One word? When seven would do…

Aside from the religion of marketing and consumerism and spending not being represented in there somewhere 😉

a href=’http://quizfarm.com/test.php?q_id=10907’>Which religion is the right one for you? (new version)
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You scored as Satanism. Your beliefs most closely resemble those of Satanism! Before you scream, do a bit of research on it. To be a Satanist, you don’t actually have to believe in Satan. Satanism generally focuses upon the spiritual advancement of the self, rather than upon submission to a deity or a set of moral codes. Do some research if you immediately think of the satanic cult stereotype. Your beliefs may also resemble those of earth-based religions such as paganism. Satanism 83% atheism 79% agnosticism 71% Buddhism 63% Paganism 46% Judaism 25% Christianity 21% Hinduism 21% Islam 17%

Somehow the threatened rain (both on the weather forecast and by dark clouds in the sky) managed to hold off all day and Ros’ Boo had a fab birthday party in the grounds of Bodiam Castle with a Princess and Knights theme.

The only pic of Tarly in all her outfit – including gloves and without the t shirt she insisted on wearing as the top was ‘too scratchy’. Oh the things I could do with that child if she only allowed herself to be my dolly. The plans I had for dressing her hair… probably just as well as if she did allow me to dress her up like ‘toddleroffspingBarbie’ I might just slip into paegent mom territory 😉 and be there rougeing her cheeks and applying blue eyeshadow to her! TBH I didn’t really expect her to stay in the dress all day but she got into her role when she saw all the bigger girls in their finery and was happy to be ‘Princess Scarlett’ for the day.

So the day started like any other chez Goddard when we have to be somewhere at a certain time – with me shouting and ushering the rest of the family at the door like a boot camp sergeant ‘come on people let’s move it, move it, move it! I want to see you in that car and I want to see it by 11 hundred hours’. I was up with the small people today and had a bath which they joined me in and I took on the heroic task of brushing Tarly’s hair, coaxing her into her dress, getting Davies’ knight’s outfit out for him, getting myself ready etc. Despite forward planning we still didn’t make it into the car til gone 11am – 10.30 would have been better 🙁 There were further altercations about the route once in the car resulting in an unscenic detour around Lewes but we finally arrived about 45 mins late 🙁 Good humour restored in all when Davies saw other small boys with swords, Tarly got stuck into some of Ros’ biscuits, Ady got his camera out with glee muttering about how he bet Chris would have loved it there (kids, in appropriate fancy dress, in pretty castle grounds on a slightly overcast day apparantly is good photo fodder – sadly I refused to do anything with the kids so he ended up chasing Tarly round and didn’t get to indulge in arty shots!)

There were party games and food, Davies won pass the parcel by default (!) – Tony jingling bells in place of music to pass it round to was a definite high of the day! Then we went inside the castle. The procession of small people all dressed up attracted lots of attention from indulgent old folk, several of whom were taking photos of them all. We climbed to the top of the castle, wandered around inside striking knight and princess poses and then went back to the car for Boo’s birthday cake.

There were only one set of toilets in the place so after walking over there for the most satisfying wee I’ve had since being pregnant ( 😉 ) we ate some cake, had a chat with Ros and Tony and then drove home. Called into McDs for kids’ tea, bathed them and packed them off to bed before Ady created a roast dinner from some frozen chicken breasts and a few potatoes.

Some pics below of the day:

went here today – it’s a massive annual agricultural show held in a showground. I went with the school when I was about 12 (so that would be, OMG, 19 years ago!!!!) and remember it being a good trip then with lots of livestock to look at, parades and competitions going on in the main arena and stands and exhibits all around with loads of free stuff like pens, stickers and bugs (well I was only 12 – infact perhaps thats where my early love of marketing and promotions began 😉 ) and information. Man, has it grown!

We probably only saw about half of it but we had an excellent day. The ancillary bit of a few stands has grown and grown and is now a full scale retail opportunity (FYI I didn’t spend a penny!) with every sort of stands selling anything with even the remotest link to agriculture or the countryside. Still loads of free stuff too 😉

We took Mum and Dad with us and the queue to get into the carpark was over an hour, luckily (!) we had the Pop Jr cd with us so were able to listen to Witch Doctor and Barbie Girl several times to keep our sanity during that time 😉

First stop (after the loo!) was a demonstration by the National Trust on wood whittling (?) which involved stripping the bark off of long thin branches with this antiquated foot and hand operated machine. Davies and I watched for a few minutes and then the man offered Davies a go!

naturally Davies and ‘old bloke’ hit it off and he sat there for a good ten minutes quite happily chatting with him 🙂 all the while stripping wood. He brought home a long bit of the stripped bark as a momento!

Meanwhile Ady and Tarly were trying on hats!

Then we looked longingly at various animals with me and Davies sighing about having some to keep in our own garden! I wanted the chickens;

Tarly wanted a little lamb:

and then Davies fell totally and utterly in love with a sheep which was for sale for £500. He sat stroking it and looking all mournful when no one would buy it for him for ages!

Infact he was only consoled by ice creams 🙂

From there we looked at tortoises and rabbits;

and owls;

which the kids really enjoyed. Then we had a small period of losing each other. First Ady disappeared and then came back clutching huge amounts of educational stuff about the countryside – posters, a cd rom, activity books etc. He had gone into the educational tent to the teachers section and proudly told them he was a Home Educator and asked what he could have 😉 First time he’s admitted that in public let alone used it to blag stuff! Then we lost Mum, found her again and then completely lost her. She had come leaving her bag in our car so had no money or phone but within a few minutes of not seeing her it became apparant that there was no chance of finding her again or even any point in looking. We walked to the end of that row of stalls where there was a crossroads and Dad stood there for about 15 minutes while we went off and looked at various stands but she didn’t appear.

Davies spent ages at the St Johns stand and learnt resuscitation on a dummy 🙂

there is apparantly a local branch of the SJ Badgers which he could join at 5 so I will find out some more info on that one as it is a really good skill…

We decided that Mum would probably make her way back to the car after a wander around so we continued looking round as although there were lost child facilities / tents etc there was only a pa system around the main arena and the kids were keen to keep looking at the stands. We got leaflets, colouring sheets and giveaways from road safety, the police, the fire brigade, the RSPB, various wildlife charities and more, watched displays of various agricultural and craft skills, looked at more animals and were seriously flagging by 4pm. So we started back for the car.

Mum was not there which started to look like it could present a problem as the kids were tired and hungry, we still had no way of contacting her and the show continued for another two hours. Also as she had been chatting with the kids as we walked to the ground from where we’d parked (and it was quite a long way with several turnings off) we were not at all sure she’d find her way back to it anyway. Ady and the kids stayed in the car while Dad and I started to walk back to the showground trying to decide what exactly to do about it when we saw her coming towards us flanked by a police officer both sides!

Bless her she had realised she had lost us and gone straight to the police stand where they had been radioing between marshalls round the site trying to locate us, she had been with the police for the whole 2 hours since we lost her getting more and more stressed. Don’t know why she had panicked so much really but the police had obviously been a little concerned and asked her all sorts of questions and even been phoning our house and her house incase we’d come home! She was really cold, thirsty and really, really sorry! We all felt guilty for not having really worried too much about losing her and just assuming she’d look round for a bit then come back to the car but really, going to the police would not have crossed our minds – oops! So there you go, next time she gets to have my mobile number written on her hand or one of Jax’s toddler wristbands, or perhaps that more fconventional precaution of taking her own phone and purse with her 🙂

Home for some tea, Dr Who, an indian takeaway delivery and my brother popped over for a couple of beers too. Losing Mum aside it was a really lovely day. Loads and loads of educational mileage, with plenty more to follow up on and a nice family day too. 🙂

Later today we have Ros’ Boo’s princesses and knights party so hoping for sunshine and about to get everyone bathed and princessed or knighted up – pics later I’m sure!

well ok it’s not likely to be but it is my intention 🙂

Bad night last night, Tarly is suffering nightmares. Mainly they seem to consist of ‘peoples taking my dummies’ but they sometimes contain real ‘peoples’ she knows such as Grandad, Elliot or a shark! Not sure what all that is about but she is genuinely upset by them and not really awake. When she started at about 3.30am this morning we lasted til 4 and then brought her into our bed, which is probably a really bad move but she did manage to snuggle down and sleep til 7ish.

Davies woke at 7am and when I told him to go and play and come back when the big hand was pointing straight down he went off and made a fab art attack / big picture type thing on the lounge floor with bits of coloured paper. Should have taken a photo really although I don’t think it would have done it justice. About 8 A4 sheets by 8 A4 sheets sized he had used blues, greens and turquoise paper to make a sea, yellow to make an island which he had put some real shells and some beads to be pretend stones on, a boat and then ripped up small bits of paper to make fish.

Scarlett got a scoubidou out so she could ‘go fishing Mummy’ in it and they started on the strawberry mountain for breakfast!

A quick dash to the bank prior to TT1 having packed sandwiches to bring with us.

TT1 was probably the best it’s ever been today. There are additional older children now, I think there were 7 altogether today which was much better. Davies had taken on board everything I have been nagging him about there and behaved really well. Tarly had an altercation with the helper woman’s little girl (not sure if I have blogged my issues with her being there or just whined at Ady about them…) pushing her about – which is bizarre as she is about half Tarly’s size and my beloved girl is not known for being pushed about. She just looked down at her, then at me and then back at her again and didn’t react – I was proud and said so loudly 😉 She (Scarlett) then managed to totally accidentally (I didn’t see it but it apparantly was a complete accident) wallop her in the mouth with a maraca and cut her mouth so she bled all over her mother – oops! Scarlett was totally bemused by the whole thing and when the mother brought her back in all mopped up she said ‘ah well what goes around comes around, she nearly knocked a little girls tooth out with that maraca in the earlier class!!!!!!!’

Still totally undecided about continuing with that class come September but I think we’ll see it through til the summer holidays break.

Lunch in the baking hot oven of a car and then TT2. Scarlett did really well today, every week we talk about it in advance and every week she gets slightly better at sitting down in the middle of all the activities to listen to the women telling us what to do next. Gave her stacks of praise today and it really paid off 🙂 In the 20 mins between the two classes her and Davies ran around playing with all the other kids. It seems to have sorted itself out with the rougher kids and it possibly helps that Davies is clearly the oldest and tallest so he gets targeted less. Someone had brought along a ball and they were playing a bastardised football, handball type game with it. D was soo sweet as S was way too small to run fast enough to ever get the ball every other time he got it he stopped the game to hand it to her to have a go 🙂 Bless!

As we left the leader called me over to say that D will need to move up to the next level (school age Gym Bobs) in September and the class time will change. This leaves me with a few dilemas about which of the two classes to go for – one clashes slightly with our Home Ed group and as I keyhold I can’t slip off early and the other is on a Friday at 4.30 which would be a nightmare to drag Scarlett to – clashes with tea time, means loads of backwards and forwardsing on a Friday and we’d end up stuck in Friday night traffic coming home and probably fighting to keep Tarly awake in time to get back to eat. Might pull rank and see if I can twiddle with HE group start and end time (whatd’ya reckon Jenny? 1-3 instead of 1.30-3.30 would do it???) No need to decide ’til August anyway so won’t worry about it yet.

Back home we spent ages tidying up some beads Tarly had scattered about the place and then I taught the kids ‘she’ll be coming round the mountain when she comes’ which they loved. We spent ages thinking of the silliest things ‘she’ would be doing when she came and adding yipee-eyes to it all – great fun.

While I was doing their tea I realised that just at the moment I am really rather happy with my life. I know this is a good time of year for being at home with them but actually instead of somewhat dreading Davies’ impending fifth birthday and all the imagined milestones that offers up I am looking forward to finally being official and Real Home Educators. The hands off approach to reading and writing I have been lazily following since our touching on it all with 100EL has really paid off. Every night he falls asleep with early reader books (Red Nose Readers, Bob Books, Oxford Reading and Apple Tree Farm) piled all over his bed. He is obsessed with knowing what every bit of writing he sees anywhere says and is really starting to think about the sounds within words. he’s also started to pick up some of the more educational maths type toys or resources which have been in the house for ages and gone ignored previously – today he was messing about with the cusinere (I know that’s not spelt right but I can’t be arsed to look it up!) rods for ages and works through little maths type puzzles aloud showing he is getting to grips with the theories behind maths in practical real life scenarios.

Argh, that was so not brief! I really want to get my Ed Phil properly drafted and agreed to by Ady and talked through with Davies, some sort of evidence – probably pulled from out of my blog – of how our approach works and so on in readiness for a knock on the door if one comes. I also want to explore some different activities for them come September and look at how our week is structured to make sure they are both getting the most from it. And finally I really feel like I might be ready to start touting for some sort of business for me too, but that all needs a lot more thinking through.

As described by Tarly when asked if she’d had a nice day today. It was a positive description if not a very suitable word 🙂

They both did some drawing and colouring first thing while I made a picnic, sorted some washing (I have four washing baskets and currently they are all full of clean washing to put away -urgh!) and did some email catching up.

Somehow we still failed to be out of the house on time to get to Chichester for midday as arranged for the EO local contacts picnic although we were parked by 10 past. I then managed to walk the entire perimeter of the park which is within Roman walls, missing the entrance and adding probably a mile’s walk to it arriving a further half and hour late! Ah well, good exercise all round – and I had got Tarly walking too on the basis we had parked so nearby 😉

Not such a good turn out this month as we had last month but I think we had been a bit lazier about promoting it tbh – decided we would give it a miss for July and August and arrange another one for September when school children are no longer at large! Julie and the twins were already there so Davies and Scarlett ran in to the playground bit to play with them while I did my meet and greet duties and then we ate some of the picnic.

I’d promised the children we’d go strawberry picking on the way home if the weather was good and they were good too. Somehow I managed to persuade Julie to come along too (she suspects she will be in trouble with Chris for this as pick your own is not organic and various other irrational reasons for not taking toddlers there!). All of the kids had a whale of a time eating, picking and competing to see who picked the most, had the shiniest and biggest fruit. I took them there a couple of times last year and it was always a really popular venue. Jack and Maisie had a great time too, although they both seemed to find a good spot, sit down and eat their way through it so I hope Chris is not being justified in his ranting by them having tummy aches tonight 🙁

Came home with two huge punnets as I couldn’t bear to not buy all my two had picked (but for a fiver we have at least twice as many as you’d get for that in Sainsburys, and they are really sweet and lovely 🙂

Played in the garden (well the kids played and I read my book) and had the kids’ tea out there until Ady got home.

Another really nice, long hot sunny day outside enjoying the freedom that no work and no school can offer. Sometimes I really love my life 🙂

Davies and Scarlett bouncing on the bed and playing some bizarre game where she is trying to lift him up. Obviously she can’t and she starts to get all ‘two’ about it.

S: I can’t lift Davies UP! I CAN’T lift Davies UP! I CAN’T LIFT Davies UP! ICAN’TLIFTDAVIESUPICAN’TLIFTDAVIESUPICAN’T!!!!!! Wah!!!!
D: yes, you can’t lift me up. I think we’ve established that!

Me: Pmsl 😀

Typical isn’t it? After I decide yesterday to try and be less on the laptop and more with the kids Ady comes home last night and in the course of chatting about HE he comes out with ‘the only bad thing to come out of this Home Educating malarkey is your blogging. Your’e on that thing every spare second!’ hence followed a Steve and Sarah type conversation 😉

Conceded that he does have a point – I do feel as though I’m only participating in real life in order to have something to blog about sometimes 😉 Not about to stop that mind, but perhaps I could spend slightly less time online. So have decided to blog, click round the ring and then switch off for the evening and spend time chatting with him as well as spend time interacting with the small people during the day. I think this is a positive thing but I am suffering withdrawal symptoms (cold turkey on spending and surfing at the same time does seem a bit harsh!)

So this morning I checked emails and then switched off and went with Davies into the playroom to see what he wanted to do. We did a sticker book which has been kicking around since his birthday last September to do with Space which was the theme of today’s HE group – Scarlett ‘helped’ with that too 🙂
Then we dug out a kitchen science kit which needed loads of preparation so I made some tea to cool for one of the experiments and stuck some water to make ice in the freezer. Finally we got out a little kit with geometric shapes and little cards to make pictures which you have to construct from the shapes. Davies played with that for a bit and Tarly did some of a similar kit with shapes you have to place over the pictures to make a house, a rocketship etc. This harmony didn’t last long but at least we were all making an effort 🙂

Lunch was a breadmaker loaf of seed and honey bread buttered and very nice it was too. We’ve had the breadmaker for ages but never really used it much but we are really into it at the moment and have been making at least one little loaf a day.

Then we popped into town to get some ice lolly moulds from Woollies before going to group.

Today was the first time I’ve really felt that it worked. I think most of the ‘old timers’ brought something to do today – one of the new women who only joined last week brought biscuits in the shape of rockets, planets, stars and moons and loads of writing icing for the kids to decorate which was very popular, we had hama beads, colouring on black paper, paper plates and cut out handprints suns, solar system mobiles using scoubies to dangle the planets, enchanted learning print outs and some junk modelling. Lots of the kids played outside for ages and for once it seemed to be the smaller ones who lost interest in the activities and went outside, which made for a calmer environment inside for the older ones to do some really good stuff and of course the smaller ones are less likely to indulge in water fights and rough games when outside so that required less supervising than when the older ones are out there. We had 3 new families this week which was lovely and I think there were 8 or 9 families in total which felt like a really nice amount. Lots of chatting between mums, lots of new friendships being forged between the littlies and the theme worked really well and it was all just really nice 🙂 It’s taken quite a while and I don’t know whether the fact a couple of families were absent today made a difference but it was just a nice group which I was proud to be such a big part of.

Davies partook of most things, he did some biscuit decorating, some hama and some drawing but then he adjourned to the outside playing where he spent about an hour playing with a little girl of about 7. They were firm friends for the whole time and when we left she was kissing and cuddling him and telling everyone she loves him – not sure he was quite so taken with her in the same way but very cute just the same 😉 I’d kind of decided on the children’s behalf that I know a quite suitable family with an appropriately aged boy for Tarly and girl for Davies which would make a nice tidy union so I will have to step in if this starts to wreck my plans 😉

We got home and I decided it was such a nice day we should not go inside (I’ve *so* turned into a mother coming out with things like ‘you can’t be inside on a nice day like this!’ ) so the kids got to play with their sandpit, slide, water pool, playhouse and sandtable while I sat on the front door step with the laptop 🙂 Ady arrived home and I did the kids picnic tea in the garden while we looked through EuroDisney brochures (yes that economy drive is going so well!) and then he bathed them while I did a form for him for work.

Spend today with my friend Lucy, and her two children Rebecca (2 – a couple of months younger than Tarly) and baby Richard. Lucy is my friend from when I was about 17 who I lost touch with for about 12 years and have finally caught up with living two roads away from me. She is living back with her parents, her husband and the children. As she pointed out last time we met our lives have taken a few spookily similar parallels. We have both left Sussex, gone off and done other things before ending up back here again (although as her ‘other things’ include living in Singapore, South Africa and trying all manner of drugs and mine largely consist of moving to Manchester for a couple of years hers could be considered more exciting!), we have both named our children with our maiden names (her’s both have her maiden name as a middle name though which is slightly more traditional than our version) and she is considering Home Ed for her two as well.

So today they came over and we all went off to Paradise Park for the day. They arrived on time which for some reason (probably her telling me they are always late!) I was not expecting so still had one naked child, a picnic to be made and a pile of washing to hang out! Managed to get that done much quicker with her distracting my children and infact also dressing Tarly and off we went.

I had chosen to experiment with stage 2 of Tarly’s potty training by leaving her without nappy today. WRONG! Having changed wet pants and then having to deal with pants which needed throwing in the bin, a skirt which had to be power blasted with both taps in the sink, my own T shirt (I had picked her up and onto my hip before realising – euch!) I ended up calling a conclusion to that experiment and putting her back into a nappy and a pair of Rebecca’s jeans for the rest of the day. Luckily Lucy was conducting a similar (ill fated also) experiment and had brought 5 spare pairs of pants and trousers 😉

We walked round the indoor dinosaur and planet earth bits, round the cactus gardens and then had some lunch and the kids had a play, then inside for a bit to escape the midday sun where Davies met a new friend (I think it must be half term this week over there judging by the amount of school aged and not IMO HE children about) who he played some loud and boisterous ‘boys’ game with. Then some time in the sandpit, a walk round the outside dinosaur bit and then a chase round the gardens for an hour or so – including Bodiam castle in miniature where we are off to on Sunday, so I was able to show Davies – before ice cream in the coffee shop and home.

Davies was not really on top form today. Probably because he knows Paradise Park really well and we usually go there with other friends who have similar aged boys he was quite boisterous and lairy. I think he scared Rebecca a bit (she is a timid 2 yo anyway, particularly in comparison to Tarly) – odd how he can be so shy and ‘victim’ y (like he was in Reading last week) and then so much the terror at other times depending on the company. Lucy was very philosophical about it though and said she specifically wants Rebcecca to mix with older children so she gets a taste of the more mad side of playing and that she thought being with my two was good for her!

We had lots of chats about parenting styles, HE, life in general and what we’ve been up to since last we met which was all very nice. It’s odd to meet someone from so far back in your past and hear how they percieved you back then – and yes I know I could just ask Ady 😉 At 17 we both carried off teen bravado very well but I think my confidence was genuine whereas perhaps Lucy’s wasn’t. She has some very good reasons for being into the idea of HE and poor school experiences of her own and some of them. She also wants to ensure her children grow up without her insecurities – which may or may not be achieveable but she seems to be doing a fairly good job of understanding Rebecca’s needs and ensuring they are met – which I couldn’t say of every parent I meet!

I did take a few photos but the poor ones below are the best of a fairly crappy lot!

We managed to keep everyone awake all the way home and arrived to find Ady already home so the kids had tea and played in the garden before a bath and at 7.15pm they are already both fast asleep – all played out in the sunshine, just how childhood should be 🙂

I have this uneasy feeling that my computer time is starting to compromise what I do with the children to a degree which is not acceptable.

Although they do enjoy each other’s company and play quite happily there are definite elements of attention seeking and trying to prise me away from the laptop – particularly by Davies. This is always more pronounced on days when we are mostly at home (well clearly, as I do leave the laptop behind when we go out for the day!) and whilst I am still not really up for sitting on the floor all day pretending to be Jessie from Toy Story, Wendy from Bob or some sort of scary monster I do worry that they will remember me in years to come as half a face from behind a computer screen.

We were planning to see Ali today but as she cancelled due to work deadlines (hope you got it all done btw Ali – look forward to maybe seeing you next week) we were left unexpectedly free today. I had a list of stuff I needed to get bought so we headed into town and did some of that. Tarly needs a princess outfit for the weekend and Woolies currently have a 3 for 2 on dressing up so she got 2 princess outfits (both of which she assured me she really really wanted and would definitely wear and both of which I have persuaded her into very briefly to show Daddy – she looks beautiful! – before she shrugged them off again in favour of being a naked princess!) and Davies got a spiderman one. Got various greetings cards from Clintons (one ex employer I don’t mind continuing to support with my custom!), a pressie for Karen’s Emma (the home educated child formerly known as Little Chick!) for her birthday (which yes, we will bring to Kessingland Karen, it is a bit heavy for posting 😉 ) and a new black T shirt for me as all of last summer seem to have faded to grey or just plain disappeared.

Bought the kids a cake each for being good and came home. Big news of the day was that Tarly did the whole trip (over 2.5 hours) nappy-less 🙂 🙂 🙂 She did ask for a wee when I took Davies to the toilet but I hovered her over the loo and she changed her mind. I think we are probably still at risk of the occassional accident and I’m not sure I will be going everywhere sans nappy (I think TT2 would be a bit of an issue if it went wrong and given how much physical exertion it involves perhaps it would be just asking for trouble!) but we can certainly start building up to it. Which leads oddly onto me popping into Mothercare and getting all misty eyed at the realisation that I won’t be having any more babies. Totally unexplained really, although I do *love* Mothercare, for me it was the venue of making the pregnancies ‘real’ where we went and had a big spend up (I know, for me its always about shopping!) and started to prepare for the new arrivals. There were several pregnant women in there and just that air of excitement about being about to have a baby. And there was me without even a child in a nappy! 🙂

Anyway!

This afternoon the kids played at dressing up, some drawing, some playing with blocks and lots of books. Much as I do know they are gaining loads and learning through play it is definitely time to take it all up to the next level and perhaps engage a bit more with it all. Davies is so clearly ready for more input and challenge into his reading and writing and perhaps some direction and inspiration on his arty stuff, Tarly also likes to be challenged so maybe I should get her started on something new, whether it’s something on the computer, some very early letter recognition or something totally new and different I don’t know, but will endeavour to be more involved with them both this week and also to start thinking more about moving stuff to the next level.

Tomorrow we are off to Paradise Park with my old reunited friend and her two children. We were supposed to be going to the Science Museum for the Snot workshop and a meet up with a couple of people but having checked the tickets it starts at 11am which would mean getting a train before 9am to get there which will be expensive and packed full so we decided not to go this time. Weather is supposed to be good so we should have a nice day at Paradise Park tomorrow. Lucy and I have been emailing each other with ‘do you remember this?…’ type memory flashbacks and I also promised to dig out some of my teenage diaries from around the time we were ‘hanging out’ together to see if I could dredge up anymore but she has confided that she had her first ever alcoholic drink when out with me (we were both 17 but I had apparantly given the aura of knowing what I was doing and even appeared to enjoy the taste!) so my friend Vicky’s mum could have been right about me being the ringleader and a bad influence after all 😉

Why just today I learnt that the current trend for hippy chic beads dangling off loose fitting kaftan style clothing does not mix well with potty training.

Why?

Potty training your young can result in a quite a bit of carrying full potties to the toilet at waist height to empty them. Which is pretty much the same point that the beads dangle to…

Is it just me or do you suddenly find that this whole group of people with whom you meet in one aspect of your life scarily seem to cross over into others. I’m talking specifically about the local HE community who I have bumped into in great number at a party at Mary Cronk’s house today. Mary is homebirth guru type woman who delivered Jack and Maisie (and Jenny’s Fergus) and seems to particularly specialise in ‘against all odds Home Birth babies’ (Julie being a case in point – twins, first pregnancy, refused hospital scans or testing, developed pre eclampsia etc) and she has an annual party at her house which she invites all sorts of ‘Cronk Babies’ their parents and friends to. We went as guests of Chris and Julie but I actually ended up knowing more people there than then through EO local contacts, Activeo members and other random people I know from HE. Odd how home birth seems to lead to breastfeeding and cloth nappies which then seems to lead to Home Education isn’t it (although I only meet two of those criteria) or is it not odd and I’ve suddenly fallen into a stereotype I didn’t know existed! 😉

So we’ve had a lovely day. The kids proved wrong that HE kids don’t know how to mix and mingle by launching themselves straight into the middle of the throng on the bouncy castle;

Played in the ball pool:

Tarly made friends with a dog and a baby 🙂

And playing with the paddling pool – which of course resulted in wet clothing all round (hence two outfits in earlier bouncy castle shots!)

There was lovely food (everyone brought something) and it was just a lovely atmosphere. 🙂

Afterwards we went back to Chris and Julie’s for a bit and then home to bath very grimy children, drink wine and await the roast dinner Ady is about to serve up. 🙂

Watching ‘our survey says’ on C4 just now and have just seen a clip of a bloke who answered ‘turkey’ to every question in the final of Family Fortunes. Made me laugh and did net him 21 points as well as four ‘Uhh-uhh’s so I think I will use it myself in place of the Mary Poppins inspired ‘it’s a word to say when you don’t know what to say’ which I shall not attempt to spell 🙂

Had a lovely lie in this morning til 9.30am and then we took the kids to the local poundshopwonderland place where they each chose a cheapo bit of plastic for a quid (we had gone there for some sort of storgae solution for the bathroom but found nothing) and then went for a walk round a parade of shops heavy with charity shops and got Reader Rabbit for 50p and a book for 30p so that was ‘bargainlicious’ (see how I am honing my financial frugality lingo!). Then over to Mum and Dad’s for lunch and the afternoon.

Kids had a great time running around, playing with toys, banging around on the piano (and I had a little play too!), then home via Tescos and McD’s ready to pack the kids off to bed before Dr Who and here I sit now.

Davies has done even more drawings today – his theme has been signs of the variety within a circle with a cross through to demonstrate what you are not allowed to do. The kitchen now has a sign up to show that you are not allowed to do washing up when Davies wants to talk to you, there is a sign on the fridge to tell you not to eat all the strawberries – dread to think where this could lead!

Tomorrow we are going to a party at a famous midwife’s house locally. She delivered Julie’s twins (at home) and has an annual bash for children and parents she has delivered. Supposed to be quite a good day out with bouncy castles and so on so weather permitting it should be a nice day. Hopefully will also be able to draw Chris out of any residual anger about the not going away with them thing.

and me and the boy’ll play you a tune or two 🙂

and posh bubble bath, gotta love that man 🙂

Had a really nice day today actually. Davies brought me a workbook / activity book while I was putting my make up on first thing and sat next to me and did it – stuff like spot the difference, dot to dot, draw extra cannon balls so each pirate has six etc (it was pirate themed) and Scarlett sat and rubbed moisturiser into my legs 🙂

Downstairs I made breakfast for them and the first of many cups of tea for me, pootled round the blogring and took two phonecalls which took up an hour and a half 🙂 One from Julie to cancel meeting up today and post mortem Chris’ (Ady’s bro) reaction to us not going on holiday with them 🙁 and another from Jenny to console about her bad news , chats about the local group and general life / money / educational stuff. For once the kids managed to behave while I was on the phone, didn’t feel the need to trash the house, empty stuff anywhere or keep interupting me loudly.

I’d decided this morning to make a real conscious effort not to shout and to try and be calm and rational all day – and for once it worked. I was calm and they behaved accordingly by not behaving in a way which would have required yelling anyway – now if I could just apply that discipline for the next 14 years or so our home will be an oasis of calm, serenity with four souls coexisting in perfect harmony! 😉

Davies continued his current phase of drawing literally hundreds of pictures all morning. I am having to be fairly harsh with the criteria for what makes it into the ‘keep’ pile each evening 😉 It’s hard to judge whether he is in any way talented but he is using lots of good skills in copying, marking out what distinguishing feature on things he is going to play up, planning out perpective (to a point!), looking at environments around what he is drawing, improving his pen control, honing his observation skills and and doing wonders for his concentration span too. He has also been cutting things out today and that skill has also dramatically improved in a very short space of time. Also he is starting to want to label things and today has been numbering them too. I am trying to remain very low key about it as there is a huge temptation to leap in and take over and suggest things he should do differently or in a more ouvertly educationally valuable way but I can see that in his own little nearly 5 year old way he is pulling together all those basic elements of maths, english, art, science, world awareness and more and producing output accordingly. I would like to think this is autonomous education in action all the time I can satisfy myself privately that sufficient boxes are being ticked 😉

Meanwhile Tarly existed quite peacefully, naked and using the potty very reliably, covered in felt pen and some residual Reading grime (all of which was washed off tonight in the bath!) from the garden, the sticking at the group, the colouring at the house, the dinner she spilt down herself and the wine dribbles on her chin 😉 She ate three bowls of cereal, did some pink scribbling, looked at loads of books, was very cuddly (tired and passive which is so more preferable to tired and shrieking don’t you think!) and really quite charming 🙂

At 1pm I persuaded them both to get dressed (Tarly still naked, Davies wearing a Peter Pan outfit over his pjs!) so we could walk round the shop for some bread. I took a huge basket of about 4 loads of washing out to hang up first and as we went round the back we spotted a hedgehog on a bit of lawn. I went over to him wondering what he was doing out and about in the middle of the day and he didn’t curl up or move away, just laid there breathing very heavily. The kids came over to have a look and it was apparant he was poorly. I didn’t quite know what to do but on the basis that it would be cruel to just leave him there and also that there was a possible educational value slant to the whole opportunity we scooped him into a shoebox, piled in the car and drove to the vets. Huge traffic jams meant lots of cutting through back roads with Tarly urging me to ‘drive careful Mummy, mind hedgehog!’ and Davies repeatedly asking if he could hold him. We then had a fairly educational discussion about ticks – hedgehog was fairly ridden with several very large blood filled ones – and nocturnal animals, ones who hibernate, what hedgehogs eat, the fact that makes them carnivores, some people are carnivores, some are herbivores and some are omnivores (no not herbivores Mummy, whats the other name for them? I know vegetablearians!)

The receptionist / nurse lady at the desk of the vets was straight out of Auntie Mabel and welcomed the kids in, spoke to them about the hedgehog, thanked us for bringing him and said he would be checked over for any obvious injury by a vet and then handed over to the local wild animal resuce place. Davies thinks he might come back to be released into the wild back at our house but I fear he may have crossed his last road 🙁 Ady reckons he has been at slug pellets but it did inspire a gathering of all books with hedgehog related information and a ceremonial drawing of hedgehods in various scenarios when we got home again 🙂

This led to pictures of ladybirds, snails, a bumble bee (which was very good, I might scan and blog it actually) and more hedgehogs which I have promised to laminate for him.

I sat and mastered some more scoubidou methods this afternoon and find it really quite theraputic to sit twiddling with them. A shame that there is no real purpose to what you create unless you are 13 and have a school bag with which to adorn with them, I really should learn to knit or something and at least be sitting there twiddling in a productive and useful medium.

Ady arrived home bearing gifts of flowers and luxury bubble bath (cos we didn’t get much sleep last night and I know you must have had a hard day with the kids if you were tired’ 🙂 ) just ahead of my Mum who popped in after work. Arranged to go there for lunch and the afternoon tomorrow and pitched the idea of CP in September to her which she was up for so just need to convince Dad now – which would have the double benefit of a nice holiday and some proof to Chris that if he would just consider going on a holiday other than of his choosing on his terms he might have gotten to spend time with his brother after all!! 🙁

Am now feeling pleasantly weekendy and tired so will retire for the evening. Night all

A collaborative work of handicrafts from around the blogring producing thongs from your chosen material / skill area.

To be modelled by one of the more waif like of our number (both for aesthetic purposes and to ensure the smallest use of materials!) and photographed to produce a coffee table book.

Inspired by Sarah’s candy string lingerie we have realised that there are no limits to lingerie creation techniques or materials other than our own imagination and creativity. Scoubidous, crcochet, macrame, papier mache, hama beads (probably threaded rather than ironed!), reclaimed recycled natural products, old packaging, knitted with wool, knitted with body hair.

Choose your technique and volunteer now! 🙂