The Briar Patch

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This morning we popped over to Honiton for a look around the shops and a quick visit to the town’s museum. The boys and I came here a couple of years ago when we were learning about WW2, it’s only a tiny museum but the staff are lovely.

We had the buggy and the place isn’t very pushchair friendly so I stayed on the ‘ground floor’ whilst the boys had a look around the other floors. They were very quick!

A visit to WH Smith yielded some new supplies. Two GCSE Chemistry (CGP) workbooks and a revision book and an AS book on Human Biology (Smiths was £8 more expensive - how annoyed am I now?)

No visit to Honiton can be complete without a visit to Costa and today was no exception. I Love this Costa, the staff are friendly and there is room for a buggy (or even a double!) and even a loo with baby change facilities! I forgot as always to ask for a skinny cappuccino ( I hate the taste of milk!) and ended up leaving half my coffee, my fault not theirs… Baby was snoozing his head off so he had no complaints either way.

“Schoolwork’ today consisted of learning about atoms for both boys. We’re trying a new approach in which I actually teach them the work again rather than them reading it up on books. Both boys said they prefer it - the beauty of HE is that they can chop and change as it suits though so its all good. This year the have diaries so they have to write down what they do each day. Hopefully this will make writing the report a bit easier!

In the evening Max noticed I had bought two different workbooks! One is AQA based and the other general chemistry. I am so annoyed with myself. NO matter a quick visit to Amazon sorted that out as I bought another mis matched pair and they’ll have one fort now and another for revision… Unfortunately visiting Amazon tends to always result in buying more books than i intend and I came away with AS Psychology for Jack and IGCSE text and study guide for both boys.

This morning we popped over to Honiton for a look around the shops and a quick visit to the town’s museum. The boys and I came here a couple of years ago when we were learning about WW2, it’s only a tiny museum but the staff are lovely.

We had the buggy and the place isn’t very pushchair friendly so I stayed on the ‘ground floor’ whilst the boys had a look around the other floors. They were very quick!

A visit to WH Smith yielded some new supplies. Two GCSE Chemistry (CGP) workbooks and a revision book and an AS book on Human Biology (Smiths was £8 more expensive - how annoyed am I now?)

No visit to Honiton can be complete without a visit to Costa and today was no exception. I Love this Costa, the staff are friendly and there is room for a buggy (or even a double!) and even a loo with baby change facilities! I forgot as always to ask for a skinny cappuccino ( I hate the taste of milk!) and ended up leaving half my coffee, my fault not theirs… Baby was snoozing his head off so he had no complaints either way.

“Schoolwork’ today consisted of learning about atoms for both boys (Chemistry). We’re trying a new approach in which I actually teach them the work again rather than them reading it up on books. Both boys said they prefer it - the beauty of HE is that they can chop and change as it suits though so its all good. This year the have diaries so they have to write down what they do each day. Hopefully this will make writing the report a bit easier!

In the evening Max noticed I had bought two different workbooks! One is AQA based and the other general chemistry. I am so annoyed with myself. No matter a quick visit to Amazon sorted that out as I bought another mis matched pair and they’ll have one for now and another for revision… Unfortunately visiting Amazon tends to always result in buying more books than i intend and I came away with AS Psychology for Jack and IGCSE text and study guide for both boys.

I’m out of the habit of blogging and if I’m honest finding it pretty hard to actually start the post off.

Almost as hard as starting off my ‘essays’ for the course I’m currently doing…

Currently I’m doing aloud of health and safety stuff and it is soooo boring, but I’ve learned a lot along the way and that’s the main thing so all good.

Today (in between bouts of playing Sims Social on FB) Jack has been busy writing about Japanese music as part of his project about all things Japanese. I’m really looking forward to reading it when he’s done. Max has been busy with some science, learning about the heart, oxygenated and deoxygenated blood, veins, arteries, capillaries etc. He’s making notes on the computer as he goes.

In other things, munchkin and I have been very busy doing Hungry Caterpillar things. I am sure I found a good website for HC things a while back and could do with finding that again. Today we played with paint and tiny pudgy 16 month old hands were covered in blue and green paint and making a fabulous and unique piece of art (so0n to be very carefully cut up to make a hungry caterpillar for the display wall). I love this age so much!

I’m loving the new MacBook, except the autocorrect, Apple makes some bizarre corrections which have nothing to do with the original thought…

The boys very kindly accompanied me to the Race for Life event today. I walked (far too old to run it!) the course in 56 minutes, not too bad for an old fogey! I was lucky to have the company of a really nice lady called Rhianna for the course. We found out as we chatted that we both home ed - what a small world!! The time really sped past and I’m sure that was partly due to having such lovely company.

The weather very kindly held off until after the race and then it was only a light shower.

Just a few pics:

I ‘ran’ for Fran, my English tutor when I did GCSE in 2005, sadly she lost her fight last year. She taught me a lot about myself especially how to survive. I owe her a debt of gratitude I will never be able to repay.

Apparently we had a heck of a storm here last night! (so my buddies on facebook tell me!)

My newly arranged garden looks terrible! Shrubs are broken and pots turned over too. It wont take long to out right but its a tad disappointing to go to bed all proud and stuff and wake up to a mess…

At least the newly seeded grass has had a good watering I suppose, lol!

At least the world didn’t end, kinda good really because I’m not really ready for that right now.

I’d planned on taking the boys to the Devon County Show today and called them at 8.30 so they had plenty of time to get up and breakfast before the bus went. Then again at 8.45; 9.00. 9.15 and so on every fifteen minutes or so until it was too late and we’d missed the 11am bus! Typical teenagers!

I, on the other hand, woke up at really stupid o’clock (5… something) and set about sorting the garden out again so the munchkins had somewhere to play during the week but at weekends and holidays it could be easily transformed into a family-with-older-kids type garden, somewhere we can have a BBQ and not have to worry about melting some bit of equipment, somewhere where the boys could have their friends around and chill, somewhere where I could go and curl up with a good book - I’m sure you’re getting the picture…

I’d already decided to get rid of the plastic element from the garden and go towards a more country cottage garden type of thing so had a sort of plan in my head. We have a huge Little Tikes play set at the moment which I have given to one of the minded children’s families and the boys will take that down the road to them tomorrow, they gets rid of a huge amount of plastic and recycles it at the same time. The garden looks kind of bare without it though, lol! I didn’t manage to get it finished but it looks a lot better than it did and the children have lots of room to play on their sit-n-ride toys and rockers etc now and these can all be put out of the way and the BBQ ‘dragged’ out (its tiny!) at weekends. The rabbits also have room that they can run and stretch their little legs without an inquisitive Labrador trying to nuzzle them to make them hop!

So what did the children do this sunny Saturday I hear you cry?

Well, one sat in front of the Tv all day and the other spent the day on MSN to his friends…

Not really too sure how I can put the rosy home ed spin on that so I’m not going to bother, lol! Perhaps tomorrow will be better. If there is a tomorrow that is, considering the world is due to end tonight according to some American preacher man…

I’m really struggling with the school/HE thing at the moment especially as I know that my job (the very thing that was supposed to keep us HEing ) is making HE as we used to do it very difficult. Or is it me making things more difficult than they need to be…

Either way, all the boys seem to have done lately is book work and whilst that’s great it’s also a bit boring and not really why we went into HE in the first place. I also seem to be doing far too much nagging.

So today we decided to go visit some beautiful countryside near us and take the sketch pads and pencils.

The boys both sat by a gorgeous bend in the stream and after some boosting of self esteem to the one who said ‘I can’t do this’ started to sketch.

Even the LO with us had his own book and pod of pencils and made good use of them! Look at the beautiful blue skies, after so much rain the last few days it felt like Heaven!

After they’d finished we had a bit of a picnic lunch which went down well with all parties and then walked down to the beach where we watched some wind surfers making the most of the breeze - couldn’t believe how fast they go!! This stimulated a lively discussion on windsurfing, surfing and all things extreme-sport wise with various responses from ‘I’d love to do that’ to ‘NO WAY!’

My boys played pooh sticks with the minded children on the way, I love the way they are so good with them!

We also stopped off in the local art shop and bought some new soft colouring pencils, I can’t quite believe how expensive these are but think it’s worth the expense to get the quality and colours that the boys want. Also picked up some great ‘making’ sets from the Works for the minded children to make up, pictured here in case anybody else is interested for their young children, check out the boxes because some are better than others…

Home for pizza and pasta and then they spent all night yapping on FB/MSN with their mates whilst I tried and failed to get on with some college work. An early night seems much more appealing!

They must have enjoyed it because they want to do the same thing again tomorrow…

is what we’ve just had.

I was off work on Monday and Friday so feel as if I’ve hardly done anything this week!

We’ve had a couple of trips into Exeter, one to pay a cheque into the bank and another to meet the boys’ Godmother and her family for coffee/brunch. The second was far more fun than the first!

I’ve done lots of boring but necessary stuff like cleaning out rabbits, washing and ironing etc - hardly blog-able news, lol! Sadly the washing machine, which has just been mended, has now gone wrong again so I’ve had no choice but to buy a new one. Good thing we had a bit of spare money or it would have been trips to the launderette

I’ve had mega talks with the boys about their learning, exams and the possibility of school/ college in the future etc. No conclusions drawn yet as we have far too much to find out.

I’ve started the educational report for the last 12 months. Been offered a visit but really don’t want to go there again as it was just a little bit difficult trying to do my job and answer the inspectors questions. Whilst the inspector seemed pleased with what they were doing I don’t think we really did the work justice as I was too busy trying to care for the little ones. I cannot believe the stuff the boys have done which I had no idea about, they really seem to be getting into the swing of things on their own. I wish so much they had done this years ago instead of just sitting there twiddling their thumbs when I let them choose their own paths… Ah well we’re there now, all good things come to those who wait. The only thing I am concerned about now is the last inspector we had was very much into the rigid rules and very against autonomy and unschooling. Not too sure what she’d make of us now, another reason for wanting to do the report.

M and J have been busy playing lots of new PS3 games. I bought Sims 3 last week and they’ve also had fun telling me how to do that - they seem to have totally forgotten I was playing Sims when they were still in nappies, lol! That’s teenagers for you! Gotta love them

We are all in the very best of health poorly here, with lots of coughing and sneezing going on. Mainly from me I hate to admit. I’ve never been one to let illness make me rest but I’ve been so darned tired that’s exactly what I have done this time. Must be an age thing…

The house, of course, has ground to a halt. I’m not sure I really expected anything else. Jack and Max have been superstars in looking after me though, which is always good. Hopefully it will be a good skill for them to have for when they get married in future life. I would like to think they could be caring husbands. They seem to have had a much milder form of the virus, being young and healthy they can fight it better I guess, I’m just glad they haven’t been so poorly.

Jack has been messing about with diligently working at something to do with home brew and his DS, no idea what this all means but he seems to be happy. His DS now appears to have windows…

Max has been watching the same old films up in his bedroom. I hate the way he hides himself away sometimes but can understand why he feels the need.

They’ve both helped out by walking the dog, not sure five minutes around the block constitutes a walk but at least the dog is getting out of the house, lol

I’ve had a mad few days trying to change the lounge/playroom around to give us all more space, buying super dooper high chairs that fold completely flat and looking at a ‘Butterfly’ table set to replace the rather massive 5 foot table we had in here before. The effect is quite pleasing so far and I’m looking forward to finishing it soon.

This week coming I have a very quiet week at work so am hoping to catch up on a few things, see a few people I haven’t seen in ages etc etc. Always nice to see old friends

We’ve had a really busy day here today doing all sorts of Valentine’s day crafts with the children.

Jack did some cookery with the munchkins in which they made star shaped shortbread to take home for the people they love. After it had cooled we put them in food-gift bags and tied pretty ribbons on.

The boys also got on with their projects, Jack still doing his Japanese one and Max has moved on to one on rabbit care. Both projects are their own choice.

Oh and the engineer came to mend the heating in the morning, nice and warm again now

which means simply “Sunday”.

The heating didn’t magically mend itself overnight much to my disappointment so I had to phone the engineer who said its an electrical problem and the electrician would call me tomorrow - thank goodness we still have the oil filled rads from our house in Exeter!

I’ve been doing the usual mass of washing, ironing and cleaning and tidying. A normal sunday!

Mick printed up his project on the Spartans, sorted it all out and bound it. He’s done a fab job and it was all inspired by watching the film 300.

I went up to have a nice long soak in the tub and came down to find Jack busy with his project on Japanese symbols. He’s just completed a table of Hiragana (one of the most common types of symbols used in Japan, He’s learning Japanese and has conversations with his friend Z ( in Japanese), very short conversations you understand but conversations nonetheless. I’d love to learn it, wonder if he’d teach me?

In addition to that dogs have been walked, cats have been fed, roast chicken/veggie sausages has/have been cooked and eaten and loads of other mundane stuff.

Oh and of course my children have spent most of the afternoon chatting with their friends on MSN, and I have spent a very small amount of time playing the new DSi game I bought yesterday - Professor Layton and the Lost Future.

I have to say it’s weird waking up in the light!

I am so used to having to get up at 5.30 (in the dark) for work now it seems bizarre at times, like this morning, when I do not wake up until it is light!

I was so engrossed in my book last night that I couldn’t put it down until the words began to swim in front of my eyes - that can’t be good for you! At least I didn’t fall asleep and let my iPad fall on my head like last time!

Jack had an email some time ago about a book signing in Exeter today so wanted to pop along and meet Robert Muchamore, author of the Cherub Books . To be fair, he read these a couple of years ago but still decided to pop along for a chat and of course a couple of new books… (I went along merely to hold the camera , oh and to buy some new books for work and some other stuff and… ok I wanted to go too, lol!)

and a bit of a laugh and a joke…

|I think it made Jack’s day to find the chap so human and just plain nice. He even asked Jack to email him a link to something he had done and gave him his email address much to the amazement of the group of teenage girls in the queue behind us. Its such a shame Max missed it but nice to unexpectedly bump into friends (and yes I promise I’ll call and make that date for coffee and cakes soon x)

After a rather expensive but fun shopping trip, fun that is except for the city long search for a compuer program I wanted and finally found in Apple (for Windows!) like you do, we got home just about before we turned into ice!

First thing I noticed was how cold the house was… the central heating has bust! Brrrrrr! I guess that will be the first thing I do tomorrow then!

We had a really fab day today. I had to pop into a shop to pick up my new laptop (loving Windows 7!!) so popped into the nearby soft play area with the little ones. They loved it! I’m sure their squeals of laughter could probably be heard from miles around, lol! Jack and Max both sat listening to their music or playing games on iPods so didn’t get a huge amount out of the day but they’ve learned over time that sometimes this has to be and it’s the price to pay for me being at home with them all day.

Afterwards we played trolley dash around Iceland (I hate this shop but it does have its uses when you’re in a rush!) and picked up a weeks shop in 10 minutes! That has to be a record for me who (rather sadly) treats a jaunt around a supermarket as a day out…

All the children were picked up a little bit early tonight allowing me time to play with my new toy. I was a little bit worried about changing OS for the 3rd time in as many years (from xp to vista to 7) but it is so easy to use and has great tutorials. Happily my ‘puter even has Office built in (but only word and excel…) so no need for another pricey, but necessary, purchase.

The boys both went off to St John’s to do some risk assessments - sounds like fun…not! OMG how I hate RAs, lol Perhaps for them it will be more fun…

When exactly did this cute little boy

Turn into this handsome young man?

Love you loads J xxx

This time next week it will be Christmas morning - wow!

Yesterday the Sky man came amidst all the snow and put up our new dish and connected us up so now we are amongst the millions of other people who pay Sky a small fortune for their television viewing. It is nice to watch TV in HD though so I’ll not complain at the moment apart to say that I’m amazed that whilst I chose Movies 1 package all the films seem to be on Movies 2!

Ha! Watching the TV whilst I write this and have just seen a conjoined baby turtle! Amazing, however did we manage without it? Of course the real reason I got Sky was to watch all the fabulous documentaries that are (apparently) on it…

The snow was kind and waited until I had no more school runs to do. We are fairly well stocked up with food due to the totally correct weather forecast (I know that makes a huge change!). Walking the dog is somewhat dangerous as he totally loves the snow and tried to chase it - not so good for whoever is on the other end of his lead!!

Since I was here!

I couldn’t remember the password or the email address I had used to set up the blog - maybe it wasn’t the right time…

Our lives have changed so much, thankfully for the better!

I’ll try and catch it up, but not right now because I’m supposed to be making Thai Green Curry for dinner - did you ever taste coconut milk? I was surprised at how thick it was!

The boys have had a fabulous time playing in the snow with their friends. The local schools are all shut down as they are all around ten miles away, so their friends had a snow day too.

They made a snowman, quite a feat given the minute amount of snow we had!

We didn’t have any plans this weekend, it was a kind of go-with-the-flow time…

Jack had a friend (JH) call, latish on Friday evening, who ended up staying over and the boys played on video games together until the wee small hours. JH is a really great kid, and truly a pleasure to have over so we were in no hurry to kick him out the next morning. After lunch my boys ended up over at JH’s house so I had a very peaceful afternoon and managed to get tons of stuff done that I probably wouldn’t have done normally… Jack was invited to sleepover there so after dinner at our house he trundled over there for the evening, not to surface again until almost midday on Sunday! M and I spent a pretty subdued evening together as he missed his brother dreadfully. We watched a bit of TV and chatted a lot, the outcome of which was for me to realise how totally he relies on his brother and how close they are despite the bravado and bickering that go on.

Sunday morning saw me catching up on some online stuff whilst I had the peace and quiet. J came home and we had some lunch and then Max brought down a book for me to read to them (Swiss Family Robinson). The book’s cover had been ripped so I set about finding the glue, which then wouldn’t come out of the tube so I stupidly, and I mean *really* stupidly tried to force it out with a kebab skewer. The glue suddenly gave way and the skewer plunged into my palm, to say it hurt would be an understatement but after tugging it out and really trying hard not to swear (and failing on one count apparently!) I stuck some germalene and some elastoplast on it and got on with reading the first chapter of the book.

Sometime later it became apparent that all was not well so I sought medical advice was told to get into hospital immediately (no mean feat here, lol!), where I was given injections and massively huge penicillin tablets to sort out a raging infection and growing swelling If it gets worse or throbs I have to ‘rush’ myself into casualty (some 30 ish miles away, lol) and have an operation to clean it out. JH’s parents very kindly had Jack whilst I was in there but M came with me. As the nurse pushed the tetanus shot into my arm I was determined not to let my facial features change (I HATE needles) and Max remarked calmly …. “Oh, I thought you were going to have a really *big* injection mum”. I’m wondering if he was disappointed…

Luckily, although its possible I may have nicked an extensor tendon, the rest of the damage is soft tissue damage, so I got a very lucky escape. I think I probably will never try and unblock a glue lid with a skewer again…

Moving on to some HE. This morning we were due to have a CORGI man come and fit my new gas cooker, but he phoned and cos he couldn’t get hold of me decided he wasn’t going to turn up for the appointment (I was outside in the garden for about 2 minutes and had been waiting on his call all weekend, and phoned him back within minutes, which he ignored…!! grrr). I had printed the boys of some work units they could get on with if I was busy with other stuff so they worked on those. M did a short unit on Africa, which went down very well, and Jack did a longer genetics unit. I was not entirely happy about some misleading information about the DNA of identical twins in the Genes unit, which I feel was skewed to a religious viewpoint, but was able to set J straight on that so no harm done. I think I shall probably write his igcse biology curriculum myself though, just to ensure its both up to date and accurate, and of course not misleading in any way…

A friend and her toddler popped in this morning for a cuppa, he quite happily waved his mum off when it was time to go home, and opted to settle in with us for the afternoon, but had to go for a nap so I offered to lend him the truck he had been playing with. Really, this is a pretty sneaky idea on my part cos it means I get to cuddle him and get “baby-blow-kisses” twice in one day, lol!

We had a fab day at the sea life centre last Saturday. Many thanks to ‘Mr’ Tesco (vouchers) and xdh for making it possible.

I made the card in the camera run out of space so if you don’t have hours to spare, best to quit now. I took some videos too but they just will not upload to my you tube account, I must be doing something wrong…

They say a picture speaks a thousand words, so here are a few thousand!

There’s still time to click away….

Are we there yet? YES!!!!

Bite me! (actually please don’t…)

I’ve got a bit of a soft spot for these guys…

Not too sure why he’s biting his lip…

Pick up a…

I had to hold this first, that was the deal I struck with him before he’d hold it. Just in case you can’t tell, it’s an upside down crab (that is to say an ordinary crab who is on his back)

Love these…

We got a bit sidetracked on the way to the turtle dome, but eventually got there…

See the size of those claws? This snapping turtle sure looks as if he can take care of himself!

This one’s a bit grainy but he loved it here so much that I have to add it.

We stood and watched this huge turtle play in the bubbles for ages, there are not words to explain just how majestic he looked, nor how graceful.

Otters are so darned noisy!

They both loved this, slightly saner than normal, version of the plunge ride (although Jack is looking slightly concerned at the width of the cables in this, lol!

Okay, that’s your lot for today, the laptop is on an all time go slow today. It really needs a good service or something (possibly replacing, lol!)

There are a whole load more pics on flickr, just click through any of the pics above….

TTFN!!

Picnics on the beach are one thing that I love about living here. The fact that we can just throw together some food into a basket or bag and walk for ten minutes or so and then just laze on the beach is something that I hope we never get blasé about.

Today we just popped into the co-op and filled a bad with scrummy goodies such as Thorntons mini chocolate and caramel shortcakes, croissants and cup cakes and wandered of to have lunch on the shore. We forgot the flat travellers, clearly not very good hosts. Never mind, at the weekend we are going up to Weymouth to the sea life centre so they will get a nice outing then.

The boys did their core work in the morning. They now sit at different tables and it seems to work much better. They have also stopped complaining quite so much, perhaps my little outburst was enough to remind them how lucky they are to be studying at home …

Whilst they were busy with that I set to work on the garden and managed to get a bit more completed. When we moved here there was a rough wood (pallets probably) fence around the grass area, which we didn’t need so removed it. (It was pretty ugly!) However they had also built in a roughly thrown together archway (hideous, and made of lots of pieces of rough hewn wood cobbled together). I started to remove that particular eyesore about a month ago only to find it was holding up the neighbours fence. The mini beasts I disturbed made for an interesting science time for the kids, especially the rather large big black spider which decided to land on my back and then crawl down my neck!

In the afternoon I sat with Jack and did some work for his maths IGCSE. He’s finding it a little boring I think but it’s mostly revision at the moment so that’s possibly why. We downloaded the syllabus for next years exams and it looks like heaps of work so he’s certainly going to have to get used to working a bit quicker that’s for sure!!! Whilst we did that, Micky worked on a travel diary, a sort of pretend ‘around the world in eighty days type thing that he’s decided to do. He really put quite a it of effort into it and I think is quite pleased with himself.

I barely saw them for most of the evening, they were out enjoying the good weather with their friends and only popped in to get drinks etc. It reminded me a lot of my own childhood and I am grateful again for the chances we took that are at last enabling the boys to have a great childhood.

The lady called about the kitty, her dd cannot make up her mind which she would prefer so she will call again tomorrow and let me know.

Altogether a pretty good day I think

seems to pay off!

After yesterdays rather dismal post I thought I’d probably better come back and let you know that it wasn’t actually a bad day in the end.

I had a bit of a grumble to them first thing then told them to get on with their work whilst I did some gardening out the front - the flower bed needed a total re-vamp - and left them to it. It took around an hour to dig out the flower bed and redo the brickwork around the border, after which I went inside and discovered that far from bickering they had actually gotten on and done the majority of their work. Apparently they had even worked together at some point…

After a quick bath (we don’t have a shower here…) and some lunch we wandered off to the shops to get some food and a couple of Fuschia (sp?) plants for the front. They look so tiny! I added a liberal amount of animal/bird/environment friendly slug pellets to ensure they didn’t get eaten before they had chance to get established so fingers crossed they will grow well. I also cut the front lawns again, this time however I just did mine and the joint one and left the neighbour’s for her to do at her leisure…

I had somebody come around to look at the last kitten in the evening. She is going to look at another litter today and will let me know later if she wants ours. I am not holding my breath.

The sun is shining and I’m determined to make the best of the good weather. Not too sure what we will be doing today but going down to the beach for a paddle and an ice cream alongside all the tourists sounds like a fine idea to me.

Seven days since I blogged last. What is the world coming to, lol! I remember the days when if I didn’t blog daily I got withdrawal symptoms. I shall either have to do better or make this a weekly top up - not too sure which yet.

Now to think about what we have been doing…

The boys settled back into schoolwork well after half term, for a few days anyway before the constant bickering started again. I’ve started to separate them because I really cannot stand it. I keep dreaming that I have sent them back to school! - not sure what that’s all about, just noting it here for future reference.

The novelty value of the GP English books has worn off and now they have realised its actual ‘real’ work and are complaining about that too. The answer they are getting to their complaints was not the one they were looking for “tough, get on with it or go back to school” really wasn’t on their list of required responses. It may seem mean but listening to constant bickering every ’school’ day and constant moaning every time they are asked to pick up a pen is just too much. I really wish they would just find their mojo and get on with stuff themselves like all these autonomous children seem to…

How strange that they can get on perfectly at weekends when all they have to do is play…

The model Roman Villa is almost finished, another victim of the ’start and lose interest’ bug that is suddenly plaguing us though and has been left to me to finish it. Never mind, I had fun

On a brighter note, our first two flat travellers arrived last week and we have been busy taking them out and showing them the sights locally. It really is beautiful here at the moment, hope the flat’s owners think so too. One of ours has arrived in Illinios and we are being sent snapshots daily, it all seems so very big over there, lol. A great way (for me) to learn about the different countries.

The rest of our week off was as lovely and relaxing as the beginning. The boys finished their flat travellers so they’re all ready to be posted off to various places (and we now know where Georgia, Illinois, California (all USA) and Warradale (AUS) are now so a teeny tiny bit of geography in there as well as the fun.

Flat Steggy and Flat Charlie

Jack has spent a fair bit of time on his Guitar Hero game and completed one section so is pleased with that. Both have them have spent absolutely ages playing with the vast amount of Lego they have accumulated over the years so lots of imaginative play going on there.

I’ve spent a bit of time in our back garden sewing another 2 boxes of grass seed in an attempt to patch up the extremely worn out ‘lawn’ out the back and cut mine and my neighbours front lawns (she has just lost a family member and it seemed like something small I could actually do to help).

We’ve been out and about a bit too and made the most of the dry weather since the forecast thunder storms never materialised.

We’ve been to:

The Donkey Sanctuary

The boys really like it here, they love to stroke the donkeys and just walk around the grounds. They’re also rather partial to the restaurant and I’m sure that has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the totally scrumptious chocolate fudge gateau they sell!

The maze: Small but a lot more fun than I had first imagined. Of course the younger ones ran through it leaving this old gal puffing and panting in their wake, which I think has to do as much with me being generally unfit as it has my asthma so a bit more exercise being planned for us as a family…

We also went to Branscome to visit the old mill, the forge and the old bakery. The forge wasn’t working, the chap who was supposed to be doing it was sitting outside in the sunshine and totally ignored us - I’m guessing he had us (correctly) pegged as unable to afford the beautiful ironwork on display and therefore not worth bothering with.
So… we tottered off to see the old mill, not realising it wasn’t open on Saturdays so that was a bit of a waste of time too. Lastly we popped into the old bakery for a glass of lemonade but apparently when we walked in everybody stopped what they were doing and stared at us (but what does xdh really expect when he wears a football shirt into a nice place??? ) I have to be honest that I didn’t really notice it but xdh was adamant so we left, its a shame cos it was beautiful, maybe I’ll take the boys back sometime on my own…

Here’s a piccie of it anyway.

and one of M trip-trapping over the bridge hoping there is no troll underneath.

Not to be put off Branscombe altogether we popped down to the beach. I wanted to pop in here for a cold drink…

but everybody else wanted ice creams, so I was outvoted - boohoo.

Last but not least, after sitting on the beach watching the comings and goings of the Napoli salvage team, we had a very posed photo op. Just look at that cheeky look on M’s face, and yes, J’s boots and jeans really are trailing in the water!

The title was originally ‘taking notes’ because that is what I think I should have done over the last few days - take notes! I finally have time to sit here and write a post and my mind is a blank (mind you that could well be because of the bloody awful noise dulcet tones of Slayer coming form J’s wii guitar game!). But reading through has made me change it, I’ll tell you why at the end…

We haven’t actually done any structured stuff at all over the last few days, mainly because its local schools half term and it gives the boys time to catch up with some of their schooled friends if they want to, but also because quite frankly I need the break, lol!

Looking around at the mess that surrounds me I shall try and remember what we did…

Ooh before I start on the mess, just to say we’ve been enjoying Springwatch even though its been a little sad in places. The boys seem far better equipped to deal with the sad stuff this year and the nicer stuff has had them looking out for various birds and other small creatures on our walks. We have had great tits in the garden (correctly identified by J after watching the program) and blackbirds, sparrows etc. Our little froggy friend is still with us too so that’s opened up quite a bit of discussion as we don’t have a pond…

We bought a magnetism project kit for the boys to mess around with over half term, which turned into a discussion with J using diagrams about how washing machines use magnets to turn the drum around, which turned into a discussion of how cameras use magnets etc etc. Whilst all this was going on M was immersed in his latest library book, obviously a non-putter-downer cos even when it was dinner time he just wanted to read ‘one more page’ (I never ever thought I’d see the day when that happened!).

We also got involved with the Flat Stanley project that Bridget suggested some time ago. The boys decided to make flat dinosaurs since we live on the Jurassic Coast and got busy drawing them, painting them (using water colour pencils), making up their journals etc. The first one (Flat Charlie) flew off to California this morning (which prompted M to locate California on the big map and then some talk about trees, Brazil, borders, passports etc). We got home from the post office to find that the hosts for J’s (flat Steggy) had written back with their address so he’ll be flying off to Adelaide, Australia on Monday (which prompted a library book about Australia, talk about animals, how long it took to fly to Aus and other subjects). We seemed to be a bit in demand and the boys have made flat George who is flying off to Georgia on Monday (prompting finding Georgia on the map and finding out there was also a country called Georgia…) and flat ???? who is flying off to somewhere else in the states on Monday but I can’t remember where (luckily I have the addy in my mailbox). We are also expecting an influx of flat travellers from all over so I’m thinking this is going to actually be a pretty good way to learn about various countries and cultures. I took some pics but haven’t uploaded them yet).

Ruth (Magical Mayhem) very kindly gave us the first two books from the Story of the world series, which is actually written for younger children than mine but they are really enjoying it so I’m not going to stop them! I read the first part of Chapter one (about nomads) which M clearly enjoyed cos he asked if there was more. There was, so I read it to him. Afterwards we chatted about the story and I asked them a few questions. Today we wandered off to the fabric store and bought some fluffy fabric with a leopard print on it, they are going to make ‘game bags’ out of it. Neither of us has any idea what we will do with the bags when they are done but I’m sure there will be some use for them, lol! Huge thanks go to Ruth for opening up this avenue to them.

M booktracked today and received his badge for 75 books.

When we first started this we had a few parents come up to us saying their offspring had completed the challenge (to read 100 books) in 8 months/ 10 months/ one year/similar amount of time, but the one thing the librarian said was that it was not a race, and that they should enjoy doing it not try to beat somebody else’s record for how quickly they could read them. That’s something I took on board and they have been actively discouraged to rush-read anything and have also borrowed a great many books that they haven’t tracked and thus far it has probably taken around two years so get to 75 (actually it may even be longer). When he went into this he could barely read but now he enjoys books which most other kids his age would be reading and I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t have happened if I’d gotten caught up in the ‘brat race’ with other parents and pushed him through.

I’ve been thinking about encouraging the boys’ independence a bit lately and asked on the Structured Home Ed forum for some advice. As usual this fantastic group of people came up with several suggestions, some of which we have begun to out into place. The boys have had their first trip to the ‘local’ shop (which isn’t at all local but is in reality a good 20 minute walk away). I gave them some money and told them to go off and get some sweets. M had his mobile on him so could call me if they got lost, couldn’t remember anything or had an accident etc but he didn’t need it at all. I sometimes do not know what I would do without the friends I have made through that forum, it’s been brilliant! (hope that’s not considered bragging cos its the people there that make it what is is, not me). Another idea that came off there was to give them a set amount of money and ask them to buy the families sweet biscuits and crisps etc for the week. We tried that today and they did very well picking a huge box of broken sweet biscuits fo £2.49 and two angel delights for 56p. I’m not sure I approve of so many biscuits but hopefully in time they will come up with slightly healthier options, lol!

I’m sure there’s more but I think that I really need to go off and cook up something for the boys’ dinner. M is having a growth spurt at the moment and, as always when he grows like this, he looks like a skeleton with a little bit of flesh on! Goodness knows where his food goes because he has the appetite of an elephant yet never ever puts on more than a little bit of weight. He is not underweight though, despite being one of the skinniest kids I’ve ever set eyes on, and apparently I shouldn’t worry…

Oh, so why did I change the title to taking note rather than taking notes? Because when I had written all the stuff I could remember we’d done I was absolutely amazed - because despite having a ‘week off’, we’ve probably actually learnt as much as when we don’t have a week off and its all been down to them and their interests. What’s more there is been a distinct lack of bickering and everybody has been much more relaxed. It has been a good week so far and I’m tempted to have another ‘week off’ next week and see where that takes us…

A bit like song 2 but different, lol!

Two posts from me in one day is something of an anomaly! I must have time on my hands, lol

We’d pretty much planned on just lazing around today, but you know what they say about the best laid plans, lol! After receiving a phone call to ask if we were home, a quick vacuum around and picking up of lego we had some lovely visitors for the afternoon. One of them hadn’t been here before and just couldn’t stop saying what a lovely area it was and how different to the place we lived in Exeter. It made me realise how used to living here we had gotten, as we take all the greenery, the gorgeous houses, lovely neighbours etc all for granted now. It was good to look back and see how much better our lives are now. It made me grateful for good choices, and lots of luck!

Our visitors insisted on taking us out to dinner. Fabulous not to have to cook, lol! They were such a pleasure to have around that I was quite sad to see them go even though the visit was a bit unexpected. They even took a load of wood, from the fence I had taken down, to the tip for me so that was another job closer to my goal of getting the garden sorted and much appreciated.

No sooner had they gone home than a friend popped over and asked me to hers for coffee and to see her chinchillas. I had to decline ‘cos M was beginning to climb the walls with all the unplanned stuff, but sometimes life is like that. Instead the boys had a friend over to play on the wii, still unplanned but at home so not quite so hard to cope with for M if that makes any sense. I think probably because he was on his own turf…

I’d planned on reading the EYFS stuff that came through my door a few days ago in preparation for September but it was such a joy to watch the kids messing around and laughing their heads off that I just sat, relaxed and watched them instead. I’m getting lazy in my old age, lol!

We all know the answer to that question already but today NASA’s Phoenix space station is due to land on Mars, prompting a discussion or two about life on Mars, water etc etc. Lots of info here for anybody else who is interested, including an educational section.

The last few days have, for me at least, been a time for reflection. The last three years haven’t been without their bad times and sad times and it was time for me to dig out that particular little box and it’s burgeoning contents once more to dust it off, look it over and return once again to a place where it does not interfere with our everyday lives. I do not believe in letting the past rule the future, but I would be being dishonest if I did not acknowledge the fact that meeting people (both in real life and online), who have impacted on our lives so negatively has had an adverse effect on the way we now do things. That said, I often think that nothing happens without a reason and what you make of it is up to you. If life chucks lemons at you, you can choose to either sit there with a sour face and moan or complain, or make lemonade. I happen to like lemonade!

The way in which we home ed has also come under the microscope and has been pulled apart a little bit and re-patched too. Lots of planning in progress at the moment, not least of how things will happen when I am working. One thing I intend to change is how much hands on stuff we do…

I even had a really honest look at the amount of time I spent on the internet and have made one or two changes as the results of that particular examination horrified me! My Facebook account has been deactivated because one major realisation was that I was spending *huge* amounts of time on there on a daily basis instead of actually living real life. I have to say that I miss it a lot, almost the same way in which one misses an addiction like smoking! I did try to just limit my time but found I couldn’t do that so the whole package had to go, lol! I kept twitter though because I do not spend anything like the amount of time on there and did not want to lose touch with everybody. Perhaps one day I will have the will power to limit my own time and will have another go at Facebook but for now its well and truly off the cards, lol!

So, that’s the reflection over and done with, now for the actual life…

As a direct result of less time on the ‘net I have had more time to play lots of games with the boys, which has resulted in far more laughter in the house. I have even laid out on the floor and played Lego with M and chatted to him about various things whilst we’ve been busy. Its been good to connect with them this way. I have also (shock , horror!!) got a much tidier house which makes me happier cos I absolutely hate mess, untidiness and disorganisation.

Both boys have continued with their Galore Park English. I love the way they can just pull out their texts and get on with it, although I am always on hand to be asked any questions etc I do not have to sit over them and spoon feed them stuff, whilst at the same time I know they are actually getting enough practise on things, unlike before when we were just using workbooks etc. Maths is continuing to trundle along although I am having serious doubts that we will finish 7B before the summer holidays … In science we finished covering body systems and have moved on to growing up which caused a bit of giggles and ‘gross!’ at first but is now settling down. I’m really glad they don’t have to cover this stuff in a classroom full of children all acting out and being silly about the whole thing!

Gardening is going well, the carrots are well on their way and have had their first thinning. Both the boys were interested to see the beginnings of carrots on the pulled up shoots. The baby onions also raised quite a bit of interest and there is already talk of how we will eat them. Since the boys have shown such an interest in the gardening we have also put our names on the waiting list for an allotment, but it looks as if we shall have to wait a fairly long time for that so gardening in tubs is carrying on for now (the soil here is very clay and I cannot afford to topsoil it all at the moment, plus we really want the garden as a place for relaxation and enjoyment rather than a veggie plot). Whilst sorting out the ivy some more (yes this job is taking forever cos there is tons of the stuff!) we stumbled across the little frog which lives in our garden. I have to remove the ‘feature’ under which he lives as it is pretty sharp and would no doubt cause an very nasty wound in anybody unlucky enough to fall and land on it, so lots of chatting about how we can make another part of the garden appealing for him so we do not lose him when we sort that particular piece of the garden. I have also reseeded the grass, which Milly, our black cat, then went right out and rolled in so the grass will probably grow on her back instead of the garden, lol! More seeds needed I think…

Last night we watched the annual Eurovision Song Contest in which England came last as expected. When is this stupid country going to get wise to the fact that voting is now political and this country is just … well, hated I think would be a good term. For goodness sake organisers, get real and get out of it! (Do you think they’ll listen to me?, no me either, lol!).

‘Hated’ also describes the beginning of Big Brother 9 this week, something which I think you either love or hate. How many of us will admit to watching this year I wonder?

The saddest news comes last. This week a suicide bomber walked into a cafe in Exeter, which was apparently full of mums and tots. Thankfully the device he was carrying failed to go off properly or the devastation does not bear thinking about.

Terrorism, something I used to read about in the newspapers, has come to sunny Devon.

We toddled off to a museum we knew had some WW2 memorabilia today. Actually ‘toddle off’ is a bit of a misnomer as the bus journey felt as if it had taken hours…

Fortunately, we were rewarded with a very nice display, which brought to life many of the things we had been learning about in history recently.

All of us were amazed at how big the German bombs were. Even I had no idea they were so tall!

A cabinet full of original artefacts from WW2

This one and the next are self explanatory…

Ration books etc in the cabinet. Having real names on them makes it seem more real somehow.

The staff at the museum fell over themselves to make it an enjoyable visit for the children. They were kind enough to take a great deal of time finding answers to questions the boys asked and also spent time telling us about the displays and how they came to be in the museum. Well worth the small entrance fee in my opinion. They took time to dig out some question sheets for them both to fill out, and gave the boys a few mementos of the day which I thought was especially kind of them.

In another part of the museum they had some displays of lacework which (perhaps surprisingly) the boys really enjoyed. I managed to get some close ups through the glass so you get to enjoy them too. All the items are made by hand. They were truly beautiful in real life, which unfortunately isn’t shown so well in the photos.

We didn’t have a huge amount of time between getting home and going out again for scouts, so after a quick dinner of pasta and meat(less) balls it was time to hit the road again. We’re taking the lads rafting shortly and tonight’s session was all about building the raft, and of course the obligatory knots!

A bit of light entertainment in the form of Reaper on TV, followed by The Big Bang Theory and we were all happy to hit the sack. Love days like this.

A long long time ago, well 7 years ago to be precise, my children sang ‘with’ S Club 7 on their 2001 Children in Need single ‘Have You Ever’, along with 275,000 (276, 998 actually, lol) other kids. It’s something I had completely forgotten about but was reminded when I read a friendly HEors blog and her choice of Musical Monday. (Thanks HH).

We lost our copy of the single a long time ago but thanks to HH, I thought about getting it on You Tube. Of course its not the actual single, which is a shame, but its close enough…

Another fab weekend has just rushed by. The sunshine has come back, but it’s been chilly too so no lazy days at the beach this weekend.

On Saturday the boys both put in some decent music practise, J on recorders and keyboards and M on recorder. I even managed to sneak a quick pic of him cos he was so engrossed he didn’t notice!

I pottered a bit more in the garden trying to tidy up and getting nowhere fast, lol!

We played Doctor Who, watched Doctor Who and then Doctor Who Confidential! I won the game of Doctor Who for a change, so I’ll celebrate with a pic of my counter, lol!

Sunday was spent just pottering around. Spending some time with our visitors on Sunday evening and taking loads of pics of the kittens late afternoon. I’ll spoil you with some but first of all I have some kitty cat news. Oscar has decide to move away from home and although he’ll still pop by for a visit now and again has no intention of coming into the house so we have decided to keep the little ginger kitten for ourselves. The thing is, the name Redd was only supposed to be temporary as he would have been renamed by his new owners and none of us really like it, so I wondered if anybody had any good names for him… If you can think of one or two just pop them in the comment box below and I’ll ask the kids to think about them…

I woke up really early this morning, so let Dylan out for a run around before the kids got up. He had great fun hopping around the lounge, the kittens had great fun hopping after him too!

Once the boys got up, they cracked on with some maths and some science. After lunch we went for a wander down to town where I got yet more grass seed ‘cos the garden still looks patchy… They did a bit of English in the afternoon and that was it again.

Our food delivery came in the middle of HE so they had a few minutes giggle-time whilst I was unpacking that. A well placed bar of milk chocolate soon focussed them again though! My cupboard is beginning to look a bit like a Tesco Value advert but as we are trying hard to save a bit we’re cutting back all around. Surprisingly, some of it doesn’t taste too bad, although I think I’m almost ready to kill for fresh veg by now

Not a brill day HE wise but I had a rather worrying phone call first thing about somebody who is pretty poorly and things have been a bit touch and go over the weekend, so I was a bit on edge for relatives who are a lot closer to the situation than I am. This evening things are apparently a bit more positive so fingers crossed…

Thoughts also go to my gorgeous nephew ‘R’ who is bang smack in the middle of his GCSE’s. It doesn’t seem 5 minutes since I was pushing him out in his pram! It’s his birthday in a couple of weeks too, sweet 16 already!!! Where does the time go?

[edited to add - my feed reader is completely on the blink so I’ve missed or commented late on loads of blogposts. I think I have gotten around to all of them now but if I’ve missed you out and I normally comment, please accept my apologies, hopefully Bloglines will sort out the problem soon.]

(You have to read the title aloud and then I shall duck as you throw something for the utter cheesiness of it. )

We’ve had an uneventful few days here again. Uneventful is good though, it means I can relax.

HE has been rather thin on the ground for one reason or another. Mainly I think cos I just cannot be bothered at the moment. Very bad HEor to admit I guess but when you wake up still tired after 7 hours sleep something has to give…

So, apart from the exhaustion I’ve encouraged them to take full advantage of the sunshine by taking their reading books out with them - no that J looks too comfortable here, I should have waited til he was sprawled out on cushions under the sunshade shouldn’t I?

And erm yes, it doesn’t look as if J has brushed his hair that day either, no doubt somebody will have something to say about that, lol!

M and I have been busy making a Roman Villa from this book which has been sitting on the shelf for a very long time. Its pretty easy so far, but if you look closely you will see I let him down a bit when I stuck the main house on a bit wonky and the path doesn’t quite line up with the door…

J, meanwhile has been busy making a Roman Temple gift box out of household junk, he’s waiting for some tubes to become available from the supermarket before he can carry on but here’s a quick pic so he doesn’t feel left out, lol!

In addition, the boys have done some core but not a lot. They have however come to the end of the linear equation section in maths - woohoo! They did it without panic about letters being in maths and had a fab understanding of it from the very beginning thanks in part I am sure to a great little video on teachers TV.

We’ve also got some stuff going on which I’m not going to blog publicly about but is becoming a little stressful. Enough to say we are waiting for some answers to questions that should have been asked long ago and weren’t. Fingers crossed they do not take too long in coming and that they are useful when we do get them (that all sounds so cryptic and its nothing really, I just don’t want the world to know bit it seems silly to shut friends out so may do a passworded post at some time…)

I downloaded the mothers’ chore list organiser from Currclick earlier in the week (what a fantastic give-away that was this time), I really should open it and have a read through, maybe even put some of it into action. Can’t print it though cos I *still* don’t have any ink, there’s always something far more interesting or important to spend money on, lol!

One day. Hopefully soon.

Oh and one last thing… the kittens are still with us. We went to the co-op today to do a bit of shopping and found that the ad had been taken down again! The assistant thinks that people are taking them down and keeping them to get the phone number (which would tie in with the total time waster we had pop around a few days ago who promised to let us know if she wanted one and then didn’t bother to ring). Anyway, I put up another ad and a duplicate in a different position both of which say ‘please do not remove this ad’ so hopefully we will soon find good homes for the remaining kittens. Then Calico can be spayed and our house will stop looking like cat city….