One word? When seven would do…

And it’s this Tuesday as in today and everything :).

We had a fairly lazy morning which was nice and much needed. We left home about 1130 to meet up with E, M and T at Stanmer Park. M and T are two same age as them boys that Davies and Scarlett met at Forest School. They were less keen on T (the younger one) but really hit it off with M and so before the last session I gave their mum, E, my email address and said they’d like to meet up again. We arranged to see them at the park where we’ve done Forest School for the first time as it was easy to get to and has free parking.

I was slightly blah about it this morning as neither of the children were that bothered about seeing T again and I’d failed to find much to chat about to E the couple of times we’d exchanged greetings and I am so bored of telling the story of ‘how we came to home educate’ that I always feel quite tempted to make up a different, more interesting story instead. The reasons that were so huge to us when Davies was 2 are a million miles away from why we do it now and have continued to do it and the nearly 9 year old Davies bears little resemblance to the 2 year old toddler anyway.

I nipped into Asda on the way over thinking I had enough time to buy supplies to bolster our rather meagre picnic but there must be some sort of timewarp thing happening as it was suddenly really late and E was ringing my mobile to see where we were. I’m always slightly shocked when people ring rather than text as almost everyone I know has some level of phone phobia and text and email means I rarely actually speak to anyone other than my Mum or Ady on the phone these days. Davies answered it and gave a running commentary of where we were and how long we might be.

M and T had brought their firesteels and firemaking stuff and wanted to go up the hill to where they had Forest School and make a campfire. E and I were not as enthusiastic about the idea of climbing up the hill and persuaded them to climb the tree while we sat nearby instead. Both of them spent quite a bit of time asking to go home and did lots of falling out with each other which E kept apologising for but Davies and Scarlett enjoyed themselves anyway and in the end E was good company and we had some interesting chats between children interupting. We’ve arranged to visit them at their house next time in a couple of weeks so hopefully the boys will be more settled and it will be a better meet up for them.

I did tell our real Home Ed story and theirs is rather similar although they went down the nursery, Montessori school and state school routes before coming to Home Ed so she is still unpicking issues and deschooling really. I know plenty of HEors who are glad they used nursery or school either because it was right at the time and the children enjoyed it and got lots out of it or even because in having tried it they know for certain it doesn’t work for them. I remain very glad we made our decision early on and have never used school or nursery as I think lots of the disciplines used there are way out of line with our philosophies and I’m pleased we’ve not had to go down that route.

E was very complimentary about Davies and Scarlett, which is always lovely to hear and as I’ve heard lovely things about them both quite a lot lately I did pause for a while to consider how very proud I am of them both and how right this path seems for them. There are of course days when I wish I’d never heard of HE but on the back of a week in the company of a group of mates they’ve had for several years, who were talked about glowingly by the owners of Fudge the Wonderdog (‘all your kids are so confident and friendly. We love how they chat to everyone and are really outgoing’) and had a whale of a time being given loads of freedom and trust to go off wandering and stuck together and looked out for each other it is nice to reflect on our lifestyle and choices and feel pleased with them :).

😆

They had swimming lessons this afternoon too and had to head off about half an hour earlier than we did so we headed for home and I intended calling in home for a cup of tea before swimming but as we drove out the other side of the tunnel (it’s on the boundary of the East and West Sussex border and coming out of the west facing side you are confronted with a great panoramic seaview which is always stunning regardless of the season or weather) and went past Shoreham airport I decided to turn off and take Davies and Scarlett to Lancing College chapel. It’s a local landmark and a very impressive gothic style building that is uplit at night further adding to it’s spooky appearance. It is open to the public every day but we’ve never managed to visit despite intending to for about a year as whenever we are passing we are on our way somewhere else.

I went there as a child as my Mum knew someone who was a teacher at the college and lived onsite. He invited us to lunch and gave us a grand tour of the whole college and chapel. We also used to use the swimming pool up there when we were kids as a friends’ mum had a contact there but it is years since I visited the chapel.

It is enormous and very beautiful and we had a very nice hour wandering round looking at the stunning windows and ceilings. Davies and I counted the seats and there were over 500 just in the main area. We were greeted by (I think) the verger and he asked if they’d like to light candles so they did that and we chose a couple of postcards and left a donation and signed the visitors book. They both really liked it there and asked if we could go again. Davies loves the architecture of churches, chapels and cathedrals and rather bizarrely Scarlett seems to like the peaceful calm atmosphere :lol:.

Then it was time for swimming. We had 10 minutes or so before their lesson so had a quick game of tag in the water and then I foolishly decided to get a head start on my lengths and left them in the shallow end while I did the first two. I returned two minutes later to find Davies in tears. They had been climbing out and then jumping back in and Scarlett had failed to look and jumped in right on top of Davies. His face was hurting (he may well have a black eye tomorrow) and she had hurt her inner thighs by landing right on top of his head. Sadly he came off worse so the lesson learnt is not ‘look before you leap’ for her rather ‘look before Scarlett leaps’ for Davies!

I’ve been expecting some sort of fallout from a week away and the sleepover and it seemed this was it. Tiredness overcame him and although he wasn’t seriously hurt once he’d started crying he couldn’t seem to stop or recover himself so he decided he didn’t want to do his lesson after all. I tried to talk him into it and failed so Scarlett went in, I sent Davies to go and get changed and I went back to the big pool to carry on with my lengths.

It wasn’t very restful. I saw Scarlett come running over to the pool from the other end but she didn’t notice me and then the instructor came over to ask where Davies was. I explained he wasn’t swimming today after all and I’d thought Scarlett had told her – actually I know she had as I heard her while she was taking the register and saw Davies while he was being cuddled by me. She just didn’t listen to Scarlett which is understandable really as she does do a lot of meaningless whittering around the sensible actual bits of information :lol:.

Davies came out dressed and sat in the spectators area but was all weepy so after just 16 lengths I gave up and got out. Which was a shame as I managed them no problem and felt I could have done really well today otherwise.

Both children got their new lessons for September and Davies has gone up a group. Apparently there were a few children far better than the rest of the group but not quite ready to go into the new band up so they have created a new lesson for them and Davies is one of them. She said Scarlett is doing really well too so hopefully she will make some progress through the ranks next term. It means they are staggered lessons again at the later times of 4 and 430pm which is good in terms of not mucking the day up so much but bad in terms of hitting rush hour traffic home and being in the dark and cold come October. It does mean I can do my lengths while Davies does his own thing and Scarlett has her lesson, then I can have half an hour with her to practise what she’s done in her lesson while Davies has his.

They got fish and chips for tea on the way home and thanks to the very heavy showers we had there was no need to water the allotment tonight. We read some of Jones and the giants and Scarlett went straight to sleep tonight. Ady and I watched episide 3 and 4 of Torchwood and Davies stayed awake creating a Michael Jackson outfit which he came down to show us between Torchwoods and included a fancy belt made from sellotaping coins all around one of his belts. I do love his creativity but I do wish he would try and do it during daylight hours!

Almost there, almost there!

Monthly HE Pulborough Brooks walk day and the ideal chance to catch up with Tasha and Toby and Julie, Jack, Maisie and Lorna all in one go.

The weather was lovely and with eating cereal in the car and hauling out of bed we managed to collect Tasha and co at the agreed time of 10am. Needing to get petrol and loading two more children and pushchair into the car always seeming to take longer than you expect meant we were about 20 minutes later than the usual meeting time but we caught up with the group about halfway round and were greeted by some of the children wanting to show me a dead mouse (because clearly that’s the sort of thing I’d want to be viewing ;)).

It was a nice walk, didn’t see any adders or wildlife really but the children enjoyed walking along and I got to chat to Tasha and another couple of women when we caught them up which was nice. One particulaly, E, is really nice and lives a few doors down from Chris and Julie but I rarely see so it was nice to have a catch up and chatter with her :).

Back at the park Julie and co had already arrived as they have been coming for the picnic and play and then doing the walk round on their own afterwards instead of rushing to get there for 1030am. Had a good catch up with them and all the kids played really well together. Davies and Scarlett would have liked to have Tasha and co back here or gone back to theirs but I was keen to get more washing done and catch up on more online stuff so we dropped them home and came home to do just that.

Davies and Scarlett watched Moonwalker while I uploaded more photos (I found if I only do 20 at a time it doesn’t crash, bet that doesn’t work next time though and is still rather laborious when you have 400 to do ;)) and caught up on blogging and various other online stuff.

My Mum and Ady arrived at the same time, Mum returning the allotment key as she’d been up there a couple of times during the week to water. Had a chat with her and then I nipped up to water the allotment and check on everything while Ady tidied up and the kids played with Lego. When I got back we read some stories and they went off to bed. Ady cooked and we watched the second Torchwood.

Thanks to a bad night we were up later than planned and thanks to intermitant showers we were slower packing up than planned too. Ady went off to empty the loo while I dismantled the inside of the tent and packed everything up. We did take down the flysheet slightly damp (and rather sandy) but everything else was dry.

We finally got away about 1pm and had a long, slow, boring journey home. We had to stop 3 times – once for food and once each for Davies and Scarlett to go to the loo.

Davies and Scarlett had been invited to Freya’s birthday party and sleepover. It was quickly obvious they wouldn’t be making the party but the sleepover was still a posibility. At that point only Davies was intending going though as Scarlett was too worried her burnt hand might keep her awake and missing us.

Due to traffic and stops the arrival time on the satnav got later and later and we eventually decided when pulling off the A23 onto the A27 that as we were about equidistant between our house and Ali’s instead of my planned going home to collect pjs and clean underwear for the morning for D before taking him to Ali’s in my car while Ady emptied his car and Scarlett had a bath we’d call into Asda for cheap pjs and pants and go straight to Ali’s. At this point Scarlett decided her hand hadn’t really hurt all day and she would really like to go to the sleepover too.

So I nipped into Asda, got pjs and pants for both, some cheap pizzas for Ady and I and we went to Ali’s where our arrival imediately doubled the sleepover children and enhanced the craziness! We had a cup of tea and a bit of a holiday debrief which was nice and allowed the children to settle in before we left.

Davies has always said he would like his first sleepover at Freya’s,as much I suspect to do with his affection for Ali as his friendship with Freya. When the birthday sleepover came up he was really pleased at the idea of having a sleepover before Badger camp too. The circumstances around it all were probably the best possible ones as it really was just a sleepover, rather than a whole day with dinnertime and stuff aswell. We were only gone for 12 hours and they did eventually spend about 7 of them sleeping! I think the amount of times they have slept in friends rooms albeit with us somewhere else in the house have prepared them well so this didn’t seem such a massive step and they are both really comfortable in Ali and J’s house and company, knowing we are only 20 minutes or so away probably helped too.

We left them at about 930pm for the sleepover fun detailed here and headed home. Predictably things were not all in order at home 🙁 Our bedroom door which we both swear we checked was closed was now open and Candle had used our ensuite bathroom as her own so there was a lot of mess to clear up in there :(. The chickens didn’t seem to have much food (they had already put themselves to bed but I was worried enough to go out with a torch to shine in their house and do a headcount). I had a bath while Ady disinfected, hoovered and cleaned up and then ran it away and ran him a new one (camping grime warrants a bath each ;)) while I cooked the pizzas, which we horrible!

We were finally sitting down at about 1130 I guess and left the TV off in favour of checking emails and looking at the weeeks photos. Scarlett rang to say goodnight at which point Ady went off to bed deciding Davies probably wouldn’t ring. He was right – Ali rang later to say he didn’t want to and I sat up for another hour or so before going to bed too. It didn’t feel that odd not having the children, probably because by the time we actually got home they would have been in bed, if not asleep anyway. I slept *really* well in my own lovely bed.

In the morning we failed to unload the car which had been our original plan so we could collect the kids and go to the Brighton Kite Festival which is not far from Ali’s. Instead we decided we were probably all too tired for a day out and instead would collect the kids, come home and empty the car and have a quiet day at home with a roast dinner.

All seemed well at Ali and J’s, with sleepy looking children and shell shocked looking adults ;). They sure know how to lay on a sleepover with all sorts of treats like trampolining by fairy lights and dancing round the room at midnight. Not at all sure we’d manage to replicate such delights when we return the invitation but I’d quite like to go to one of Ali’s sleepovers myself :lol:. It was great to have been able to leave the kids with someone we trust, know will look after our children and care about them and give them such a fab first experience of being away from home overnight. Thanks guys 🙂 xxx

Sunday was indeed a quiet at home day. We slowly unpacked the car and put stuff away. I made quite a bit of headway through the laundry mountain (kendal mint cake at half way point definitely) and we had a lovely roast chicken.The kids had baths, hair washes and hair brushing aswell as nail trimming and general de-griming. The cat was much stroked and I downloaded all the episodes of Torchwood from the previous week so we could start watching the first one that evening when the kids had gone to bed.

In the evening I went to collect the chicks from Tasha, who have grown loads in a week. As pet-sitting goes I suspect they are amoung the more cute variety :).

In theory we should have had an early night to catch up – the other three did but I still mangaed to be up at 2am uploading photos to flickr.

Our last full day.

It was a beautiful sunny morning and the children all wanted to do beach and Shell Island based stuff. They went off with the inflatable boat to sit in the sand dunes and write ghost stories. Marcus and Michelle went off to the onsite shop and Ady and I went to the beach. We had a lovely couple of hours collecting shells, paddling and then sitting on the sand chatting and drinking the bottle of beer and cider we’d brought with us.

The Red Arrows did a flyby at 130pm which we watched. I was most entertained by a man on the beach who stood up and announced ‘It’s the Red Arrows’ in a commentators voice just as they flew over 😆

We went back to the campsite to find Davies had been considered missing although he never felt he was and the others had been worriedly looking for him. He had a lot of freedom this holiday and did quite a bit of roaming. But he is nearly 9, clearly felt safe himself to do so and at no point ever felt lost, scared or worried so I was fine with it. I think there were a few times when he was keen to have some space and time away from the group too so he just quietly took himself off to do so.

We needed food for the evening and something for lunch so we headed off to Barmouth, a nearby very seasidey town to the Co op, a giftshop for Scarlett to get a lucky stone, an old fashioned sweetshop to buy quarters of jelly beans and sherbet pips and a cafe for the most delicious roast beef and onions baguette I’ve ever had. We came back to the campsite via the petrol station to fill up for the return journey and a butchers which had a big sign outside proclaiming them the Gold Award Winners for Best Sausage in North Wales for some gold medal winning sausages for dinner.

Ady dropped the children and I off at the shop so we could buy icecreams and walk back to the tents while he had his pot noodle he had bought and was desperate to have while we were camping. That was nice, it does feel right having one child holding each hand and walking along chattering to them :).

Back at the campsite we headed to the beach for some rockpooling and crab hunting. We only got a couple of little baby ones but did find loads of starfish and sea anaenomies. We released them all back into the rock pools again and left as the tide got higher and with last wistful looks at the sea that showed no dolphins we went back for our fantastic award winning sausages for dinner.

It turned out to be a very, very rainy night. Ady and Marcus chatted in the Outwell porch, the children all sat in our car watching Michael Jackson’s MoonWalker but Mich and I sat under our umbrella, huddled together, drinking and chatting, determined to milk our last night for all it was worth 😆

The evening ended rather sadly with Scarlett managing to burn three of her fingers on the gas lamp in the tent. Davies thinks she deliberately put her hand on it after Ady told her not to touch it as it was hot. I think she does like to test things for herself and actually Ady is a bit of a one for over exagerrating things so the kids don’t know how much of what he says to believe so I wouldn’t be surprised. It was quite nasty and I had that fleeting moment of ‘oh shit’ when I realised we were all over the limit for driving, Scarlett was filthy dirty, tangle haired and full of sand and it was about midnight so really not a great time to be needing A&E. We used calpol and icepacks and she slept in with me while Ady went in with Davies but she had a really bad night, waking several times screaming.

At one point just as it was getting light Ady had to go out to the car to get another ice pack. I was sleeping in my pants as my pjs were still in the car from showering earlier and couldn’t see thanks to no contact lenses, I was debating whether slapping her could be excused as bringing her to her senses from hysteria and Ady managed to be so firm with the snapping to activate the cold pack that he snapped the packaging too so Scarlett had to hold her hand inside a carrier bag with it. Another of our finest parenting moments 😉

Last half an hour or so aside it was a very nice last day with plenty of beach and view time :).

Ady only had one pair of grubby jeans and one pair of soggy jeans. Davies only had a very wet pair of shoes and a pair of jeans that we’d packed without realising they should have been in his ‘to grow into’ pile and lots of shorts. But it was raining. And quite cold.

We’d planned to visit Snowdon Railway with Marcus, Michelle and Chloe so we decided to go ahead and nip to Asda for suitable clothing / footwear and meet them there. We did indeed get clothing and footwear and were on our way to meet them when Marcus rang to say there were no tickets for the train available til 430pm that afternoon. We said that would be fine and we’d find something to do and meet them there and to get us tickets. Which he did and rang us back to give us the shocking news of the cost of them which had Marcus kindly returning them again on our behalf and us realising we’d need to make alternative arrangements for the day instead as it was way out of our budget. 🙁

Next stop was an outdoor shop we’d spotted closing the day before where both Davies and I finally got proper, waterproof, fleecelined coats suitable for winter walks, boat rides, camping trips in the British summertime and many of the other pursuits we regularly follow but are never correctly attired for. Bargain prices too thanks to the mid season sale and we got them for about half the price the train would have cost us.

We then had a Family Debate about what to do with the rapidly disappearing day. Scarlett and Ady voted for back to the beach, Davies and I wanted to go somewhere Welsh on the basis we have a beach at home and should make the most of being in Wales. After some discussion we decided to go to Llangollen which is near where my Dad grew up and the venue of many, many holidays Ady and I have had and many day trips when we lived in Manchester. There is a steam train and a horse drawn canal boat both of which would have been good trips to take so we decided to head there. I still really wanted to go and see some copper mines I had a leaflet for but was overrruled.

The Sat Nav took us on a gorgeous route following the coastline so I spent much of it nose pressed to the window looking for dolphins ;). We suddenly saw signs for LLandudno which is another place we’ve visited a couple of times, most recently when on holiday with my parents about 12 years ago where we have pictures of us all stood on the pier looking at jellyfish. I’d wanted to go on the cablecars at the time but they’d been closed so we decided to try again and turned off to follow the brown signs.

We arrived at Marine Drive toll where the man told us the cable cars where closed again due to high winds. He offered us the £2.50 drive along the coast road instead which we almost didn’t take but decided to have a go with. I’m SO glad we did. We stopped a couple of times to peer over the edge of the Great Orme at the seagulls (and of course to look for dolphins) and it was stunning, and indeed very windy.

At the halfway point you could carry on or veer off to the Summit Visitor Centre and tramway and cable car area so we came off and went up the steep, twisty road to the top. Where we happened upon the Great Orme Bronze Age Copper Mines which had been precisely where I wanted to go but hadn’t looked closely to realise was in Llandudno! How happy was I?! 🙂

We *really* enjoyed that. Bargain price of £16 entrance for an amazing place. It was only rediscovered in 1987 during a plan to landscape the area and is 4000 years old mined in the Bronze age for copper using tools made from stone and bone. Amazing.

There are some 9 chambers going deep, deep underground although only the top 2 are accessible yet. It is an amazing archaeological find with all sorts of evidence simply sealed off for thousands of years. The passageways are narrow and low, there is no natural light and methods were primative and tough but ingeneous. Another self-guided tour this time it was done by signs written in the voice of a caveman of the time and was made very accessible for children. An amazing place 🙂

We had a walk round the outside too before retiring to the second hand book shop and tea room for tea, coffee and flapjacks and a peruse of the books for sale. Davies really liked the idea of certain stones having powers so he bought a rose quartz worry stone in the shape of a pig on some leather to wear round his neck and a green stone which is supposed to be lucky. Scarlett later regretted not getting a lucky stone too but fortunately they are in every gift shop so we got her one the following day elsewhere.

For the first time ever I sort of got the whole excitement around archaeology that Davies feels. I met with some resistance but I’m really pleased we saw the two mines we visited. They worked well together in terms of being from two totally different periods, one very recent, the other ancient history and gave a really good feel of what it might have been like to work there aswell as two different types of mined materials.

We drove onwards to the summit centre but only had 15 minutes or so there before they closed which was a shame as there looked to be plenty to do there including a wildlife display and cafe. We looked at the amazing views over bays, mountains and oceans inlcuding a green area which people had ‘graffitied’ using pebbles from the cliffs themselves positioned to write names and messages. I really liked that :).


Back down the hill and round to the other side. We drove back to the campsite stopping on the way for fish and chips for dinner, which were very nice and we sat eating while looking over the view.

We had a lovely walk along the beach as the sun set which was just stunning, before coming back to have another campfire and more marshmallows.

Was supposed to be Dolphin Day.

After my initial contact number for Shearwater boat cruises had proved no good (boat not working) I was given a mobile number and the name ‘Jason’ which sounded a little dodgey and I suspected the dolphins might be inflatable ones. I did leave a message on his voicemail but he never called me back. I then found a leaflet in the Porthmadog tourist information office and booked a trip with Tony. The leaflet promised ‘a good chance of seeing dolphins’ so whilst I appreciate they are wild animals and not that big in a rather large sea I was really quite hopeful of spotting one or two.

I had to ring Tony in the morning to check his boat was okay as he’d been having problems with it (sabotaged by dolphins maybe?) but when I spoke to him he said although it was ‘a bit choppy out there’ we’d still go. There was a map on the leaflet but it wasn’t very helpful and in the end Tony rang us to guide us in. We stopped on the way to get some travel sickness tablets ‘just incase’ – Ady has had seasickness before in small boats, I’ve never really been on one for any length of time and the kids had never done it before but have both suffered with car sickness before. As it turned out we needn’t have worried about that at all.

On the way out it was indeed very choppy but the kids declared it ‘like the best rollercoaster ride ever!’ complete with salty spray to soak us. On the way back it was calmer and so lulling that Ady and both children dozed off. I would have done too but I was ever alert for a dolphin sighting to the bitter end!

So, no dolphins. However (with a big nod to Joyce for the ‘however’ technique) we did have a fab day anyway. The boat trip was ace, we all really enjoyed that :). It was a 90 minute boat trip from Pwllheli, 3.5 hours on Bardsey Island and then 90 minutes back again. The boat was fast, exhillarating and lots of fun :).

When we arrived at the island we were greeted by the eerie sound of seals singing. In my single mindedness about dolphins I’d failed to realise we would see seals. There must have been nearly 100 seals basking on the rocks in the sunshine, calling to each other and leaping off into the sea. Scarlett was delighted and said it almost made up for no dolphins. I’ve never seen seals in the wild before and it was lovely 🙂

We watched them for a while and then debated how to spend our time on the island. We’d been given a sheet with information about the island, the wildlife, a map and several suggested walks. One was climbing the mountain which we didn’t fancy, one was round the coast and one was taking in the various landmarks. We set off for a walk around part of the coast as we were on a thinner strip of the island with just a field seperating the two sides of water. Over on the east of the Island was a lighthouse, farm and residences that people live in year round – there is a farmer and a warden who live there all the time, seven holiday homes that you can rent for weeks at a time and various houses and shops and workshops that people rent for short or long term lets, mostly during the summer season.

Davies was complaining of being cold and was struggling a bit. It never came to anything and we assumed it was just tiredness as he slept for a while on the boat on the way back and seemed fine after that but it did mean he was slower to walk around than we’d have liked and not up for as much wandering about as we may otherwise have done.

There were several shops or ‘siops’ on the Island including a couple that just had honesty boxes for anything you bought. One sold handmade felted and knitted bags, rugs and purses made with wool from the Island, honey from bees kept on the Island, things carved from wood, made from shells, painted landscapes all of the Island. We didn’t buy anything but it was all nice stuff.

We ventured further up the hill more into the middle of the Island in search of toilets and chatted to a woman who rents a workshop and house for 8 months of the year running art and craft workshops and selling things she has made. She was quite a character, well into her 50s or even 60s, clad in rainbow coloured clothing and making paper from recycled waste paper as she chatted to us. She said she loves the island and feels it is a very spiritual and creative place. Certainly judging from all of her artwork and creations she is inspired by being there.

She told us a little of the set up there and we chatted to her about water (from a well), electricity (only in the last year and not to all the properties) and making supplies last for the duration of your stay (she’d run out of tinned tomatoes!). We liked it there a lot and could well imagine a weeks break there. It would be nice to go with someone else too we decided but couldn’t quite decide who our ideal holiday companions might be…

We had a look round the tiny church, which doesn’t have electricity and is lit by candles. Scarlett liked the long handled snuffer for the chandelier.

We walked back down the hill and sat and ate our picnic in the company of a turkey who had wandered over from a nearby garden to beg for scraps. We had an hour left but Davies wasn’t really up for too much walking about and so we decided to go and sit on the cliffs and watch the seals in the sunshine, which was a very lovely way to spend a Wednesday afternoon :).

On the boat trip back, which started with a dingy ride to the catermaran as the tide was low and it couldn’t get to the shore, we said goodbye to the seals who chased us a little way out and were told it was probably far too choppy to spot dolphins but if we did to shout and they’d stop the boat so they would come over. I spent the whole journey ever alert while the other three napped but alas I saw nothing :(.

Back at the shore we decided to track down a McDonalds which was handily located next to a Tesco so we fed the children and got ingredients for a stir fry for us before heading back to Shell Island. While Ady and I ate Marcus and Michelle took Davies and Scarlett with them and Chloe to see the causeway flooding and making Shell Island really an island for a brief time. Scarlett efficiently paddled with her trousers rolled up but Davies managed to get shoes, socks and bottoms of trousers very wet 😆

I lit a fire and Ady and Davies had a game of badminton. Another nice evening :).

CAT day.

I’ve been wanting to go to CAT for a couple of years now and this was the planned day out of the week. I’d negotiated a fairly good price including two free adult admissions over the phone with the educational officer but Michelle trumped that with the offer in the HEAS leaflet. The woman on the desk thought it was a misprint and it was *very* cheap at under half price with her still giving us the two free adults too!

I felt slightly bad given I do support what they are doing there but it did mean they probably got more money out of us generally as we bought lunch there and I was more generous with saying yes to things in the shop for Davies and Scarlett too.

We went up using the water powered cliff railway which was pretty cool and had an audio explanation of how it worked. Sadly it was another rainy day although it did dry up later on.

We started off with the video about CAT and walked round the house and gardens with all the eco-friendly additions. I have to say I felt quite good about how green our lifestyle is most of the time and how much D and S already knew about green issues.

My one criticism of the day was that it was too sign-heavy. Even I got bored of reading stuff and the children wouldn’t stand still and listen to me for too many signs at a time. Retrospectively we should have booked some of the talks or a guided tour and gained something from the obvious passion and knowledge of the people there. I would go again and either try and make it coincide with one of their event days or book a tour to get the most out of the visit. For that reason it was not quite as good as I’d been hoping but we still got loads out of it and enjoyed it.

I liked the recycling area, particularly the glass bottle bridge. A quick calculation reavealed there to be about 2800 wine bottles – about 10 years worth for me I reckon 😉

I also liked the ‘treadmill of happiness’, the musical instruments from recycled stuff and the various power types in the interactive area.

There was a vegetarian restaurant which Scarlett was disgusted to learn didn’t sell ham sandwiches 😆 but we ate well there nonetheless with me having a delicious organic Welsh cheese and cranberry sauce baguette, much needed caffiene and hot chocolates too for the children and I.

The kids enjoyed the playpark area too and after a visit to the shop we were all very worn out and ready to go. Scarlett was storing up all her money from gift shops during the week (having started with about £3 in hand from somewhere else Davies had been bought something but she’d decided to take the cash instead) so she just chose a slate writing board while Davies chose a slate writing board, a spork and some other piece of wooden toy tat. Scarlett wanted a firesteel but they were quite pricey in there and we do already have one so I said no to that.

We found a supermarket on the way home and bought burgers to cook for dinner. It was Barbara and Katy’s last night and we were lucky to have another dry evening to sit out round the campfire.

I think that was also the night that Ady took the slope at the wrong angle and got his car stuck in the sand. Properly stuck in the sand. We tried pushing it, we trying pulling it, I even suggested lifting it, he tried low revs, high revs and eventually we asked the Ray Mears-alike bloke who shared our sandpit but had previously been very private barely making eye contact with us if he could help us pull it out.

He did so, refused our offer of a beer and went back and hid in his corner of the sandpit again 😆 Much to our disappointment! We did later learn after much private speculation about who he was and what he was doing that he is a cutler (knife maker) supplying Ray Mears and Bear Grylls. He was staying at Shell Island for 4 weeks selling his knives direct to shops. They retail at £400 each but he offered to make Ady one for £180 – lovely but still rather out of our budget! I was disappointed not to talk to him about it as I wanted to know where he learnt such a trade and quite how he makes them but he returned to his shyness after that chat with Ady and Chloe so I guess we’ll never know!

After a night of really dreadful weather (will concede a minor benefit of sand here, the wetter it gets the firmer it seems to grip tent pegs, unlike hard ground turning to mud) and with the promise of yet more rain meaning the sand dunes wouldn’t be being ‘enjoyed’ by the children we decided to head out for the day. We didn’t really have a plan so I gathered some leaflets from the reception and wanted to go to some copper mines. When we put it in the sat nav though it was nearly 2 hours away and not knowing how much there would be to do there it seemed silly to drive all that way for just a couple of hours before they closed if it would mean we couldn’t see everything.

We did some aimless driving around for a bit before deciding to go to Porthmadog which was the nearest proper town to find a supermarket for lunch and dinner provisions. We found a Tourist Information Office too where I gathered more leaflets including one for boat tours so I managed to arrange a boat trip for Wednesday to hopefully see dolphins. We went to Tesco for food for now and later and sat in the car eating and feeling much better about the world again :). I found a leaflet for some slate mine caverns on the way back to the campsite and despite Ady resisting it managed to get us there for 4pm (they closed at 5pm) which was just enough time to thoroughly explore the 9 caverns.

It was Llanfair Slate Caverns and I’d recommend it. An hour was about right although if you were there for longer you could spend time in the gift shop, cafe or just drinking in the view as it was up a hill overlooking Shell Island. We’ve talked a lot about mines and rocks and minerals and I really did want to show Davies and Scarlett some mines while we were in Wales so I was pleased to have done that. It was a self-guided tour round following the signs which were pitched just right for me to read aloud giving information about the mines, some facts to help you imagine how it may have felt to work there aswell as the amazing tunnels and chambers themselves. Boys would have started work there aged 12 and on their first day been cut on the nose with a piece of slate. If they cried they’d be deemed ‘too soft to be miners’. They worked long days for pretty poor wages and had to buy their own dynamite out of their wages.

It was cold, damp, musty smelling and even after an hour you were relieved to get back into the open air again afterwards. We enjoyed it and learnt quite a bit. My Dad’s cousin worked on the pit face when he was a boy (Dad is from that area and lots of his cousins worked in pits and mines). He’s dead now but I do remember him well and Dad told me stories Derek had told him about working in the pit so it was quite shocking to realise just what condidions someone only one generation older than me worked in.

We got back to the campsite and it was gorgeous and sunny. The children went off to play, Ady cooked a really nice meal , I drank lots of wine and the world seemed a good place once more 🙂

We had a campfire (started by me with my firesteel – go me!) and I managed a great moment of comedy parenting by bending down to help Scarlett toast her marshmallows, forgetting I was clutching a full wine glass which I tipped all over her, turning to sort that out and forgetting I was holding burning hot marshmallows in my hand which I wiped all over Davies and then laughing uproariously at the whole thing! 😆 I’d done educatin’ now it was drinkin’ time 😉

It was a lovely evening, just what camping is all about and when Michelle wanted Baileys and there was none to be had Ady whipped up some toffee hot chocolate laced with brandy and squirty cream which was a very worthy substitute!

There had been some rain in the night but the morning dawned bright and sunny. The children went off exploring and soon came back to say they’d discovered the sea and could they go in. After suncreaming and swimsuit finding all the children headed off and Michelle, Suzy and I went with them. Suzy went in the water while Mich and I sat and watched them all having fun and wading out far too deep (Scarlett!). Eventually some wandered back to sit with us and we realised Davies and Ben had mananged to miss us sitting on the beach and go back. Davies had made it all the way to the campsite but Ben had sat down, upset and feeling lost on the sand dunes. Scarlett was cold anyway so I went back with her and caught Davies up.

Eventually we decided enough people should have packed up and left to make it worth looking round for a new pitch so Babs, Marcus, Ady and I set off to look while the others stayed with the children. We found a couple of potential spaces – one was deemed too small and too rocky and not near the sand, the other was deemed too near the road and tantalisingly close to the sea enough for the children to want to go there but without a safe route down there. Everywhere else was either too sloping or not right for various other reasons. After much debate we decided to stay in the sand dunes and move down to a larger, flatter area adjacent to where we were already camped as the people there had now moved on.

In the same way we have done at campsites in Newgale and Kessingland we simply walked our tents across the site and re-pitched. Well I say simply, it worked ok for our littler tent but just as Ady, Katy and I untethered Katy’s tent a gale force wind blew up and the heavens opened. We yelled for help and managed to get it over there (I was all tangled up in guy ropes and walking over thistles in bare feet, Michelle was getting smacked in the face by the sopping wet flappy tent and we all got drenched bracing ourselves and the tent against the wind and rain while Katy pegged it to secure it. It was one of (several) less fun moments of the holiday. But Ady did point out Katy’s pants which were slightly exposed said ‘Happy Pants’ all around the top which did a good job of cheering us all up ;).
Photo removed at request of subject

We bought sausages and rolls from the onsite shop (very well stocked and quite reasonable, they have a mini supermarket, camping shop and gift shop on site and you can buy take-out beers and wine from the pub) and I think we just about managed to eat before it started raining again. We were all in our tents before it was even dark and I was so pissed off with the world in general I went to bed!

Actually I don’t seem to have blogged Friday but it was far to far away ago now to do it any justice. I worked all day. It was fine, I did Baby Rhyme Time and was pleased to have an influx of new babies rather than the slightly too old toddlers we have been getting (it’s supposed to be for under twos). Ady spent the morning getting stuff ready to be loaded into the car, Mum was here in the afternoon. I took a couple of the chicks round to Rainbows for show and tell which always goes down well. Mum came with me to the allotment while Ady loaded the car up and I took the chicks round to Tasha’s as she was ChickSitting for the week. Mum stayed late with us, we drank lots of wine, she went home. Think that’s it.

So Saturday morning we packed the last few things and were off and away for 930am. We’d decided Davies and Scarlett should go to Wildlife Explorers as it was the last one of the school year and we know that actually if we’d not had that motivation to get out of the house we’d have easily been another hour faffing around anyway.

Dropped them off and was called in to see the woman who runs it. Really Davies should be in the next group up as he is 8 but she’d kept him in with Scarlett in the beginning and left him there. So from September he will go up to the older group. This means Tarly will be there from 10-11 and then Davies from 11-130 as they do loads more in depth stuff in the older group. This will cut it fine for days when Magic Lantern falls on the same day but Davies is pleased and looking forward to learning more stuff :).

While the kids were in there we nipped to the local town to the Somerfield for some supplies for lunch and a few other camping essentials for the first night. Unfortunately neither Ady or I bothered to read the massive amounts of text on the carpark entrance board and assumed it was free for supermarket customers. Turns out it isn’t and we have a £25 parking ticket for failing to display a parking disc. The warden advised we contest it when Ady complained about the signs so I will do so tomorrow but am assuming we will have to pay as even I don’t believe ignorance is a fair excuse.

Finally we were on our way. It’s six hours – 300 miles to Shell Island. We did the whole journey in one long, glorious hit without even a loo stop. We hit virtually no traffic and arrived within about 2 minutes of the satnavs original time which I thought was pretty impressive given the distance. The kids watched films, DS’d and we chatted a fair bit although it was so long ago I have no idea what about!

We arrived, checked in and paid and then rang Michelle who came to meet us to lead us to where they had pitched. Katy and Becca had already arrived but it was clear that the campsite was so busy the choice of pitches had been severely restricted and they had found the best available of a rather poor lot. Our tent actually pitched quite well being the smallest of the group and the children set off straight away to explore with Chloe and Becca. Wine o’clock was declared, The Babs and co arrived (should we be calling your sister The Suze?), were kindly offered overnight space with Katy and accepted, food was eaten, more wine was consumed, a fire was lit and all was well with the world with a plan to move tents tomorrow when as the man at reception had told me ‘80%of the people on site would be leaving’.

Scarlett had a bad cough and we quickly realised that ironically we seem to lacking quite a bit in our first aid kit. It’s very suitable for First Aid at Work, less suitable for Scarlett on a campsite. Luckily Barbara was to the rescue with calpol which Tarly had to swig from the bottle for want of a medicine spoon and although she coughed through the night and I kept waking to find myself in a heap at the bottom of my sleeping bag at the bottom of the camping mat at the bottom on our sleeping pod due to being on a steep slope it was a fairly stressfree errection and first night and good to be there with friends.

I suppose I should get on with my blogging really, what with all this catching up to be done. Rather than sitting around playing bejeweled blitz ;).

I was waiting for all my pictures to be on flickr before blogging but I guess I can just drop them in later. And actually the lack of photos of the things I actually wanted to see sort of sets the tone for the week really.

It was a Good Holiday. Sadly it wasn’t a Great Holiday as there were just too many things that were disappointing to elevate it to such status and have words such as ‘adore’ and ‘wonder’ and ‘awe’ bestowed upon it.

I might as well get those out of the way first really. First of all Shell Island was a bit of a disappointment to me. I can’t even remember where I first heard about it but someone I know had been there and it sounded lovely. It does have the potential to be lovely but it is far too filled with groups of lads and teens out to get drunk, be noisy and surf down the sanddunes in the early hours of the morning to pull off lovely. It is strewn with litter, really, really strewn with litter. Several times we started to collect tins, bottles etc. and just gave up as we were so disheartened. I suspect it is a victim of it’s own success and also too cheap. Odd to be bemoaning that really but I think I’d rather have paid more and possible kept some people out as a result. It is so very sad that one of the things that should attract people to stay there is the natural beauty and wildlife and those are the very things that are suffering as a result of the people coming to stay there :(.

I think campsites are rather like books – there are just so many that it has to be a Very Very Special one to have me be prepared to revisit at the cost of not trying a new one. The Sustainability Centre is so far the only place to have me happy to rebook without fretting that in doing so I won’t be trying one of the thousands of other campsites I’ve not yet been to. Shell Island didn’t have that magic for me at all and in a part of the world (North Wales) that I love so much it would be my number one permanent relocation destination it fell way short of my expectations really.

Which brings me nicely to probably my biggest gripe of the week really. Now I felt I dealt with this in a humorous and self-deprecating way, poking fun at my own issues and working through my process at the same time without impacting too much on other people. Ady tells me I didn’t pull this off at all and possibly came across as petulant, moany and a nightmare holiday companion. Either way I probably wouldn’t have changed the way I acted so please feel free to use that information to back up any prior opinions you may have of me ;).

So, what I wanted from a camping holiday in North Wales, on Shell Island was the stunning views of the sea and the mountains. And Shell Island does have those. It also has sand dunes. Big, impressive, sci-fi film set style sand dunes that you can’t see over or get mobile phone signal in the middle of. And you can either choose to camp with that 360 degree view of mountains and ocean or in the middle of the giant sandpit. The group, collectively went for the sandpit. Not only did this mean we were denied the view it also meant there was bloody sand everywhere, still is, probably will be for weeks in our shoes, hair, clothes pockets, the washing machine etc. and possibly forever afterwards in our sleeping bags, tent and camping plastic wine glasses. It took Ady an hour to hoover it out of his car tonight, the patio below the washing line outside is strewn with the stuff from where I pegged out jeans and it fell from the pockets.

I don’t have an issue with sand as such. It’s not chalk or anything. And the kids did love it. When we moved and I had found what I deemed The Perfect Spot which took in the views and the group majority vote was to stay in the sand dunes I gave Davies and Scarlett the choice of staying pitched with their friends or moving to the view. They both prefered to stay with friends so that is what we did. I was never going to quietly accept it, I was always going to resent the week out of Ady and my holiday entitlement from work, the six hour drive, the 1000 mile round trip, frankly the not getting my own way. The kids both agreed if we’d been camped just the four of us the view would have won hands down over the sand dunes. Being with friends just about tipped the balance for me but it was a very close run thing and I reserve the right to go on about it forever after. 😉

The dolphins. Now this I take responsibility for totally. I didn’t manage my own and therefore Scarlett’s expectations properly on this one. Seeing dolphins was one of Scarlett’s ‘things’ I’d like to do this year’ list entries for 2009. Initially I was thinking ‘good luck with that one love, it’s not like we’ll be flying to Florida anytime soon!’ but a bit of research later and the whole thing fell into place with North Wales seeming to be a dolphin spotters paradise. A speedy few emails and phone calls later and I’d secured us a fab boat trip taking in some dolphin spotting and a bit of puffin perusal too. Job done.

Nope.

Turns out that company didn’t actually have an operational boat for the week we were there. Which is a bit of a prerequisite for boat tours really. So a trip to the Tourist Information Centre and a couple of phonecalls later I reach Tony, with a very strong Welsh accent and seafaring ways who books me onto his boat for Wednesday for a dolphin watching extravaganza. And for about 50 quid less than the first place. Result, thinks I.

Nope.

But we’ll get to that later. But to not keep you in suspense (not that you are, you all follow me on brightkite and know full well we didn’t see any dolphins) along with a view we didn’t see any dolphins.

Finally the weather. I’m not too fussy about that. We were after all camping in the Great British Summertime so rain pattering on the tent roof, soaking sleeping bags and making all that bloody sand wet and claggy and get trodden into the tent was a given really. As was the wind. The tent stood up to it all well, out of seven evenings there were only two wet ones and only one of them managed to drive us hardy folk into our tents so it didn’t actually interefere too much with the week, it’s just that a bit more sunshine would have been nice.

So, all that out of the way, let’s have a blow by blow daily account shall we?

Okay so technically it’s not a deckchair and it’s not actually up his nose. But we covered perspective, creative thinking, photography and brought our new curriculum to a wider audience 😉

The litter collection piece is now online 🙂
Link here

Shame on Lancing litter louts
Published Date: 07 July 2009
TWO children collected sacks of rubbish during a one-mile walk from their home to illustrate the dangers of litter.
Davies and Scarlett Goddard collected the rubbish as part of their RSPB Wildlife Action Awards.

Walking from their home in Osborne Drive, Sompting, to Lancing library, in Penstone Park, eight-year-old Davies and six-year-old Scarlett managed to fill four bin bags with litter.

Their mother, Nic Goddard, said: “It’s a lot of litter, it really is.

“I think we had something like 50-plus drinks cans from things like lager, beer and Coke.

“I stopped them from picking up cigarette butts, but there were hundreds of them and huge amounts of broken glass.”

Recycling

As part of their Wildlife Action Awards, Davies and Scarlett have to create displays, write to their local MPs and try to raise awareness of an environmental issue in the local press.

Earlier this year they created a display at Lancing library with pictures and drawings of litter and they created another display from this trip’s collection.

“We scattered the litter around our garden and they took a picture of it, and now it’s all in my recycling,” said Mrs Goddard.

“They’ve made a display telling people about what they found.”

Scarlett and Davies Goddard clear up the mess

Bins

She said part of the reason Davies and Scarlett wanted to do the litter collection was because they were concerned about wildlife.

“It’s just something they’re passionate about,” she said.

“We have walked to the library a lot and my son’s always said, ‘Why do people do that, mummy?’

“I think they’d want to do it again, but, on our way back, we saw a Coke can which had obviously been dropped in between our going and coming back.

“My son said he felt like he’d made a difference and there were four fewer bags of litter on the street. It’s sad to see it filling back up again.

“I just wish people would take it home with them or use bins.”

No, not Ady walking in on something he shouldn’t have, just us being home for the day when it wasn’t our plan. Both children ended up in bed with me this morning but it was so hot we were all up just after 8am. We had been planning to go to Paradise Park with Tasha and co but Toby wasn’t well and neither were either of my two really, both running temperatures and feeling generally floppy.

First thing I nipped round the shop to buy multiple copies of the local paper featuring them on page 5 with their litter picking endeavours. It doesn’t appear to be online yet although I’m guessing it will be at some point so I’ll link to it then. It’s all formed as quotes from me, which is good but not really what I was hoping for as it was very much their project rather than mine. I’d also asked if she could be sure to mention that they are Home Educated and she hasn’t which is a shame although they are both wearing their HE tshirts so that might help! The kids are very proud of it and Davies even asked if I thought they’d be on Newsround when it was on later today 😆 – first steps the local rag, tomorrow Sky news eh?! 😆

Davies spent some time under a blanket on the sofa playing his DS, while Scarlett painted my toes. She wanted to move into body art so I got out the henna we had from When Good Kessinglands Go Bad and we did some stuff with that. Scarlett wanted a cat on one arm so I did that for her then she wanted something on the other arm but didn’t know what. I suggested we do the hyroglyphics of her name from the museum the other day which she liked the idea of so I did that down her other arm.

We watched some Ray Mears and messed about reseaching jumbo jets to buy. We did genuinely talk about various jumbo jet related things too and all liked the house planned to be made from one.

In interspersed all this with some mindless facebook games but I notice several other people were doing the same under the guise of being Home Educators or even people with proper paid employment so I don’t feel too bad ;).

Ady popped home for lunch in time to pull faces at Scarlett henna-ing my feet and lower legs with an assortment of flowers, bees and butterflies (her body art of choice). It does now look like I have an odd disease or nicotine stained ankles but she is very into decorating me at the moment and I’m quite happy to sit still and be primped and preened :). I may yet draw the line if she starts to consider piercings though 😆

Scarlett has spent quite a lot of time tending to the new chicks too – we have seven and they are very cute. Several have gorgeous markings and it is easily our most successful hatch ever. I’m hoping for at least a couple of hens in there…

Lunch was a bit hit and miss for the rest of us as neither of the children were hungry really today. In the end Scarlett and I went to do some baking and made some cheese scones and some lavender flapjacks (her suggestion) which came out really well :). Davies watched some CBBC and Scarlett spent some time pasting glue onto my arm and leg and then waiting for it to dry so she could peel it off. Oh and I put some henna on my hair and washed it off to show the children the effect of it. It’s rather more orange than usual but Ady didn’t notice so clearly not too shocking! 😉

Davies asked me to read to them so I read some Charlie Small and we all curled up together which was nice (if a little sticky) and watched the flying ants and subsequent seagulls filling the skies. Ady came home and I nipped off to Brighton to collect two drums and a cymbal via a convoluted contact of Michelle’s that we’ve bought for Davies. I was back within the hour before they’d even had their bath so we all had a play on the drums, they bathed and I read some Giants and Joneses for a bedtime story before they went to bed.

Both Davies and Scarlett seem better for a day at home being fairly quiet so I am hopeful more of the same tomorrow will have them ready for holiday on Saturday.

A new jumbo jet, depending on how it’s equipped can cost from £150 million to £260 million so it’s rather out of our budget. So we’ve checked on ebay but there don’t seem to be any for sale 🙁

I’ve researched the second hand market but it would appear there isn’t much call for them,although I’d be interested to know how this Calafornian woman’s house is coming along 😆

Scarlett raised the point that even if we did buy one we’d not have anywhere to keep it. Davies of course is all for making one from empty toilet rolls, lots of sellotape and one of the cider cans we collected on our litter walk. But that’s not buying is it?

I did remember something I learnt on QI though and shared that with the children about why large things are called ‘jumbo’ after Jumbo the elephant.

I worked this morning which was all quite busy. I had my quarterly review and updated my boss on my progress on various tasks, I spent some time sorting out fines for a nursery which has lost 22 books and dealing with the paperwork for various books borrowed and being sent to other libaries out of the county including one from the British Library.

I nipped home really quickly to get changed before heading over to Julie’s to collect Davies and Scarlett. Lorna was asleep upstairs and the other four children were strewn about the garden in the sunshine all looking very tired and spent. They’d had a lovely morning playing and watching Total Wipeout on TV.

Scarlett had been complaining of a sore throat and was very clingy. Some of Ady’s traditional pre-holiday doom has rubbed off on me this time and I’m convinced one or more of us will be ill before the weekend so I’m really hoping that isn’t pessimsim coming true 🙁

I stayed for a cup of tea and a chat with Julie for an hour and then we came home. Scarlett had some medicine which seemed to perk her up and then as they were both hungry I made their tea – Davies wanted pasta, Scarlett wanted french toast. We messed about as per the post below and then it was time for Badgers.

I went and sat on the beach in the sunshine with my book for most of the hour, returning to meet Ady who had been to collect The Cupboard part 2 from Jonathan’s parents and came to get the allotment key from me to go and do the watering.

Home for a bit of Charlie Small and then to bed for Davies and Scarlett who were both asleep before 8pm which is simply unheard of.

Davies, Scarlett and I have seen the error of our ways. We’ve come to terms with the fact that we’ve been doing this Home Ed lark all wrong. What with our non planning, no idea what we’ll be doing next week let alone next year, haphazzard approach to the whole thing. No broad and balanced, no ensuring every area is covered, just one big old free for all.

So we’re turning over a new leaf. We’ve decided to seek help, guidance and inspiration in the form of a curriculum. We thought about Sonlight, we looked at reading schemes, we’ve discussed workbooks and we’ve cogitated over the National Curriculum but finally decided we needed something with a hook to bring it to our level, to make it relevant to us.

So we’ve chosen something that was a bit influence to me in my younger years. Something which covers it all, allows for practical tasks alongside the more structured learning. It’s classical, penned by famous writers and has maybe an element of quirkiness about it. We’ve decided not to follow it in order but to mix it up a bit, give it a twist so to speak

Just today it meant we got some fresh air and exercise outside, some handling of livestock, some language, some IT watching youtube footage, some maths in the form of size ratios debating what would fit into where and some valuable forward planning tasks. There was some music, some poetry in the form of learning verse, certainly a little creativity and imagination and some drama and empathy is planned for tomorrow.

You might know Grant and Naylor better for their fine work in penning the Red Dwarf series and books but before that they were involved in the work we are choosing to study, when way back in the 1980s they wrote The Chicken Song.

Today we did indeed hold a chicken in the air:

and we learnt to say ‘Heebe’ which is ‘Hello’ in Arapaho. We also learnt that the Arapaho tribe are Native Americans living on the plains of Colorado and Wyoming..

We have discussed whether we should use a really small deck chair to stick inside our noses or whether we should just insert one small corner of a regular sized one.

We have talked a little about disembowlment and why we won’t be doing that section of the curriculum as a practical and just what other ingredients would make for a nice Gran Casserole.

Tomorrow we’re planning on pretending we are all called Keith and maybe breaking out the green paint for our left knees.

Bring on the annual inspections – we are *so* ready ;).

Yesterday was the tenth and last session of Forest School. Scarlett didn’t actually want me to go up there as I am mean and rather than allow her and Davies to spent the 3 hours running off in the woods I insist they sit down, learn from the rangers and do the activities. I’ve spent £7.50 each for those three hours and I want more from them that grassy knees and the secret passwords to their camps in the woods! 😉

After lots of badgering from the children and a couple of the parents they were doing some knife work for the last session and making a butter knife each. They all had snacks; two of the children had brought up cakes and brownies to share and then were shown how to make a knife and given a safety talk. Lots of the kids had difficulty focussing on the length of the talk, Scarlett being one of them. She often zones out when being told what to do and I actually watched her attention shut down. I personally think safety talks should be punchy, to the point and not too long otherwise you do tend to lose everyone’s interest.

First they all practised on sticks with potato peelers to see if they could assume safe working positions and get the knack of stripping the bark.

Scarlett was pretty good at this but she does do a fair bit of wielding a peeler as she eats a lot of carrots. Davies was slower and struggled a bit but he’s never been great with implements anyway – cutlery, scissors etc. never look comfortable and like an extension of his own hands but always clumsy and akward. He still manages to turn out creative stuff most of the time though and is always up for having a go.

All the children were given knives to use and all the adults were on high alert. I genuinely expected to see blood as they are quite a dizzy bunch of kids sometimes and I think the sharpness and dangerousness of the knives had gone over some of their heads. I stayed between Davies and Scarlett and tried to ignore the other children as there are a couple of fairly needy ones who would happily have had my sole attention if I’d given it and supervising my own two felt like enough of a responsibility ;).

They both did really well, both did well over half of their knives and the overall shape and finished objects reflected their work rather than the odd bit of helping out I did. I realised Davies’ knife was much blunter than Tarly’s having handled them both and so he swapped his towards the end for a sharper one to finish off. I think all the kids realised it was much harder work than they’d been expecting it to be, although I suspect the knives could well have been sharper which would have made it easier.

Everyone finished a knife and they all looked pretty good :). Afterwards they had a final circle time and cooked some toast over the fire to spread with butter using their new knives.

The final task was to take five or ten minutes to walk off into the woods and just take in their surroundings one last time, and bring back any ‘treasure’ they found. They returned to the circle and passed around a ‘speaking stick’ to tell of their treasure and talk about what they’d enjoyed most about Forest School.

I did find that bit all a bit like a mass eviction from the Big Brother house or the end of Brat Camp as there was much talk from the rangers about how they’d all been On a Journey and Grown and Changed during the sessions.I have to say I thought the kids who were brats were still brats, the annoying ones were still annoying (infact possibly more so for having spent ten weeks in their company ;)) and the okay kids were still okay really. They do work with young offenders and excluded kids and kids who probably never would see the forest otherwise though so I suspect it was something of a scripted last session thing which in many cases may well be true.

I did like one of the rangers who said he wanted to thank them all as he had learnt something from each and every one of them and actually I think that is true.

Davies, Scarlett and I chatted a bit about it on the way home and I think they both did learn a fair bit from the experience generally.They both did way more sitting and listening than in their day to day lives and although it was enjoyable they got a taste of being part of a class and the pitfalls of that. They had to be in the company of some kids they didn’t like, found annoying and in one case were actually a bit afraid of and developed some good skills for coping and dealing with that situation. I don’t think they got vast amounts from the crafty stuff as they are both pretty creative and imaginative anyway but I enjoyed watching those and got some ideas for nice things to sit and do in the woods next time we are camping. I think all 3 of us got more confident about campfires, cooking on them and handling tools. It was right that I attended most of the sessions as I think it maximised what they got from them although if they do another run of sessions maybe next year as they both want to do then I would stay away and let them do it themselves.

Was it worth the money? Hard to say really as I do think it was pricey and I don’t think there was a lot of value for money but it was a cool thing to do, inspired a liking for bushcrafty type stuff and was interesting to see what’s out there for when they’re a little older so I guess it was.

I do think being a ranger would be a cool job 🙂

On the way home we stopped at Asda as having been through the kids’ wardrobes I knew neither of them were very well off for summer clothes and whilst it’s foolish to expect good weather camping next week it’s equally foolish not to be prepared for the possibility so we got a couple of summer dresses for Scarlett (I do like them and I do think they look pretty on me but they’re not really me Mumma!) having persuaded her jeans and t shirts might be what suits her but in very hot weather they are not comfortable and some shorts for Davies on the same basis. I’m pleased the pink frilly phase for Scarlett only lasted til she was about five at which point she realised they are not practical for climbing trees but sometimes it would be nice for her to look like a little girl ;). She tried on some black shoes for Badgers while we were in there which I vetoed as they were a tenner and too big but she was funny about the fact they had a slight wedge heel: ‘High heels! Ooh listen they make me sound like a horse!’ 😆

Back home for some lunch and they played with some Indiana Jones figures we’d picked up in Asda for £1.50 each which agreeing to buy apparently made me the best mummy in the world – how about that eh? You can give up a career to Home Educate, spend hours facilitating their education, looking for interesting activities and trips and opportunities, ways to make their childhood a golden, halcyon experience or you could just spent six quid on plastic tat and be done with it! 😆

Then it was swimming lessons. I’ve had a potential earache bubbling away in my right ear (which is prone to ear infections) for over a week and swimming last week definitely aggravated it and I must have done something odd at Forest School as on the way home my back starting twinging too so I decided swimming probably wasn’t a great idea for me on both counts. Which was a shame as it was incredibly hot and I’m sure the water would have been a nicer place to be than the spectators area but did mean I got to watch their lesson. Davies is a good little swimmer now and is starting to develop some sort of style which is nice. Scarlett is still a bit random but has oodles of confidence and loves being in the water which is a great start.

Back home again I cooked their tea and then when Ady got home I nipped up to the allotment. I had some kitchen waste which was attracting flies to take up there and also didn’t want to risk my bike with my back so drove up which gave me an extra half an hour to do a bit of weeding along with the watering.

When I got home Ady had started dinner (bless him and also curse him, he’d have been better spending the time with the kids 🙁 ) and the kids had had a bath after getting filthy playing outside. I read some Charlie Small and they went off to bed.

Hurrah caught up! The benefit of Ady taking Davies and Scarlett over to Julie’s for the morning while I’m off to work is that they leave at 730am giving me over an hour home alone. And I only spent about half of it on bejeweled blitz 😉

Ady woke me this morning before he left to say two chicks had hatched. We’ve had 11 eggs in the incbubator – six were from a farm we went to on Open Farm Sunday and are lovely little golden pekin bantams, the other five were from our own hens, a mix of speckedly and brown ones so the brown ones should be an interesting cross between our speckledy cockerel and brown hens.

We transfered the first two chicks to the brooder once they’d fluffed up and saw that several more eggs had pipped. All of this along with dealing with laundry and packing a picnic meant we were late to meet Tasha, Toby and Vinnie. Fortunately they were also late and we actually all pitched up at the same time 🙂 Hurrah for equally tardy friends!

Brooklands, which is the large laked park right on the seafront near us is having rather a face lift at the moment. There is already a train, bouncy castle, trampolines, pony rides, boats, pitch and putt and go-karts and they have just put in a paddling pool and are doing further work to improve it. I think the stuff is all rather overpriced and even the car park is NCP and very pricey so we either walk (it is only 15 minutes but it’s along a boring, straight, main road) or park two roads down on the road where it’s free.

Today we drove and situated ourselves at the paddling pool and there we stayed for over 3 hours :).For a while it did feel like Tasha and I were constantly calling out to the kids to stop them doing stuff as we were both really mindful that Davies, Scarlett and Toby looked liked giants among all the little toddlers there and I do feel a bit like it is their domain in school hours having been the parent of those teenies once myself and felt all protective of them around bigger kids. That said, our kids also have every right to be there and aslong as they are being mindful of the smaller ones around we didnt want to curtail their fun too much. Part of the fun of being in a paddling pool in the sunshine is splashing really! They all had a fab time; Scarlett teamed up with another little girl and they spent ages pulling each other round in her inflatable boat and they all got involved in a big splashing fight with loads of other kids which all seemed very fun and amicable.

We got an ice cream as we left and came home at about 4pm to write some words to go with the pictures Ady was printing off at work for the kids’ library display of their litter walk. It was a fairly stressy half an hour as I have no patience and they are reluctant, which as all three of us agreed is why autonomy works for us and if we had to do writing every day they’d be far better off in school. What’s ironic is that both of them happily write a fair bit most days on their own artwork but the idea of sitting down and writing something for the display which was fairly boring text just didn’t inspire them.

We got that done and then they had their tea which I transferred more chicks to the brooder. We have six healthy chicks and one which is still fighting it’s way out of the egg but I am not overly hopeful about as it’s taking rather too long. The other 5 eggs with no signs of pips can stay in the ‘bator til Wednesday before being disposed of. Obviously I’m hoping the seventh will make it but six out of eleven is still a good hatch rate, especially all healthy birds.

Ady came home with the pictures so the children and I headed off to the library to put the display up. It was a simple one this time with a header of ‘Litter Walk’ cut out from red paper by Davies and the words ‘Last week we walked from our house to the library collecting litter. It is only one mile but we collected four sacks of rubbish. Over 50 cans, more than 10 bottles and loads of crisp packets and wrapper. By Davies and Scarlett Goddard’ and a load of photos of them on their walk and with the litter afterwards.

I dropped them back home and headed off to the alllotment on my bike to do some watering. While I was gone it emerged that Davies had caught the sun quite a lot on his legs despite two applications of sun cream. They are red and a bit stingy and as a sunburn veteran I know it is very minor but it’s his first experience and he is prone to drama so he is acting like he needs a wheelchair! I suspect it will have faded away entirely by morning but I think we both will be even more diligent about suncream in future :(.

I read the end of the Mr Gum we are re-reading and in theory the children went to bed. I say in theory as Davies is back sitting beside me on the sofa again now (grrr).

I attempted to have a lie in and catch up on sleep this morning. I didn’t really manage it as it was gone 3am before I was asleep and Tarly was in bed with me before 8am being bouncey and perky and Scarletty. Davies and Ady had gone to the allotment to do early morning watering and harvesting so it was just her and I. They were back by about 9ish but had clearly done some male bonding and were leaving her out so she kept coming back to me. I eventually gave up at 1030am (which I suppose does qualify as a lay in even if it didn’t feel like one) and got up. She did some drawing on my back with make up while I put some on my face which is her current big thing (she’s not at all keen on the idea of tattoos but she does love temporary body art, must dig the henna out and have a play with that actually, we have a stash from the ill fated henna activity from Kessingland).

Breakfast was a prolonged affair with me eating my croissants and lavender and summer fruit jam (it’s delicious) at midday. We debated modes of transport to Brighton and parking issues and with a bit of pressure from me Ady agreed we’d go on the train. It was a bargain £7.20 for all four of us, with just a 15 minute walk through the Laines which are a very interesting place to be wandering through anyway at the other end.

Thanks to being tired, hot and that tangent factor which Ady’s presence often gives the children were not at their best today which was a shame as it’s the sort of excursion they and I often do and get loads out of so should have been really nice to share with Ady. It was overall good but could have been nicer with less challengeing children at times.

We arrived early and collected our tickets from the box office then wandered off to find somewhere cheap to buy water and sweets before going back. We got front row seats at the Pavillion theatre which is quite small. Last time we were there was to see Richard Herring a few years ago. We were there to see Little Leap Forward which we only discovered from reading the programe is based on a Barefoot Book which we read loads of last year although I think we missed this one.

It was an amazing show using puppets, shadows, masks and music to haunting and beautiful effect. There were no words throughout the hour long show but somehow we all managed to follow the story thanks to the great acting. If it’s travelling near you I’d recommend seeing it.

We had a walk through the Pavillion Gardens afterwards where a band was playing ‘No business like show business’ which may well be some other more classical piece of music but that’s how I know it and it’s been in my head ever since. We watched that for a while and then had a brief look round some of Brighton Museum, in particular the fashion, body image and ancient Egypt areas.

We walked back through the Laines and caught a train home. I made Davies and Scarlett their tea and then Tarly helped Ady clean our cars while I did some baking (some bananas that were really only fit for the compost heap were nicely rescued to make chocolate and banana cupcakes) and made some jam (strawberry and chili – nice!).

I read some Mr Gum to the children and then they went off to bed, Ady and I had tacos for dinner as we decided it was too hot for a roast dinner and I am determined to be in bed before 1am tonight, or should that be tomorrow!