Saturday ended in pretty much the same way as Friday really, we had a lovely meal cooked by Barbara and enjoyed with much alcohol. Kids finally went to sleep, followed by Ady, followed by Chris (who I think was slightly hounded out of his own front room by a devils advoate style conversation about maths and GCSEs and how important they *really* are, which would be a bit close to home given his profession of senior school maths teacher I guess!) and then Barbara and I sat up til 3am drinking the place dry and getting giggly, loud and from my recollections the following morning basically having the conversational equivalent of a thesaurus (you know the type of chat where you are both making the same point, over and over again, using different words to express it and possibly chucking in new validations for your point but really just rehashing the same point over and over again for hours! Even more amusingly we were agreeing with each other so it was not even one of us working to convince the other of something! Enjoyed it though and came away feeling we’d been all deep and ponderous when infact I suspect we were just drunk and disorderly (that seems to follow me around a bit, I wonder if I lead people astray!?).
Sunday morning was very brief for me as I didn’t get up until 10am so I only saw two hours of it! Ady and Chris were doing cricket watching and kid minding, Barbara was at church and when she got back we did BBQ prep before Kirsty, James, Marcus and Alex arrived.
James and Ady bonded over having the same phone and spent ages ‘playing’ with them. They now have each others mobile numbers and I suspect aim to become picture text buddies 😉 M & A joined in with the general kids scrum in the garden and Kirsty joined us for musings in the kitchen – all very nice 🙂
Scarlett and Alex seemed to notice each others’ existance for the first time too, despite being a year apart in age they did some bonding and played together for a while before the mix changed again. The 6 older children are staggered very nicely with Tarly at nearly 3, Ben and Alex nearly 4, Davies nearly 5 and Beth getting on for 6 so there was room for all sorts of age and gender split ups and they did happen at various points which was good. Chris did an admirable job with a BBQ and then adults retired back inside for cricket in the lounge and bitching in the kitchen before Kirsty and James headed off, followed an hour or so later by us.
The journey home was speedy and uneventful with Tarly being asleep before we even set off and Davies finally going to sleep (after a catalogue of sleep avoidance questions such as ‘what is dust made of?’, ‘how does salt get into granules?’ and various stuff about caves). Ady and I had a long chat about all sorts of things such as Home education, parenting in general, the internet and division of labour within the home!
So it’s been a lovely weekend. As ever when I spend time with other home educators I tend to come away feeling very positive about the whole thing, reinforced in our tactics and confident about how we are doing. I’ve had some really interesting discussions about learning styles, qualifications and general parenting and it has been valuable and enjoyable in far more than just the socialising aspect, so thanks Barbara and Kirsty for that 🙂
As a result I do have some educational ponderings which I will probably blog at some point, but the sun is shining, the lounge floor is a mess of plastic animals and wooden building blocks from a half built zoo, I have just heard lego being emptied out of its box somewhere in the hall, none of us are dressed despite it being 11am, there is a load of washing ready to hang out and at least four more loads needing to be done and my parents are due here within the hour so I’m off to create the atmosphere and illusion of a woman who knows how to run a home and I might be back later.
…are made of these 😉
Was lovely to have you all. I had a fabulous wekend, and was definately led astray. You are a wicked influence. But please come again. Anyone who arives laiden with booze and posh chocolates is welcome any time. Maybe not ’till after the tomatoes are ready though.
Comment by Nic — 29 August 2005 @ 11:12 am
Was lovely to see you too. It’s nice that James is socialising in his own way as well. 😉
Looking forward to seeing you in October, make sure you sort something out!
P.s. I’m assuming that was you who posted that above Barbara?? lol!
Comment by Kirsty — 29 August 2005 @ 11:21 am
Who cares? It was *someone* claiming we were welcome so long as we brought loads of booze! Rushes off to pack bags…..
Comment by Joyce — 29 August 2005 @ 11:55 am
lol Joyce, I reckon that’ll get a welcome anywhere you wish to pitch up 🙂
(Don’t go to our house though, we’re not there 😉 )
Glad you all had such a good weekend 🙂
Comment by Alison — 29 August 2005 @ 4:48 pm
Ah, yes. Sorry about that. Does that mean I could have blogged on your behalf too, Nic? That could have been fun. Should have invited you to do some personal banking too…
Comment by Barbara — 29 August 2005 @ 11:49 pm