Camping, bikes and all-terrain boards

Dd on her "new" bike bought at the car boot sale where we had a weekend camp.

And some more photos from our camping trip several weeks ago.

And here, ds2 gives the all-terrain board an airing in the park.

Must be summer.

"Actually, my kids are amazing."

Imagine the scene.

*****

You bump into someone you haven't met for a while.

You engage in polite chit-chat. 

They ask how everything is going . 

"Fine," you say. 

They ask how the kids are.

"Fine." 

You move on.

*****

I've made a promise to myself. Next time anyone asks how the kids are, I'm not going to say "fine". No. Next time, I might say "Actually, my kids are amazing."

Because no matter how much we mumble and moan about our kids and focus on the 'issues' and 'problems', the day-to-day grind, AND ALL THAT STUFF, if we take the time to stop and look, our kids really are AMAZING.

Ds2's contribution for the group's Arts Award display, inspired by sessions with artist, Bethany Milam. He also completed a behind-the-scenes video of a children's performance and researched Michele Paver for his portfolio.

Dd wins bronze medal for her age group at the fencing England Youth Championships, having only been fencing in full kit since September. (Note the lovely apres-fencing-pink-crocs-with-socks look ;) ) 

The other competitors were a little taller :)

But perhaps even more of an achievement, dd, having only learned to read this year, writes her first list (unprompted) of essential things to take to the fencing competition. As you can see, ham sandwiches are far more important than fencing kit.

And on a family camping weekend ds1 (14) surprises us all by having a great time with a friend's teenage girls (14 and 18). It seems the gender divide isn't irreparable, even at his age.

Festival time

Pictures of our weekend camping at a festival:

(A home educator's dream: Oh how long I have been waiting to say those words 'Will you get your nose out of that book and come and do something?!')

Even when stuck in a tent in a field ds2 manages to find a computer games console...

Just reattaching the USB umbilical cord...

'My life in a suitcase' (or 'Further Adventures of the Low Self-Esteem Packer')

Two days to go.

Chickens have been farmed out (thank you Carolyn for taking in my scrawny anorexic terrorists).

Boxes and cases have been packed, unpacked, rearranged, exchanged, packed again and sworn at.

Bathroom tiles have been resealed with bathroom sealant.

I have dusted places that I didn't know existed before programmes like 'How Clean is your House' and I have hoped the growth in the fridge would spontaneously disappear before our housesitters arrive.

Van has been loaded, unloaded, altered, loaded, unloaded, sworn at.

List has been ticked, debated over, scribbled on, restarted, sworn at.

Doorkeys have been distributed, no swearing involved.

Marital harmony has been maintained despite two hissy fits and an obsession with finding 'the right box to make use of that space'.

For those brave souls who are housesitting I have written a list of instructions concerning all my quirky and dangerous household appliances. This comprises a whole side of A4 on:

why if you plug in the dishwasher at the same time as the washing machine the plug melts

why you can't run hot and cold water at the same time

why the vacuum cleaner has no 'ON' switch - 'it's plug and go, just watch your socks'

why you need to empty the margarine tub that catches the drips from the toilet plumbing

why you need long fingernails to open the cupboards in the lounge

why we only have two tropical fish left ('don't worry they're naturally carnivorous')

why the oven is full of dog hair and

why the Wii machine inexplicably goes 'pfutt' and stops working whenever you get to a good bit in a game and haven't saved it...

I have ventured into the world of wool (my loft). As any knitter will sympathise I wanted to take 8 crates of the woolly stuff, plus all the patterns on my shelf, plus every size of knitting needle (just in case). I restricted myself to 4 balls, different colours. Then added more balls (don't want to run out). Then taken some away (too many). Then added some more. Just in case. Ditto knitting needles. It is a suitcase in flux. It may - or may not - reach equilibrium before we set off. Otherwise I'll be the woman wailing on the M6, 'If only I'd brought along my green superwash sock wool and set of 4 double pointed 2.5mm needles - waaaaahhhhh !'

I have put clothes into suitcase. I have salvaged slightly worn clothes from washing basket (those that passed the sniff test) and put them in. I have taken contents of suitcase out, removed one-third of clothes (supposedly the prescribed amount of clothes to remove when packing for travels) and then realised that I only have 2 pairs of knickers and no trousers left. I have watched the weather and done the okey cokey with summer clothes (in-out-in-out-oh-bugger). I have folded, rolled and eventually stuffed items in. I have washed clothes (those that didn't pass the sniff test) and waved them around hoping that they will dry in time to pack. I have realised that half of my children's clothes (the ones we need) have been left at other people's houses. I have bemoaned the lack of space and redistributed the boring stuff in my case to other people's suitcases (towels, very boring). I have wondered if they sell facial wipes, scissors, string, notebooks,'Vegetable Garden' tinned vegetable chilli, clothes pegs, boys pants and the special sort of strawberry toothpaste that dd likes, in Scotland and then packed the lot anyway.

I have looked at my Diploma reading list (see previous post). I have scoured the charity shops for books on said list. I have put 5 of such books in my suitcase. Considering I have never yet managed to read a novel while camping (least not since I've had children) I challenge anyone who has ever called me a pessimist.

So decision has been made. A Streetcar Named Desire gets in (though I don't know how I'm supposed to do all the different voices - maybe I'll rope the kids in). I'm sorry, Salmon Fishdie, your Midnight's Children did NOT pass the 'browse test' ('Hmmm..there's a lot of words on that page. My, what interesting fluff has collected down the cracks in the floorboards').

'To Kill A Mockingbird' got in on 'browse test' merit. It's not actually on the reading list, but that's because the list is written by people who think everyone will have read books like Mockingbird in their first year of primary school. (I'm not suggesting that academics are out of touch with the public, just stating a self-evident truth).

The next book that reached the finals and secured a place in the suitcase...drum roll....was some book whose title I can't remember and is written by someone I don't know (and cant remember either). It has an unremarkable stormy seasidey cover that looks like every other book on the bestseller shelf in WH Smiths. The only reason it's going in is because I was hoping that the contents might be some sort of sado-sinister Chick Lit. AND because the alternative might have been Jane Austen or some book about a guy who hangs himself (yeah I checked the ending on Wikipedia before buying that one). Unless I'm getting confused and there's someone who hangs themself in a Jane Austen novel. If so, I might give that one a go.

'Oranges are not the Only Fruit' passed the 'weird front cover' test and got in as a last-minute wildcard.

And, yes, I know that's only 4 books and I said I'd packed 5. What's number 5? Oh I dunno. Maybe it was Easy Suduko or something.

We are back...

What the Home Educators Summer Festival (HESFES) means to us...

Practising circus skills:

Developing stunt skills (strapped with bungee cords to a water carrier!):

Creating marvellous things out of balsa wood:

Secret rendevous in children's tents:

Sharing campfires every night:

Making and listening to music:

Sweatshirts nearly as loud as the music:

Watching movies at the Groovie Movie tent:

Dusting off those big hats and old (2005) HESFES t-shirts:

Making hula hoops:

Remembering old skills:

Making new friends:

And joining up with old ones:

Searching for the Home Education crock of gold at the end of that rainbow that appears every year (and trying to forget about the stomach bugs, scary toilets, home-made arrows shot in eyes, children's minor punch ups, the tears, tantrums and nits):

Staying up way past bedtime:

And finally...
recovering from a busy week:

Uh oh! Packing crisis!

Ok, it appears that packing has reached crisis point (see here for earlier explanatory post):






It's time to laugh at the 'set out everything you want to take and halve it' advice and instead jettison 3 children and 1 spaniel and all their belongings onto the front lawn.

There, that's much better:

It's amazing how spacious those people carriers are, isn't it.

Oh, and while I have your attention, do take a look at my smug mother moment here. (Just in case you missed it).

I'm packing with PMT....

Remember those wonderful days before children. When camping involved one rucksack, a teeny camping stove, a two-person dome tent and enough money to keep you supplied in beer for the week?


Well.


It's fair to say those days....



are long gone...

With my belongings now usurped by towels (for 5), wet wipes, dog brush, soft toys, sun hats, 3 sets of wellies, and all the very particular dietary requirements of 3 faddy eaters, there is only room for my knitting. Ah well...I'll either spend the week naked or I'll just have to get knitting.

And with PMT in full rage stage the packing process can only get more interesting...

[p.s. see yesterday's post for smug mother moment...wouldn't want you to miss out]

The 3 little pigs learn to survive like Bear Grylls while mother contemplates politics

It seems a while since I've blogged, but we've just spent the bank holiday weekend camping so I have a legitimate excuse.

In true form we timed our camping expedition perfectly for a change in the weather. In our family any weather that contains rain, sleet, wind and freezing temperatures is termed 'camping weather'. One develops these family phrases out of experience. I like to think that withstanding the English weather by going to bed fully dressed in a sleeping bag designed for temperatures of minus 10 degrees with a woolly hat on and two blankets is character building. I'm sure it will prove very handy if any of my children decide to become a hill farmer in the Outer Hebrides.

I've been thinking that camping is like the story of the three little pigs. Except that my children aren't pigs and none of them can be bothered to go round building houses (of sticks, straw or bricks). Actually camping is nothing like the story of the three little pigs. Except that when it's windy it's quite possible that your house will blow down. I suppose there is a very remote possibility that you might get eaten by a wolf (the only wolves I've seen are in a local wildlife park), but more likely you will be smothered by clouds of white fluff from a demented spaniel who goes by the name of Captain Jack Sparrow (or Jack for short).

Over the weekend while discussing with a small child where they could discreetly go for a wee by a canalside with no obvious trees and lots of passing walkers I realised that the word I was looking for in my last post was epiphany. One could say I had an epiphany about the word epiphany, but that would just sound trite.

Anyway, going back to the camping thing, I will post a few photos, perhaps tomorrow. No photos of tents blowing down or anything so exciting (Shame, could have sent the vids to 'You've been Framed' and earned back the cost of the weekend). Just lots of photos of the inside of the tent from the very small hole at the end of a sleeping bag and a pile of shivering blankets.

And so on to other thoughts for the day...the election. Who to vote for? The truth is, even at this late stage, I don't know. Labour have it in for home educators big time, so they wont get my vote (even though they did bring in Child Tax Credits which earns them a few brownie points). Nope, Labour have been real meanies and Ed Balls is a psychopath. What if Gordon Brown stepped down and Ed Balls ended up as the Prime Minister (I'm gonna have nightmares about that one).

And so...Lib Dems? Well Lib Dems appear to be in favour of registration for home edders, which is a no-no. Big big no-no. They're pretty level pegging in my constituency though, so I'd have to decide which of the devils I'd prefer.

And Conservatives, well. Although they seem to be pro-non-interference of home edders, who knows what they'd do if they were actually in power. And Cameron reminds me of far too many pratts (I'd use another word, but there may be children reading) that I met at Uni, most of whom were studying Politics, Economics or Estate Management. BRRRrrrrr. I shiver at the memory of it. And Conservatives were talking about reducing tax credits. If that means Child Tax Credits then I'm stuffed, seeing as they make up a large proportion of my income. I mean this is money that actually goes to the parent responsible for the care of the children. Not straight into the pockets of the main income earner who already has enough money to buy beer down the pub and doesn't really need any more. I like child tax credits because they go to me, not to my partner. I don't need to negotiate that money back again into my pocket and into the hands of my kids. So. No Child Tax Credits means children suffer. And for me it means that I'd have no adequate way of staying at home and home educating my children. I do do paid work and have always worked (honest guv, I'm not a scrounger), but I don't have enough hours outside of looking after/educating the children to earn enough to keep us fed, watered and sane.

So what is the alternative? Well I could decide not to vote. But then think of all those poor little suffragettes who did suffragette things so that I could get to vote (as you can tell we haven't got to suffragettes yet in our Home Ed history projects, but I know a thing or two about Ancient Greeks, and Charles Darwin if that's any use). Anyway, I always feel guilty about the suffragette votey thingy even if I don't know anything about it. I mean I'm a woman. Of course my sole purpose in life is to feel guilty. So the guiltometre is at full wack when I think about not voting. Gee thanks Emily Pankhurst, yet another thing to feel guilty about. So much for women's lib.

Or I could turn up and just spoil my ballot paper, which is one suggestion that has been mooted on a few home ed lists. If all parties are rubbish, or have policies that you disagree with (or just if none of them float your boat) then there is no real democratic choice, is there? Why feel you have to vote for someone, when you could just exert your democratic right to - er - go spoil a ballot paper.

At first I thought this was just pointless. I mean why go to all that effort to turn up at the right place on the right day (and finding the childcare to be able to do it) when all I'm going to do is scribble a cartoon of Chad with his nose poking over a wall and the text 'Wot no decent party to vote for' (or something else equally vapid). But someone said on one of the home ed lists that if you spoil your ballot paper these ballot papers HAVE to be counted. So in effect you are making your voice known (in a very quiet and non-influential whisper perhaps). Ah well. I suppose if someone really likes your cartoon there's always the remote chance that you might get to be the next Larson. And he must make a decent living even without Child Tax Credits.

So, what you YOU think?

The bath water is brown and gritty - we're back from HESFES!

Wow! Back from a week's camping holiday followed by HESFES (Home Educators Summer Festival) and feeling tanned and fresh-aired (and a bit nearer the overdraft limit than I was before I left!)

After attending the week-long home educating conference at HESFES I have lots to tell, and plenty of info/advice about the Badman Report to pass on. Hopefully among the scraps of paper I've brought back I have some constructive ideas about what we can do to fight the proposals.

I'm sure I've also got lots of photos to post up about fossiling and HESFESing and all our other activities over the past few weeks. But I need to tackle the washing and the allotment first, so will post soon with more stuff. In the meantime this is just to say I'm here!

Between a rock and a nappy sack of dog poo via the valley of cryogenic fruit. Or 'Why scientists should bring the dinosaurs back'

I have so much news for you guys to catch up on that I don't know where to start. In fact it's been so long since I posted specifically about our home education (rather than Badman's Bad Report) that I've forgotten what I've told you about and what I haven't.

Anyway. I'll start writing and post the photos up a bit later at which point I'll remember more things to write about and if I repeat myself, well be a little tolerant. It's my age you know.

There's been a bit of a ROCK theme going on here recently.

Did I tell you about the David Attenborough DVD on fossils that the kids watched while we were doing 'Evolution and Darwin'?
Well, following on from the DVD we've strayed into more of the fossil subject area. Ds1 had already been reminiscing about fossil hunting in Lyme Regis and coincidentally I've been reading outloud to the kids a book on Mary Anning (The Dragon in the Cliff by Sheila Cole), who is famous for finding some amazing fossils on the Dorset coast when she was a girl in the 1800s. Anyway, it's a fab book, and absolutely the best sort for reading out loud. Ds1 has actually been begging for me to read it to him (my throat was sore today and he was gutted that I wasn't going to read the next chapter!).

[If you liked the Little House on the Prairie Series of books it has a similar 'feel' to it AND Mary is home educated for most of her childhood, which is a plus for our home educating family!].

On Tuesday we took off to do some fossil hunting in a local quarry, loaded down with picnic and hammers and dog and identification books and cameras and nappy sacks of dog poo (I'm sure traditional palaeontologists don't have the latter to contend with on their explorations). I'd never been to this quarry before and had no idea what to expect. Although we didn't find anything remarkable (no dinosaurs) in the limestone, there were certainly fossils and the kids were thrilled.

Orchids at the quarry. I think they are pyramidal orchids.[I suppose I should know all these things seeing as my final year dissertation was on plant colonisation of chalkpits and I spent the whole summer sat in a chalkpit identifying everything]

A moth, yet to be identified (a cinabar moth?).

I expected the novelty of 'another shell fossil!' to wear out after a while, but the kids were so reluctant to leave at the end of the day. I think this has something to do with the appeal of the 'treasure hunt' (it certainly appeals to me). It's that 'well just one more look, just in case I find something really good' feeling. Perhaps this is why people buy metal detectors; metal detecting probably has the same addictive qualities as fossil hunting ('Just one more field and I might find something really valuable!')

Ds2 doing a good impression of a mountain goat (I was at the bottom trying not to look and mentally banning myself from using the phrase 'be careful', while pondering how far it was to the nearest hospital )

A bivalve fossil. Cool eh?

The fossil-craze has taken off so well that we've booked a few days camping down near Lyme Regis soon. I'm not sure what we're going to do with carrier bag fulls of rocks (build a rockery?) in the tent, but I'm sure we'll have fun.

On the rock theme, here are some pictures of the boys doing some stone carving at an arts and crafts weekend. Ds1 wouldn't leave the block alone and spent most of the weekend chiselling away at it! Dh has promised to get him a couple of breeze blocks in the back garden and lend him a hammer and chisel. It's not like the neighbours think we're normal anyway...

Ds1 training to be a plastic surgeon (actually I think it's a penguin in progress)

Ds2 getting a lesson in pot throwing at the arts and crafts show. I was hoping for one of those 'Generation Game' moments with wobbly pots flying off into the audience, but alas he was far too good at it!)

The kids have also been watching repeats of 'The Fossil Detectives' on bbc iplayer. They only seem to be available for a week after showing on BBC4, (no.2 is on iplayer at the moment), but they are to be recommended! My boys really enjoyed them. Oh, and if you go to

http://www.open2.net/fossildetectives/index.html

there is a link where you can order a free 'Fossil Detectives' guide from the Open University. We've already got ours and it's a really useful start to fossil hunting. Not exactly comprehensive, but in some ways better than lugging around some huge tome on fossils that the kids wont want to look at anyway.

And on the evolution theme we were watching 'The Incredible Human Journey' on iplayer, except that the series must have ended now because it's all vanished off the website (poo). But we've managed to watch a few, and have downloaded a couple more. Maybe the BBC will repeat the series (they seem to repeat everything else).

Oh and that's just reminded me. We went to the Cheltenham Science Festival a few weekends ago. It was a long day out, but the boys went and saw the 'Evolution Revolution' talk by Dr Robert Winston and a talk about the satellite that Blue Peter are sending up (don't know much about it, but they seemed to enjoy the talk). They also got to play at all the hands-on stuff that was there, and pick up some freebies (always a plus!). The kids entered a competition and we were notified a few days later that ds2 had won a robot (he had a choice and chose the Roboraptor). We're still waiting for it to arrive nearly a week later and I'm hoping that it hasn't got lost in our appalling postal system, or that they've somehow changed their mind and sent it to someone else :( We don't often win things, so I'm cautiously pessimistic.

Dd checking out the 'science of balance' at The Cheltenham Science Festival!

And pretending to conduct an orchestra like the statue of the very famous bloke behind her whose name I can't remember.

Ds2 paints with mud to show how kind he is to plants (or some other earthy reason that the stallholder gave and that went straight over my head)

Dd draws a dog. Dogs are her current artistic theme. But it is a very nice dog...

Dd2 proves that autonomous education works. Not only did he teach himself to read, but it looks as if he can spell too (in mud)

AND...more evolution. I took the kids to an evolution event at our local museum of natural history. They kind of blanked out with info-overload (especially the woman who seemed determine to explain the differences and similarities in various animals' DNA to my 3 not-very-interested children), but it felt like one more tick in the box (sorry kids, I'm in control of the pen this time). And there was the usual Mr dynamic museum education officer, who is totally animated about everything (yes, I mean EVERYTHING - in a loud voice) and just the sort of person you need to make a dry subject interesting to kids. Why can't every museum have one of him? (I bet the anti-cloning protestors haven't thought of what they are depriving us home educators of - think how much better life would be if we could populate the country with excitable child-friendly museum bods!)

The kids look at some weird creatures in the museum. I think by this point they were flagging and a bit desperate to go home :)

Alongside the fossil theme we've been doing a timeline of evolution (simplified) using the books 'From Lava to Life' and 'Mammals who Morph' by Jennifer Morgan. There are actually 3 books in the series but I was too tight to buy the first one which I assume is about The Big Bang. You can see below some of the pictures that the kids drew to stick on the timeline. I know it's a sneaky way to get them to do a bit of writing, but - as I keep reminding them - if they were in school they'd be doing HOURS of writing. Though to be fair, even if my kids had hours to do writing in, they'd probably still only come up with one or two legible sentences in that time.


Ok, so what else have we been doing (on a non-evolution, non-fossil, non-rock theme)?

Well the strawberries are glutting. I don't suppose that's a verb, but I've just made it into one. Why? Because I'm worth it.

Do you know just how many fresh strawberries a family can eat in one day? We do. And it's less than I'm picking. I still have last year's strawberries in the freezer that I was supposed to make jam out of...and now I have another 3 tubs to add (on top of last year's blackcurrants, rasberries, sliced apple, elderberries, and weird things which may have once been damsons) . My freezer has become the valley of cryogenic fruit.

The mangetout are also glutting. One day they are tiny, the next day they are monstrously tough pea pods. Ok, well maybe not the next day, but the next day that I get around to going down the allotment, which is nearly the same thing. The only thing to do with all these is to dip them in humous. YUM. The kids don't like them, so I'm left trying to eat a bag full a day (and giving the leftovers to the rabbit which seems a shame). I think even neighbours' distribution outlets are overwhelmed (eggs, strawberries AND mangetout).

Shouldn't complain. But I will.

The courgette plants that were gifted to me (see last post) are still looking half dead. I keep forgetting to water them or feed them, or actually do anything with them.

Bad courgette mother.

Still, thinking positively, at least it will prevent me having a courgette glut in about 2 months time. I still have courgettes from two years ago preserved at the bottom of the freezer. Once a year (in that super skint month when I rummage in the freezer to feed the family to avoid hitting the overdraft limit) they resurface and I poke them back down to the bottom because they look so unappealing. One day I'll fee\d them to the chickens.

The horsetail is growing well at the allotment. As we have found out from our numerous fossil/evolution viewings and activities the horsetail - or tree-like forms of it - were around at the same time as the dinosaurs. I've been thinking about this (displacement activity no101)...if herbivorous dinosaurs were introduced on to my allotment I'd have no weed problems at all. Where's Jurassic Park scientists when you need them? Oi! Go get some of that dinosaur DNA and breed me a horsetail predator! But knowing my luck they'd probably be fond of carrots too...

[by the way it's taken me three attempts to finish this post, hence the date at the top is actually about 3 days ago]