We are not hidden!

The early findings into research on home educated children's social contacts are here which demonstrate that the assumption that home educated children are 'hidden' is laughable.

In fact the term 'home education' is a bit of a misnomer; many HE children spend a large proportion of their time out of the home: learning in the community, mixing with people of all ages. How easy is it to cram in a social life if you are restricted to 15 minutes playtime at school, or in the hour squeezed between getting home from school/homework and tea-time/bedtime?

The schools around here are currently on half term, so we are trying to arrange playdates with my children's friends who are school children; many of the school kids are booked up all week, trying to meet all these friends that they share a classroom with, but never actually get a chance to play with. And people think that home educated children have limited socialisation..?

Warn the neighbours!

Ok, so whose great idea was it to get the kids an electric guitar? Huh?

[clue:someone who isn't at home all day looking after the kids].

So, enter the new instrument into the house. Bit of mending, some new strings and good as new. I'm sure it's all very educational, but only when volume control is used appropriately. Dread to think what the neighbours will say...

But anyway, the kids think it's really cool. Ds2 is starting to learn to play 'Smoke on the water'. Oh joy. Next I guess it will be 'Stairway to Heaven'. Well, if they all become famous rock stars as a result I'll eat my words.

Spent the afternoon with the kids in the natural sandpit at a local nature reserve. The kids played well, with few squabbles, which makes a pleasant change. The boys disappeared into the woods with their friends, reappearing periodically for food and drink, and dd1 paddled in the tiny stream that runs through the middle of the sandpit. As always, she's never far from water. The weather held out surprisingly and we didn't return home till gone 4pm.

Arlo and Jack are now absolutely shattered, fighting for a place on the sofa. Tough! I got there first! Now I know why we only have one dog. Two dogs on a sofa doesn't leave any room at all for the adults in this family!

The giant tent

At last I've managed to upload the photos from our camping weekend at the sailing club last week and a few photos from this week too. Looking back at this blog it would look like we've been living at the club over the past month, which I guess we have. While the weather has been good it's been great to get away from our oven-like house and go have a dip in the lake.

Our giant tent.

One person - cheeky begger - asked us if we'd just erected the new club house! I guess we asked for that, having such a huge tent. At HESFES the size didn't seem so obvious as other families had big tents too. But here, next to all the little 3-man dome tents it did look like we were about to host the local circus! Despite the jokes, there were some genuine admirers. We must be getting better at putting the tent up as it took us hardly any time at all. And, even more surprisingly, packing up was fairly quick too.

This time we didn't put up the inner tents inside, and just had the huge space open, which was great for the hot weather.

Ds1 and dd1 in the tent

Sailing in a paddling pool. Not the most stable of boat designs!

Ds1 set up a business selling spectacles made of grass stalks (and rabbit ears), as modelled in this photo.

He seems to find an opportunity to sell something, anything, wherever we go!

Dh and dd1 enjoying the party, and the stunning sunset.

Ds2 'completes' the sailing boat in the playground (using a fishing net and a dog blanket)

Ds1 doing his Harry Potter impression (with home-made glasses, wand and broom(stick))

Ok, so you guys aren't wet enough, here you are!

Spot the difference...

...two 'doggies' doing doggy paddle

Dd1 absolutely loves swimming. Even though her lips were turning blue and her teeth were chattering uncontrollably, she still wanted to go in again and again.

Somewhere under the blanket is a very cold, shivering dd1, having been swimming in the lake yet again.

A whole new meaning to the phrase, 'Losing Your Marbles'!

It's amazing what kids can create, given some junk and a hands-off approach by adults.

Yesterday, at the home ed group, we brought some 'junk' along for the kids to make marble runs. The results (and the processes involved) were very impressive. Apart from a bit of help with the cutting and sticking, the kids came up with some wonderful designs, limited only by their imagination (and the stickiness of the tape). Ds2 even had an idea to create a crane mechanism which would lift the marble up in a flowerpot and then deposit it through a hole in a tube to continue on its way. Although not all of the plan was feasible in the time frame, but with a bit of help he made a start. The others ran marbles through tubes and boxes taped to the wall, periodically re-engineering them to improve results. The teamwork involved would have put most adults to shame!

Working as a team (with a bit of help from the dog)

So, where's it going to come out?

Hmm...think I might need a hand here...

Fixing the glitches in the marble run

"The marbles are MINE, ALL MINE!"

The home ed group was running an 'India Day' for charity, so the kids entered some colouring competitions (ds1 and dd1 were chuffed when they won something). The chocolate mints won in the raffle will also be much appreciated while we're camping this weekend.

After the home ed group we rushed back, unloaded some of the car and reloaded with bbq stuff and swim kit to go to the sailing club. It was a beautiful evening, still warm even at 9pm as we left. We took a couple of boats out, but mostly the kids were happy, fishing and paddling. This is going to be a great way to spend the Summer.

The children managed to catch one of the many small fish swimming in the shallows. Dh reckoned it was a Dacebut looking at the picture above and reading the info on http://www.maggotdrowning.com/fish/gudgeon.htm I'm rather more convinced that it's a Gudgeon (see picture below), because of the spots. The British record for Gudgeon was 5oz which doesn't sound particularly large, enough for a fish finger or two I guess.

The fish the children caught (a gudgeon?)

Dd1, enjoying the sunshine

Fishing off the jetty

Ahoy there!

As of today both the boys can now sail on their own!!!

We spent pretty much all day at the Sailing Club and the weather was perfect, beautifully calm and warm, and ideal for the kids to go out and have a try. So they did!! The boys' achievement today is fantastic, especially when I look back and realise that a few weeks ago they'd never even been in a boat!

Arriving around 11m, we met up with friends, and the kids spent some time pond-dipping (caught some quite big 'tiddlers') and paddling. They then moved indoors and we had to prise them away from the pool table and table football to get them to eat luch.

After lunch we got some Optimists out. One we left with no sail. It was tied to the jetty in the shallows for the littlies to sit in; they were chuffed to think they were being included in the 'sailing'. The others went out and we took turns. At first the kids were accompanied by adults, until they felt confident enough to go out on their own. Mostly the kids osailed as far as the first buoy: we figured that if they got into trouble it would be easier to rescue them there than if they went right across the lake! Ds1 even took dd1 out for a sail, which she loved. The water was so calm and he seemed quite competent, so I had no qualms about it. Perhaps not on a windier day, though .

So, our next sailing session is planned for early next week I think. I have grand plans for lots of projects and outdoor stuff to take place around the lake, not just sailing. Perhaps lots of reading, some science stuff, my head is already running away with the possibilities though at some point I'll face the reality that the kids might not be so keen! Ah well, even if all my plans don't come to fruition, it's exciting to think of all the things we might do there over Summer.

____________________________________________________

After thinking of doing science at the lake I was reminded of the Krampf experiments I sign up to via email (see http://www.krampf.com/) . Robert Krampf is a geologist/scientist who gives talks and demonstrations. He is so keen to enthuse others about science, particularly kids, that he records free science videos for viewing on his website, and sends out emails with experiments to 180,00 households in more than 95 countries (apparently). The experiments are generally short, fun and fairly simple. Instructions given with a simple, but not patronising, explanation of the science behind the experiment. This one below particularly caught my eye because I remember being taught at school that this was an experiment to show how oxygen was being used up. Three A levels and a Science Degree later, I find out that the explanation I was given as a child - and have seen many times subsequently in children's science books - is totally WRONG!! See, with this home education thing, even the parents are learning all the time...

"Measuring Oxygen?
Every year, I reread Michael Faraday's Chemical History of a Candle. It is a transcript of some of his annual Christmas science lectures, and it is a wonderful example of science education at its best. It is also filled with marvelous experiments, including a version of this one.
Warning! This experiment uses fire. Be very careful and be sure an adult is around to help.
For this experiment, you will need:
- a pie pan or shallow bowl
- a candle
- a glass jar large enough to hold the lit candle
- water
Light the candle and let a few drops of melted wax fall on the middle of the pan. Place the bottom of the candle into this wax to secure it in place. Carefully add about an inch of water to the pan. Relight the candle if it has gone out, and place the jar over it. Watch carefully. After a minute or so, the candle will go out, and the water will rise up into the jar.

This shows that the candle has burned up the oxygen, and the water has risen into the jar to take its place, right? WRONG!!!!! If you watch carefully, you will see why is it wrong. When you first place the jar over the candle, air bubbles OUT of the jar. If you are slow about placing the jar over the candle, you might not notice this, but if you cover the candle in one quick motion, you will see the air bubbling out. Once the candle goes out, the water begins to rise in jar.
Now, lets think about that. If the water was rising because the oxygen was burned up, it would rise while the candle was burning and stop as soon as the flame went out. Is that what you saw? No. Then what really did happen?
As the candle burns, it is heating the air in the jar, causing it to expand. This causes the bubbles that leave the jar. The candle is burning oxygen, but the oxygen does not vanish. It combines with carbon from the burning wax to form carbon dioxide, another gas that also takes up space.
When the candle goes out, the air begins to cool, which causes it to contract. As the air gets smaller, the water rises into the jar.
It amazes me how many books of experiments get this one wrong. I guess they should read more Faraday. "


******************************************************

We are sailing...we are sailing...we are capsizing [sung in a Rod Stewart voice of course]

Today we went sailing!

After our wonderful day at a local sailing club a month ago, we made the big step of joining for the year. I'm not what you would call a 'water' person and although dh used to sail a boat on the river when he was a kid, that's quite some time ago!

So, feeling rather daunted, the kids and I had a brief go at the club last week. Today, however, we had a full day on (and off) the lake with a bunch of other beginners and new members, mostly home educating families. First we learnt how to rig a 'topper' (see photo below for what a topper looks like) and then we went out and sailed. It was pretty gusty, so I chickened out of taking a topper out, especially having seen several others capsize. Even the supposedly un-capsizable 'Optimist' boats went over several times (dh and ds2 had a rather wet experience!)

I don't have any photos of today as I was too busy, but these photos show roughly what the boats look like.

A topper

An Optimist.

And no, I didn't look that cool when I was sailing it, I was rather more wet and flustered!

The kids had a good time, but didn't get out quite as much as they would have liked as there was a race going on for most of the morning. At one point I was sailing with ds2 and we reached an area of the lake where the wind just suddenly died. We found that we couldn't tack to return back to shore because the boat had totally lost momentum. Eventually a gust of wind gave us some speed and we could then tack. I did feel a bit of a plonker just floating in the middle of all the race boats, trying to keep clear of them and at the same time not going anywhere! I'm sure with a bit more experience we'll get the hang of it, but to me it's like learning to drive all over again, lol.

Dd1 loved paddling and was just happy pottering in the sandpit and wading in the shallows. She wanted to swim, but decided that the water was just a bit too cold. I guess she'll be pestering me for a trip to the swimming pool now, she's such a water baby.

Helicopters, paper aeroplanes and the bowen technique

Well today the children made helicopters and paper aeroplanes at a group that they go to. When I say helicopters, I guess you could say these are more like paper equivalents of the sycamore seeds that you see falling in the autumn. They are incredibly easy to make - just requiring paper and a paperclip and scissors and surprisingly effective (unlike my usual attempts at making paper aeroplanes and kites!).

The kids didn't take part in many of the other activities (ds1 was persuaded to attend a session on Japanese art, though I didn't see if he produced anything) and as expected spent most of the time running around in the field with some new-found friends.

And today I had, what is hopefully my last (for a while) chiropracter session. This time she used the Bowen technique which I have never heard of before to help some of the more muscular aspects of my back pain. The Bowen technique is described as follows (see http://www.thebowentechnique.com/content/thebowentechnique.htm )

"The Bowen Technique is a remedial therapy that is applied by the therapist applying gentle pressure to soft tissue with fingers and thumbs. There is no deep tissue work or high velocity thrust movements as in chiropractic and there is no massaging of areas, so therefore no friction.
As a therapy it is incredibly gentle, both on the client and also, importantly, on the therapist. Another advantage to Bowen is that there are no contra indications and it can be used even in acute situations, where other forms of therapy might be avoided. In fact, as far as Bowen is concerned, the more acute the better. The tiniest of babies through to the frailest of adults can be treated and as the work can be performed through light clothing, it is ideal for these two particular groups of client....

...How Does It Work?
There are something like 600,000 signals that travel from the brain into the body every second and these in turn come back to the brain with information which is then interpreted and sent back out. Whenever we feel, hear, see or even think something, the brain brings in past experience in order to categorise the sensation and create an appropriate response.
In the case of the Bowen move, the brain is unable to do this instantly and needs more information to form a response. As it is, just when the brain is asking for more info, the therapist has left the room, and therefore the brain has to send specific signals to the area in order to gauge response. If the client is lying down, the immediate response is nearly always rapid and deep relaxation. The client will also often report that they feel a tingling sensation or warmth in the area just worked. "It felt like your hands were still on me," is a common comment. This demonstrates that because the move is out of the ordinary, the brain is looking for information about what happened.
One of the more difficult elements to come to terms with is how little is done during a session. In addition, the client may well walk out of the treatment room having felt little or no improvement over and above a sense of relaxation. However the reactions to Bowen can often belie its soft and gentle appearance. Stiffness, soreness, headache and feeling like "I've been run over by a bus!" are common. All excellent signs, they demonstrate that the brain has started the process of repair.
This process when started is generally rapid and it is not uncommon for even longstanding pain to be reduced or resolved in two or three treatments. Most sports- or work-related problems will be dealt with also within the two or three treatments, making Bowen not only effective, but cost effective for the client as well.
Although muscular skeletal problems such as frozen shoulder, back and neck pain account for the majority of presentations for Bowen, there is a lot of work that is effective with more organic problems. Although it's important to point out again that we don't treat specific problems, Bowen has been widely used with asthma, migraines, irritable bowel, infertility and reproductive problems. Even hayfever, the blight of so many summers, is affected excellently with Bowen.
There are no such things in this life as guarantees and this can be said of Bowen as well. The beauty of it is that it is simply offered to the body. If the body accepts it then it can and will start the process of repair. If it doesn't accept it then no harm is done."

Well I certainly felt the warmth and tingling described in the above snip. There was also a weird feeling on my face as if I was about to grow a bristly beard after the Bowen 'moves' around my neck area! I also noticed as I reversed out of the parking space on the way home from the session that I could turn my head round to a point where I don't remember being able to turn it before! I'm not sure whether it will have done any good, but I'll see how I feel tomorrow. Hopefully I wont feel as if I've been run over by a bus tomorrow (already felt like that on and off for the past month), but if it can ease the residual pain then it will have been worth it.

So, what about socialisation...?

One of the most frequent questions I am asked about home education (after 'Is that legal?' and 'Are you a teacher?') is 'So, what about socialisation?'

Well you know that's always a tricky one to answer. There are lots of tempting - but cheeky - replies that cross my mind, but I generally resist. After all, what would anyone whose kids are in school understand about socialisation? Is socialisation spending the majority of the day sitting in a classroom with 25 other children the same age as you, not being allowed to talk, make noise or interact as a child would normally do with his peers? Is socialisation the 15 minutes of running around in a restricted environment at 'play time' (or for some running and hiding somewhere so the kids who don't like them can't find them)?

Nah, socialisation is what us home edders and their kids seem to do best.

When I look back on the past 2 weeks it has probably been a good example of how sad and lonely my poor little home educated kids are - NOT! What with ice skating, climbing, wading through flooded fields, playing on scooters out front with the neighbours and having lots of children over to play in between, it has been non-stop socialising!

Thursday last we took a friend to ice skating, then ds1 went back to hers to play and we had another family with 3 children visit us in the afternoon. Friday we had a museum visit with a large group of home educated children - took one friend and came back with 3! All 7 children crammed on the sofa to eat chips and watch a DVD in our lounge (ok, unhealthy I know, but how else was I supposed to feed 7 kids who all liked different things?)

Tuesday this week we spent the morning on the allotment clearing up after winter and then went on to the local Scrapstore to talk to the people who volunteer there and hunt out fascinating treasures. Wednesday we went to a friend's house, ate wonderful pizza and chocolate cake and took 11 children and 2 dogs out for a walk which ended up with most of them wading through a flooded field! And yes, they did all get Very Wet! And then today we took the kids climbing on the local climbing wall. Well there were 6 familes and around 15 children (I've just done a quick count and I figure that's right). The toddlers went into 'Energizers' the toddler gym session, while bigguns just wore themselves out on the climbing wall. Again, the boys invited a friend back to our house for the afternoon.

So, next time someone asks me about socialisation, what am I going to say? Well, you know, it's still a tricky one. I suppose I'll just have to say that we're so busy socialising to stop we really don't have much time to answer daft questions like that!

__________________________________________________________________
p.s. forgot to say. My freecycling and selling going well:
sold the Sindy stuff (£60), freecycled the camping mats, packed up a bundle of stuff to recycle in the clothes bin, passed on some kids toys to a friend's fostered child (plus wellies and hopefully a mac and leggings soon), gave away some david attenborough DVDs, some unused language CDROMS (to go soon) and freecyled the large gym mat and some leftover washable nappies. Also got rid of most of my old camera stuff over the weekend (sad, but it's gotta go). OOOh all this space I'm making...

Unfortunately now got huge bags of scrap from the scrapstore...

A GOOD WEEK

I haven't posted for a while as it's been hard to be positive about home education with the gloomy tail-end of winter, but with the clocks going forward bringing lighter evenings and a few days of Spring sunshine I think we're back into the swing of things.

We've had a pretty good week so far. It's Thursday, so I guess that's more like a pretty good 4 days, but I like to think of it as a week. It's called positive thinking (apparently).

Here is our week so far.

Monday:

It starts with the usual morning stuff: getting dressed, breakfast, kids help feed the rabbit, our 2 chickens and the goldfish (not necessarily in that order). For ds1 it's 20 minutes of maths on the online maths programme on the pc and 10 minutes of piano practice, then play with lego or in the garden. ds1 goes to the local shop to buy a few things for me (good for his maths) - they know him well.

We're off at lunchtime to play games and meet with other home educated friends at the park. Sometimes they play chess (my 5 year old particularly enjoys this - he taught himself using a chess computer programme), while other times they run around with sticks and scream alot. Today we've brought along the go kart and a bicycle so they all take turns on these. Ds1 has in the past run a 'tuck shop' at some of the home ed meetings - he's a budding entrepreneur.

Normally after games club we'd go and spend an hour with some other home ed friends and the children would do some science or dig ditches in their garden, but the weather is so nice and the children are having so much fun we stay in the park. Then a half hour drive to piano lesson for ds1 while keeping the others entertained and home again. Ds2 catches me finishing off the sock I'm knitting and begs me to teach him to knit sometime. I promise I will, but not now. I'm not very patient at teaching things and I need to choose the right time.

Kids play a game on the pc and watch a DVD until tea time. I ask the kids to get the table ready for tea. While eating tea in theory we should be watching some of the schools programmes that we've recorded in the morning, though it doesn't always happen. I go out to our monthly home ed parents pub evening.


Tuesday:

We get up late after my evening out. Eldest son reads a letter he's received from his home educated penfriend in Australia. His family have traveled around Australia while the father makes natural history films so the letters are always full of wonderful things - this time the penfriend has seen crocodiles and they have a python near to their house. I think about maths and piano practice, but the moment goes, and at just gone 10am we decide to join some other home educators at the sandpit at Shotover (they are meeting there at 10am and my kids still have their pyjamas on!). 40 minutes later we're pulling our wooden hand trailer down the hill to the sandpit, full of buckets and spades, trowels, towels and assorted picnic items.

About 7 parents and 15 children aged from a few months to 8 or 9 years play together in the sand and mud for several hours and in a den made of branches in the wooded area - their 'camp'. One of the parents is visiting from New Zealand with her 2 children and was herself home educated for 17 years. It's interesting to see how our children could be in 20 years time. The sun comes out, the fog clears, the company is good and we stay a further 2 hours. On the way back to the car we bump into an ex-home educated child that we know who is now at private school. He is heading towards the sandpit in his smart school uniform (I doubt if he'll be allowed to play in it) as we are leaving. We arrive home at nearly 4pm, tired and muddy, just as the school children are coming down the road from a day indoors. The advantages of home education!

Later when I'm getting dinner ready I hear ds1 practicing his latest piano piece - I didn't need to remind him. Bizarrely his reading has improved vastly since he has started piano lessons and I wonder if there is somehow a link that has been made in his brain. Before bed I continue reading 'Doctor Illuminatus' to him, a fantastic story from the library about the time travelling son of an alchemist. It fits in nicely with our medieval theme that we are covering in history, with lots of references to medieval times, but also lots of science too. We look up a few of the words in the dictionary and try and work out what the ancient 'gantry' is that they describe in the boy's magical chamber. As I read, ds1 squats on the floor and draws a picture from his imagination of the 'gantry' - a platform on a hook lifted up and down by pulleys like a crane.


Wednesday:

After the usual getting up stuff, and a trip to the corner shop to photocopy some sheets from our history book, we start work on our history project. At the moment we're doing medieval times. Today we're looking at the arrival of Christianity to Britain and the changes to Anglo Saxon pagan beliefs. So with a 'monasteries and medieval writing' theme, the children use a book of celtic script to copy out some letters with a calligraphy pen. Eldest child draws his initial and 'illuminates' it with our gold and silver pens. It's interrupted briefly by the postman who they always welcome at the door - this time there's a package, a book for me off Ebay on philosophy of education. Often it's books we have ordered secondhand from Amazon on topics we are hoping to cover and the kids get really excited when packages arrive.

I read a little to them from a history book from the library while they're drawing. We play a section of a DVD on 'The Dark Ages', and it shows how the anglo saxons cooked their stews using super heated rocks from the fire. It's similar to the something we've seen on a Ray Mears programme we recorded. We talk about whether we could do this - how long would the rock have to be in the fire? Would it really boil a pot of liquid faster than a gas cooker? Would it have to be a certain type of rock? - and decide next time we have a fire in the garden we might try it out. I remind myself to take them to the Museum of Oxford which I remember has some medieval relics in it and to look up something about medieval art in the book I bought cheaply the previous week.

Ds2 has long since disappeared upstairs with his sister to play. Because of his age he has a shorter attention span than his elder brother and I encourage, but don't force him to do 'work'.

During lunch I phone up dh and ask him if he can get hold of some feathers suitable for making quills. Art shops would be too expensive we decide. After spending his lunch break walking around a park in Oxford he phones back and says he has found some shabby specimens from pigeons. Will those do? We have a recipe for making ink from crushed walnut shells, so maybe the kids will want to do this later in the week.

After lunch we'd usually visit their elderly grandmother (my MIL), but not today, so the children take turns playing Age of Empires II on the pc (fits in very nicely with our medieval theme!). Ds2 has taught himself to read simple words while using computer games with little input from me. Child-led/autonomous learning is really working for him.

In the background I hear him singing in an American accent 'Oh Susannah, don't you cry for me, I'm off to California with a washpan on my knee'. It's probably been influenced by the Little House on the Prairie series that I've just finished reading to his elder brother - we bought a CD with the music of Laura Ingalls and I think it may be on it. I need to play it again, so he can learn some more. The repetition of just one line of the song gets a bit wearing after a while!

I think about taking the kids swimming, but they seem happy playing and when the next door neighbour's children arrive home from school they play together, an imaginary 'training academy' game at the bottom of the garden, racing up and down and climbing the apple tree. DD1 (age 3) paddles in the paddling pool with her 8 year old brother (it's March and still a little chilly!) and then goes inside (leaving a trail of wet footprints - 'my socks are only a little bit wet') to warm up and watch a DVD. While youngest is out of the way (she likes to 'help') I sneak into the greenhouse and quickly pot up some seedlings - future plants for our allotment - and sow a few more seeds while trying to keep the chickens from getting at the plants. It's my 'time out' while everything is quiet. The children also have their own allotment plot which we are converting into a wildlife garden.

Ds2 has been crinkling paper in our paper crinkler. He compares it with a lego model he has made with cogs and a handle to see which is the most effective at the job of crinkling.

Dinner in the garden, eldest son comes and shows everyone his illuminated letter - he's very proud of his work. Another chapter of 'Doctor Illuminatus' and bed.


Thursday
After several arguments about the time it takes for them to get dressed (a whole hour this morning!) we set off to the Ice Rink to meet up with some other home educators; we get cheap entry fee if we all go as a group regularly. As we leave the postman passes us a package - it's a cut-out and assemble model of a medieval town. Looks like it might be good. The kids argue in the car. I shout.

Dd1 has really taken to skating and after a few stumbles seems quite confident. I don't think it'll be long before she's skating independently (hooray! Then I'll be able to skate without having to prop up a child!). There are free skating classes on offer during the session, but my children always decline. On a few occasions I've bribed them (unsuccessfully) with the offer of chocolate if they do the lesson. This time I just say feebly 'But you could get a badge'. It seems a pathetic reason to force them to do something they have no real interest in. What I really mean is 'but it's free and you might not get another chance because we can't afford proper skating lessons and if I had the chance I'D DO IT'. But they're having fun without the lessons anyway. I make a mental note to stop expecting them to be the next Torvil and Dean. If I don't watch out I'm going to turn into one of those 'pushy parents'.

After the ice skating we race back to the car before the parking ticket runs out and drive on to an adventure playground where the kids run around like mad things, take turns on the ropes and tyres and us parents get time to sit and chat. It only rains a little, thankfully.

As we leave Ds1 gets the offer of a playmate for a few hours, so he goes home with one of the other parents. Ds2 and dd1 and I head home. Ds2 gets on the computer (Age of Empires again) and dd1 snuggles into my bed and watches a video with a bottle of milk. I spend an hour or so in the greenhouse again. After tea, the younger ones head upstairs for a bath. Ds1 starts practising piano, but is called up by dh to clear up the lego in his bedroom (shame since he is practising without being prompted). He returns a few minutes later to continue. Ds2 watches 15 minute episode of 'Astro Boy' on the DVD recorder, while I read to ds1 another chapter of 'Dr Illuminatus' while snuggled up in my bed. All in bed eventually, time to phone a friend and open the wine!