When the universe comes together...

...and brings small wicked pleasures. Like when you're driving down the half-flooded, dual carriageway with the windscreen wipers on triple speed, and realise that the irritating squeak they always emit synchronises perfectly with Spandau Ballet's 'Gold'.

Now that's why I can't be doing with listening to Radio 4.

Life after price comparison websites and contract surfing

Ds2 spent the afternoon painting Warhammer, while I wrestled with price comparison websites trying to fix us a better phone/broadband and electricity/gas contract.

Three hours later, square-eyed and comparisoned-out, I think I might have sorted it.

Over the years with TalkTalk we have had numerous bizarre phone conversations in that loud monosyllabic voice that we English adopt when we can't understand someone's accent. Even the simple task of asking TalkTalk staff the most basic of questions (NO-I-DONT-WANT-TO-UPGRADE-I-WANT-TO-KNOW-WHY-YOU'VE-STOPPED-MY-INTERNET-CONNECTION) felt like Livingstone trying to swap underpants for frog poison with some obscure tribe who have never encountered people from the outside world. (YOU-GIVE-ME-INTERNET-CONNECTION-I-GIVE-YOU-MARMITE. EH? MARMITE. M-A-R-M-I-T-E. YOU'LL LOVE IT.)

I thought I'd never say it, (I don't like to feel that I'm a failure at multicultural communication),  but I am looking forward to a provider with a UK-based call centre.

So, this post, apart from documenting the ordinari-nari-ness of our day, is also a sort-of prior warning.

If I don't blog for a while, it may mean that my contract-swapping has all gone belly up.

Most likely it will mean that the guy at  the UK call centre with the lovely Glaswegian accent couldn't get the wee woman on the phone to understand a word, and that I'm without internet access. [btw it is common knowledge that it's useless anyone north of Milton Keynes trying to communicate with us over-anglicised southerners.]

[Apart from that, this was our day:
 
The usual chores, then 'tick-box' stuff from their folders, chemistry reading, touch-typing, blah blah. Then to the interesting stuff: dd made chocolate cookies, while ds1 made microwaved steamed pudding (that was his breakfast) and did some drumming and guitar. Then, some time in the garden, and ds1 off to IGCSE geography, picking up dd's friends on route. Dd and friends playing for the rest of the day. Then dinner and ds2 to scouts...etc etc.]

Browsing blogs, I saw a lovely post A Moment in our World  for making quick pencil cases.  The original instructions for making the pencil roll are here on the My Poppet blog.

We have rather a lot of random bits of material and I need to find some genuine uses for it, apart from its current employment as loft insulation.

And what else...

...has been happening with the children for the past few weeks (apart from all the art!)

Ds1 plays drums at Rock School for a week. (The staff praised him on his talent and were gobsmacked he'd never had any lessons - just a teeny proud mum moment :) ). Meanwhile ds2 went rollerblading in the local park, and dd went for playdates with her friends.

We go to a local festival, held at a large allotment. Dd stays at the festival with friends for the rest of the day, while we made our way home.

We pick courgettes from the garden. (Note the closeness of the yellow football. Plants in our garden have to be hardy to survive!)

Ds1 continues with his IGCSE chemistry and Geography reading

  Blackberry picking, to make crumble and wine.

Ds2 empties the counties' libraries of books about manga. Then teaches himself.

He makes a short list of equipment he needs to do animation 'old school', then goes onto the internet to do a price comparison.

 Ds2 decides he wants to make shortbread.

We move paving slabs to make a base for the new chicken coop that we're making out of a packing case that was being thrown out (our 10 hens need more space).

 And discover a huge ants' nest:

 Lots of reading - Guinness World Records, British History, The Aztecs, and a 4-inch tome called "3D Game Development"...

Lots of talk and plans for the kids' new Minecraft server:

 Thoughts on design:

We took down our posters and information about Australia and New Zealand:

 And replaced them with posters on space and art:

We started a chart of moon phases. The moon decided to hide behind cloud for the next three nights :)

The children caught flies and fed them to the garden spiders, overcoming their fear of spiders and experimenting with size and type of fly.

We walked to the park intending to pick blackberries. But came home with elderberries for wine.

 Swimming in the lake (bit chilly, but fine once we got over the initial shock!)

And catching crayfish

Ds2 took the screwdriver to the waterpistol to try to fix it.

Wine, all bottled up and fermenting happily under the piano.

Dd and I have a discussion about wine-making, fermentation, yeast, gas and the similarities with the chemistry of bread baking. So that's chemistry, biology, self-sufficiency and home economics in one 5-minute conversation.

Dd continues on her reading journey. Having finally decided she wanted to learn to read (or at least was willing to give it a go), in a matter of weeks she has gone from simple words like cat and bed to reading words like 'couldn't' and 'everyone'. She seems to have an excellent memory for sight-recognition of words, less tendency I think towards phonics deciphering. Each of my children has been different and found their own combination of what works for them. I haven't been teaching her. I just sit with her while she reads. She'll do it at her own pace when she wants to. Being, at the peak of "reading readiness" (which she, herself, has recognised) I expect there'll be no stopping her now.

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...

Newbury Rock School, 2011, Nirvana, Smells Like Teen Spirit

Seven new songs learnt in four days (three on guitar, four on drums)

Ds1 on drums here, at the final performance. (You probably can't see, but about half-way through he is grinning from ear-to-ear!)

Not bad for a self-taught drummer, who doesn't read music and only got his own drum set a month ago.

The perfect age

This week ds1 has been at Rock School from 9am-4pm. Being a long-haired cool rock dude (or whatever they are now in 2011) he has thoroughly immersed himself in the world of rock, borrowing one of the teacher's electric guitars, and their drum kit and er...doing his stuff. And I've been keeping well out of the way trying not to cramp his street cred with my motherisms.

In order to save fuel to-ing and fro-ing I have been left with the job of entertaining his siblings in the viccinity for 6 hours a day on a not-too-huge budget. So far this has involved a large park, a Nature Reserve, a town museum, a swimming pool, and today a bowling alley, a soft play centre and a chapel with WWI-inspired mural paintings. It's half-way through the week and I'm knackered!

Today, resorting to bowling and soft play seemed a cop-out, but it was a mighty bargain: kids bowl for £1 and buy-one-get-one-free for soft play - how cheap am I? That is, a bargain if you exclude the copious amounts of diet coke I drunk...and the hot dogs...I figure as we're not off on our hols this year, splashing out on cheap crappy entertainment for one week is a sort-of substitute for a wet week somewhere grey under canvas. Besides, I know people with kids in school spend more in a weekend entertaining their kids than I spend the whole summer. See, I can justify anything, me.

But I confess it did make a relaxing change to sit and read and let small people (actually not-so-small anymore) get on with running themselves stupid for 3 hours. Just as they get almost too old for soft play centres it becomes the perfect time to take them. None of that nappy changing, wet pants, lost socks, breastfeeding, rescuing toddler from high-place and finding you can't squeeze your bum through the hole to get him/her, none of that irritating 'Look at me! Look at me!' or 'Mummy help me' stuff.

Oh yes, 10 and 7 years old. The perfect age for soft play. This is the life. (However if I was planning on many repeat sessions I think I'd have to take ear plugs to filter out the high-pitched child-squeal-screams that rebound surprisingly well off of something that is supposed to be 'soft' play equipment. )

And tomorrow? Hmm...maybe more bowling...another museum...another park...another book and a gallon of diet pepsi.

Smells like teen spirit

The arrival of the drum kit !

Thank you to the family that sold it to us. We're sorry to see you emigrate, but we're very happy to have your drum kit :)

[In case you missed it, take a look at my post below on The Festival of History]

I'm twisting your arm

Sorry, but it's like the end of year school performance. I'm going to make you sit through other kids' performances. And it'll seem like forever (even though it's only a few minutes). And you're not going to even get to see your own kids tearjerker moment. Tough. I waited all year for this. And someday I might even buy the poor kid a drum kit.

Wishes really can come true...

When we attended a local music festival back in July there was a 'wishing tree', a branch where anyone could hang up their wishes. I mentioned it to the kids when they asked what it was, and then never said any more. A little while later I noticed ds1 walk over write something on a piece of paper and hang it up. This was it:

Ds1 has really caught the music bug. His sessions at a local montessori school have inspired him and over the past few months his guitar playing has gone from strength to strength.

Then, at the summer party at the montessori school, I discovered that he has been busy developing another talent. At the end of the children's performances there was an 'open mic' session and ds1 (look at the back) and his friends took to the stage.

So afterwards I said to him in astonishment 'When did you learn to play the drums?' and he replied 'I learnt it myself.' (!)

The wonders of autonomous education eh?

Apparently he'd had a go on the drum kit at the montessori school only once or twice before. Of course at home he bashes away on tamborines, taps on the dashboard of the car as we drive along, bangs on cuboards and tables etc. And all that time he's been learning...

SMUG home ed moment

Lego, water, chocolate and music

Ok, so next best thing after a bonfire is...

...playing in water.

We spent today at Legoland and dd just couldn't resist having a splash, despite the fact that we'd left all the spare clothes back at the car (eek!)

And just to prove I'm not showing favouratism to No.3, here's someone else who likes to pose for the camera:


Oi! Don't look now, but there's a dodgy-looking geezer with a big stick behind you. ..

And did I mention that it's been Easter? As you can see, we celebrated in the usual way:

And just to make sure that ds1 doesn't feel left out of the photo gallery, here's his new composition:

Bonfires and music

There's nothing like a good bonfire, is there? Thought it was about time we got rid of the pile of bramble cuttings left from my early Spring garden purging. Not sure that the neighbours appreciated it as much as we did lol...

And here's one of my nice neat raised beds after the clear up, with lettuce, rocket and some onions. The hoops are so that I can pull over some polythene if we get a frost.

The music sessions at the local Montessori school have inspired ds1. One morning I came downstairs to see him playing this: (he'd worked out the riff all on his own)

And dd1 joins in with musical popcorn...