady introduced me while the boys ran off to join Scarlett and we chatted a bit before they left. There was a blacksmiths forge open just across the road and Ady and I were interested in peeking in but Davies and Scarlett weren’t so we left them in the park while we walked along for a quick look. Blacksmithing is a job which fascinates me and I think must be really enjoyable.

Davies had requested a barbecue for lunch so we popped into Asda on the way home for supplies and got home to uncover the barbecue, get out the camping chairs and have a very nice afternoon in the garden. Davies did most of the cooking – bacon for him and Scarlett, sausages for Ady and I along with some onions. We all had ice creams and the kids played while Ady and I read / dozed in our chairs in the sunshine. I got bored with the inactivity first and had a quick visit to The Range but failed to buy anything other than a rather clever cafetiere mug for Ady while camping.

Back home again I did some toy plane making and decorating with the kids then Davies and I watched Doctor Who while Scarlett had a bath. The kids watched Britains Got Talent and then went to bed.

Am very excited about camping next weekend 🙂

Thursday we had been planning to attend a weekly HE get together in some localish woods for den building, bushcraft and stuff. We’ll only ever be able to make it fortnightly as it’s on Thursdays which I work every other of but it sounds like a really nice gathering with a good mix of people including interesting adults and similarly natured outdoorsy, adventurous kids.

But Davies had woken still feeling rough (strongly suspect he had too much sun and not enough to drink on Wednesday) so we’d cancelled that arrangement. After ponderings the previous evening and chatting to various people along with some soul searching I talked to Davies and Scarlett about Candle and with many tears we came to the decision it was right to ask a vet to assist with letting her rest in peace rather than exist in pain and indignity. We had initially agreed to give her one last weekend with us but as Scarlett and I watched Candle struggle to find the litter tray and then collapse in it and have to be helped back to standing Scarlett agreed the time was right and we rang the vets to make an appointment for that afternoon.

I spent some time getting my new sewing machine working and made a couple of bags. Am really pleased with it and have ordered a load of books from work to make some sewing projects. The mood at home was quite strange and all of us were watching the clock a lot.

I’d decided to just let Candle rest but one hour before we were due to leave for the vets she suddenly got up and made her way over towards the sofa we were all sitting on. I suspect she was seeking the patch of sunshine that comes in through the window. I took her onto my lap and she sat, being stroked by all three of us, purring and sitting on my lap in the sunshine for her final hour.

We took her in the car wrapped in a blanket, held by Scarlett and had to park in the road next to the vets and walk round. I was already crying by the time we arrived and the children were comforting me in the waiting room. The vet examined her and agreed she was both old and pretty ill and that euthanasia was the right decision in his opinion. He talked us through how it worked and brought a nurse in to assist. They did shave a patch on her leg but she was so skinny they couldn’t find a vein so in the end they injected into her kidney. The end was peaceful for Candle as she went from half sitting to lying down, to just falling asleep resting on my arm. It was less peaceful for the three of us with Davies holding up well but with tears streaming down his face, Scarlett openly sobbing and me doing much the same.

We had a few minutes alone with her once her heart had stopped beating and we all talked to her about how we had loved having her as our pet. It was just incredibly hard and I was torn in all directions between comforting the children, wanting to bury my face in her fur and feeling dreadful about being the one to make the final decision and sign the paperwork. Yesterday I was feeling sad about losing Candle, today I am feeling more positive about having enjoyed being her owner for 15 years and remembering good things about her long and good life rather than the last few weeks. I read somewhere that cats who get to be old, decrepid, blind and so on are to be celebrated because it goes to show what a long and healthy life they have led to have reached such an old age to be suffering from such ailments when so few cats get that far.

As we left the vets, cradling Candle’s body all wrapped up in the blanket with all three of us tear sodden and devastated we walked straight into the mass exodus from the local school, including several attendees of Chatterbooks. We all kept our heads down and although I recognised several children they either didn’t spot us in the post-school melee or read that this was not a good time.

We got home and put Candle to rest in the sunshine waiting for Ady to come home. Scarlett was a strange mix of devastated and fascinated and did a rather thorough examination of her body including inside her mouth. Davies confessed he didn’t like looking at her body but felt her soul had left taking all that was good about her life with it and leaving all that was bad, including blindness and pain of illness behind.

The rest of the day passed with plenty more crying and feeling sad. Ady arrived home and dug a grave for Candle next to Malice in a sunny spot in the garden. Davies and Scarlett had another sleepover. Everyone felt very emotionally drained and we were all in bed and asleep way earlier than normal.

Friday Work for me today. Caz was kindly having Davies and Scarlett over to play with Archie and Eliot in the morning so we drove to their house and dropped D&S off before driving back again to the library. Apparently they spent some time on the beach and had icecreams :). Ady collected them at lunchtime and they did a couple of store visits before coming home for tea.

My work day was fine, I did Baby Rhyme Time, at which we had no babies at all but 8 children of various ages between 2 and 5 – some good singing and instrument playing but hardly the intended target audience. I put up a dinosaur display and chatted to the Childrens Librarian about Chatterbooks and the Summer Reading Challenge (space theme this year). I was feeling quite glad to be at work but quite exhausted at the same time. I don’t do pathetic really, I promise this won’t last.

Back home Ady was sorting tea for the children. I had a quick catch up with them and then went and had a lovely long bath. They had a third sleepover (Scarlett back to her own bed tomorrow, they have exhausted the novelty now I think and are getting cross with each other now they are finally tired but are preventing each other from going to sleep).

I made pizzas for dinner and we have sort of watched 2012 although it’s not really holding my attention and Ady keeps dozing off. The special effects are excellent but so good as to be totally unrealistic and there is far too much screaming and shouting for my liking.

July 1997

March 2009

September 2000

Ady and I adopted Malice and Candle from the RSPCA way back in 1995 after we’d lost two kittens to the busy road we live on. We’d felt we wanted cats but wanted to ensure whatever cat we gave a home to would be given the chance of a better life by us. We had several visits to the RSPCA and had noticed a pair of black cats hissing and spitting over the course of four visits in over a month. Eventually we decided these were the cats for us. Unfriendly, not very pretty, semi-feral and with virtually no hope of anyone taking them on. They would not let them go to a home with children, other pets and a whole list of other rules.

We brought them home and they lived for the first month or so under bookcases and sofas, only coming out when we were asleep or out. I remember the first time we managed to stroke one of them, Malice. They had been in our house for over 8 weeks by then. Very, very gradually they ventured out, accepted affection and attention and became more like pets and less like trapped wild animals.

Then Malice took against Candle and Candle moved into our bathroom. Malice would just attack her every time she tried to venture out. She was fed in the bathroom, had a litter tray in there and her whole world was that small room, with company every evening when we had a bath, or when someone went to the toilet! But just as they had changed from when they first arrived Malice mellowed, Candle got bolder and eventually she came back out and they would often be found snuggled up together.

Bringing Davies home was a big trauma for them both, but they got used to him. We moved up to Manchester which was a fairly big deal with the two cats in carriers for the six hour drive. Scarlett being born was something I think they were resigned to!

Malice was my cat and Candle was Ady’s in the beginning but when Scarlett got older she became the chief owner of all the pets. After Malice died Candle was still a sprightly cat with lots of life and enjoyed being outdoors. She also became more of a lapcat which had previously been Malice’s domain.

In the last year she has steadily declined and lost her sight. Up until a month ago she was still negotiating the stairs and would come and wake me up every morning and scratch at me to stroke her. The last month has seen an almost daily lessening in her quality of life. She had all but lost the use of her back legs, her balance was off and she would regularly stumble about, one of her eyes had become infected and required daily bathing and in the last week she had become all but incontinent. Still we struggled with the decision but having confessed that I was semi-hopeful of finding her passed away in her sleep I realised I could actually make that decision now.

So this morning I talked at length to the children, we all cried, we all discussed it and I rang the vets to make an appointment. Candle spent her last hour curled up on my lap in the sunshine while we all stroked her. She’s been with Ady and I since way, way before we were parents, back when we’d only been together a short time. I’m happy to think we really did offer her a full and happy life taking her from that small cage at the RSPCA all those years ago. She’s now buried in the garden next to Malice, in one of the sunniest spots and we’ll remember her as the cat who was fiesty, friendly, alive and was a lovely pet to have shared our home for 16 years.

Oh I’m so well rounded…literally 😉

Work this morning for me, Ady took Davies and Scarlett off to Julie’s nice and early so I spent some time trying to get my new sewing machine working. I also spent some time tending to Candle. She is now at the point of dying and I am agonising over whether to let nature take it’s course or step in and intervene.

Hmm, no idea what happened there, it was a fairly long post and all there when I pressed save. Bum.

Will post about Candle later but what I had written had been the pre-decision I think :(.

So, I went off to work where I had a nice morning including a visit from Lucy which I felt I’d somehow conjured up by having been talking about her to both Ali on Monday and Julie on Tuesday and saying I’d not seen her for ages, so that was nice :).

I met Julie and all the children up at the stables. They’d been to Julie’s allotment in the morning and then to the stables for a picnic lunch which was where I joined them. The kids played and Scarlett rode Honey bareback back down to her field which she really enjoyed. Far more the sort of circus-style pony riding I think she’d been dreaming of :).

Back home the kids had a bath as they were filthy, while I put together an email for Bid about Forest School as he is leading some sessions at Etudeo for the next few weeks. He’s done some bushcraft courses himself but this gave him some ideas of what I thought had been good and bad about the sessions D&S did last year. On reading through I realised how very repeptitve some of my blogposts are 😳

We all got changed (although I got changed back again, I decided my Badger top really is too small and have handed it back to get a larger size ordered. I *think* I’m flattered that Julie must see me as smaller than I really am…) and headed to Badgers. We’re doing Adventure Badger this term as chosen by Davies. It’s his last term and he gets his Superbadger award at the end of term before starting Cadets in September.

Last night we made bicarb and vinegar volcanoes (not really sure why it fitted into adventure but it was timely at least). We did them out on the lawn and came back in. Julie didn’t intend talking through why the bicarb and vinegar reacted like that but I made them 😉 we talked about chemical reactions and also what makes a real volcano erupt. Then we did some filling out the Badgers recordss (called Badger passports) and I had an interesting chat with Daragh about how Home Ed works. He said if he was HE’d how he’d like it to happen which Davies and Scarlett told him is pretty similar to how it works for us with lots of finding things out from the internet, books, TV and even computer games. He wanted to know if we followed a timetable like at school and Scarlett explained that ‘we ask Mummy questions and she helps us find out the answers’ which is pretty much our style summed up I think. Davies mentioned lots of playing and visits to places too.

We arrived home, closely followed by Ady and Frazer who was coming over for dinner. The kids requested a sleepover so they went off to watch films in bed in Davies’ room while we chatted and had a lovely curry. I think Frazer had a bit of an epiphany moment about Home Ed when we candled the ducks eggs we have in the incubator. We’ve got 3 out of the 6 with definite movement inside, so have discarded the no good ones and were all in awe of the ones with little soon-to-be ducklings wobbling around inside. Will try and get some photos tonight, they were much clearer than any of the chicken or bantam eggs have been when we’ve candled those. Frazer and I agreed that it would have been incredibly cool to have hatched ducklings when we were seven.

I think Davies had had too much sun as he was burning up and shivering at about midnight and wandered downstairs for a cuddle and chat and was still awake when I went up to bed.

Really enjoyed having nowhere to be until this afternoon today. I’d been awake in the night with an upset tummy and was feeling slightly delicate. Nothing more came of it although it’s been a bit rumbly all day, I suspect it was eating a big bowl of pasta at 11pm last night when I got in.

I pottered about processing laundry, talking to chickens and doing some online stuff while Davies and Scarlett spent most of the morning exploring the loft space in Davies’ room. They have set up a sort of toy hospital for painting back on worn off bits of toys and had dug out Buzz and Woody (quite excited about the upcoming Toy Story 3 here, it’s what Davies’ 4 cinema tickets prize is being saved for apparently) and done some repair work to them. I called upstairs to them every so often but they were quite happy.

I’ve been debating a small sewing machine for a while for various small sewing tasks and we had a small excess of cash this month so after researching online and reading reviews I reserved one at Argos and nipped along to collect it. I’ve not had time to look at it properly but will try and have a play with it tomorrow afternoon. I’m quite excited at the idea of playing with it :).

We had lunch and then gathered together swimming stuff and headed out to Highdown Gardens to meet Julie, Jack, Maisie and Lorna for a couple of hours. We had a really nice time in the sunshine – Julie and I moving from bench to bench and sitting chatting while the four older children – and Lorna too when the others were nearby played in the trees and pathways. I was lovely 🙂

We went straight to the swimming pool from there. Due to my dodgy tummy I’d decided not to swim, also I’d not watched the kids lessons for quite a while so I thought I’d watch this first one back and then maybe watch one at half term to see what sort of improvement they’ve had. The instructor who had been running Swimathon came over to chat, ask how I’d felt recovering on Sunday, tell me I’d done really well and said she’d hold me to my intention to try the 5k next year :). She was so complimentary she actually made me blush 😳 :).

Scarlett had asked for some goggles at the end of last term so we chose a pair for her and she seemed to like them. She also wore my green swimathon cap so for once she was really easy to spot in the pool. As she has been going in the big pool albeit with me doing lanes for months I said she could go in the shallow end of the big pool after her lesson and I kept a close eye on her. I know she shouldn’t really be in there til she’s 8 but I really can’t see the difference between me concentrating on swimming lengths but in the pool and me watching her from the side, she’s actually better supervised by me sitting in the spectators area than me swimming.

Scarlett’s lesson went well, she is continuing to progress. She put her feet down a lot and I’m not really sure why as when she didn’t she was easily the fastest swimmer in the group, there is a marked difference between her and Davies though and I suspect a large part of it is her reduced ability to pay attention to Carolyn, the instructor and do precisely as she’s asked without getting distracted.

Davies was looking really good, I think he’ll go into the next group fairly soon. He has a really nice style and I was impressed to see him doing front crawl, back stroke and breast stroke today all really well. He needs to use his arms more for backstroke and sort out his breathing for front crawl but he is definitely a better swimmer than me for doing proper strokes. I felt quite inspired to try putting my face in the water and getting my head round front crawl too.

We beat Ady home by about five minutes so he chatted to me in the kitchen while I made the kids’ tea – Scarlett was assisting with the egg glut by having french toast :). I had a quick cup of tea and made some pastry to chill in the fridge before going back out again to the library for Book Group.

We’ve been reading Geraldine Brooks’ March this month, which is the story of Mr March, the girls father in Little Women and what happens to him while he’s away being a chaplain at war. I’d really enjoyed it, despite not having read Little Women or being a big fan of historical novels. The group was pretty split with nearly half not finishing it and only about half of those who had enjoying it but it made for interesting discussions. The group was over 20 tonight which Brenda and I agreed is really too large a size. Brenda’s job is being looked at in the next phase of restructuring and she is worried she may be made redundant so checked with me once again that I’d be happy to run Book group on my own if needs be. I would but I am wondering if I have made a rod for my own back with the level of ‘in my own time’ stuff I seem to do for the library. Ah well. I get enough back to justify it I guess.

Back home again I made the custard to go in my pastry for quiche and that cooked while I was in the bath to go with the jacket potatoes Ady had already got in the oven. We watched Heston Blumenthal who I am never sure qualifies as genius or insane but is entertaining nonetheless.

A couple of events for HEors were posted up on the local facebook group recently at the Weald and Downland Museum. Every event we’ve been to there before has been excellent with passionate, enthusiastic and knowledgable volunteers staffing the museum who are only too happy to chat to interested children and adults. I didn’t know the woman (another HEor) who was organising the events and I did think her methods of planning an event were a little haphazard but put Davies and Scarlett’s names down for todays flour and breadmaking and a later one in May for Medieval Gardening. As we are members so don’t pay admission I though the price of £3 each was pretty good.

There was some messing about with splitting the groups as initially they were to be over 10 and under 10. She then seemed to be struggling to fill the older group and asked if any ‘nearly 10s’ would be prepared to go into the older group. I replied that Davies is 9.5 and would be happy to go into the older group as long as it was okay to have me not present at one or other child’s session. She then split the ages again and listed them as foundation / KS1 and KS2/KS3 at which point I contacted her to say Scarlett is KS2 so she could also move up to the older group. She checked her date of birth with me and put her in the younger group calling it foundation / KS1 / under 8s. I was slight concerned at the time as I don’t really like splitting D&S when I know they are about the same level for most things which would mean either D would be over his head or S would be bored. I was even more worried when I met up with some HEors a few weeks ago with much younger children who were all in Scarlett’s group. So I emailed her again asking if there was any way Scarlett could go into the older group as I felt I wanted her to get the most value out of the workshop and felt she would be a bit fed up if she was with a load of 5 year olds. I got a fairly terse reply to say the numbers had been submitted, she’d be fine as there were 4 six year olds in her group and actually my older child was one of the youngest in the older group anyway. At which point I considered myself told to shut up ;).

So today we arrived and joined the group of HE folk gathered outside. I was told she’d miscalculated on the prices and actually it would be £3 per child per session (morning and afternoon) so it was a further £3 each. I’d already paid for the Medieval Gardening so she said she’d just take the money out of that. At this point I started to feel a bit pissed off at just how messed about the whole thing had been. Davies and I had fallen out over him not putting his DS on charge last night so it would be ready for this morning and him then being sulky about it being flat so he was not happy about going off into his session without me and I was getting quite horrified at the idea that all the ‘peers’ Scarlett knows from Book Club and was playing with were all being shipped off to the bigger group while she was staying with what looked like a preschool group. 3 OF THE KIDS IN HER GROUP WERE IN PUSHCHAIRS!!!

So Davies went off, looking like a boy on his way to the gallows, Davies and Scarlett were both looking wistfully at each other and Tarly and I joined the little kids for a session on sowing, growing and harvesting grain for flour. Most of the kids were far too little to be listening with any level of concentration and it was soooo dumbed down ‘can anybody tell me what the white powder we use to cook with is called?’ Scarlett did really well but was a full head taller than the next oldest child, kept getting overlooked when she put her hand up to answer questions with an obvious ‘let the little children have a turn’ mentality and just looked HUGE. The group was taken to look at the barn where the threshing would happen so I said I’d meet her at the mill and went to peek at Davies. He was doing fine in his breadmaking session so I went to catch up with Scarlett.

I didn’t need to ‘help her with the stairs’ up into the mill so instead I stood outside and seethed. Then it was lunchtime. Davies’ group didn’t get back to us til nearly 20 past 12 despite the next sesssion starting at 1pm but the kids went off to watch the ducks and play with friends. I had a bit of a chat with some of the mums but was feeling that odd ‘what the hell am I doing here?’ thing I sometimes get with local HEors.

Then it was time for the afternoon session so Davies went off to do the flailing and threshing and winnowing, in much better spirits now he’d bonded with some of the kids in his group, while Tarly and I joined the pushchairs for breadmaking. First they were shown some grain and got to turn some millstones to crush it. I got really fed up with the way the woman was talking to the children in one voice and a totally different tone for the adults when she addressed us and in listening to one of the mothers with 2 small children saying things like ‘excellent turn taking’ ‘great grinding’ and ‘fabulous breathing’ to her children. Scarlett was thirsty so I went back to get her a drink from the rucksack which I’d left in the classroom and by the time I got back they’d moved into the tudor kitchen to make bread and cook it on the fire. The two children with the overpraising mother were squabbling at one end of the table, various other children were paying no attention at all and the woman leading the session had grown even more patronising and squeaky while I was gone so I passed Tarly the water and went and sat outside in the sunshine. I sat with Elaine, who was equally indignant on my behalf about Scarlett being in the younger group.

When the session ended and Tarly emerged with her bread I spoke to the women who’d organised the sessions about the age split for the gardening and said I wanted to move Scarlett into the older group. She was quite arsey and said that both groups had covered the exact same thing and I agreed they may well have done but it would have been pitched differently depending on the age of the group. (Davies later confirmed that his group had been spoken to in a normal voice, while Scarlett said the woman had talked to her group like they were all stupid). I said it was totally inappropriate that my 7 year old had been in a group with children so young they were in pushchairs, I felt she had not got the full experience she could have had from the sessions and that I wanted her moved to the older group. She said she would look and I said that if there was not space for Scarlett in the older group then I wanted to take both children out of the gardening which really seemed to surprise her.

I later learnt she was a teacher and thinks her brand of Home Ed (for her 2 and 4 year olds!) is some sort of model version. I would never presume to be telling someone with Home Ed teens how they should be doing stuff so I was really pissed off at her ignoring me twice previously about which group Tarly should be in. I did raise my voice and I was pretty cross so I imagine my name in that particular circle will be even more damned than before but I was really fed up with the whole thing and came away once again feeling that these sorts of things are a waste of time, which is a shame because we have had some great group trips -admittedly mostly one’s I’ve organised myself ;). The kids did enjoy the day but I doubt either of them learnt anything really new and I’m not sure it justified the petrol to drive over and the stress I felt. Am very tempted to contact W&D about workshops available and organise some myself though.

Elaine had invited us back for a cup of tea / play in the garden / meet their new kittens so although it had been our plan to go to a street dance group this afternoon that Davies and Scarlett are thinking of going to each week we decided to meet the kittens instead. The kids and I had a really interesting conversation about parenting styles, why some adults treat children like they’re stupid and why that is wrong, how Davies and Scarlett think they might parent if they have children and other such fascinating stuff. Love those sorts of chats with them :).

Elaine lives in the same road as Chris and Julie and Davies and Scarlett had been to their house before once when Julie was looking after them and had been dog sitting for Elaine. Another HEor came along too with her two girls so we did some kitten admiring and then the kids went out to play on the trampoline. Their garden has one border of trees beyond which is a drainage ditch, then an area of wasteland before some greenhouses. Davies and Scarlett led Elaine’s girls in a game of creating a bridge across the ditch to get to the wasteland. Elaine thought this was fab and of course Davies and Scarlett were in their element 🙂 I had to prise them away after nearly 2 hours as I didn’t want to hit all the rush hour traffic.

In the end we arrived home within minutes of Ady and I quick phonecall to Ali meant I headed off over to collect her so we could get some bits from her Mum’s. Nice to see her Mum for myself and see how well she is doing 🙂 Also very lovely to have a good couple of hours uninterupted chat and catch up with Ali :).

Back home again Davies and Scarlett were still awake so I had some cuddles with them before they went to sleep – Scarlett had managed to fall off the arm of the sofa and had a really nasty cut on her back 🙁 I cooked myself some pasta, had a brief overlap with Ady before he went to bed.