The decorating, painting, fishing, pancake-cooking, hill-walking, playing, fire-lighting and 'looking excited for the camera' family

Bit of a catch-up to do on the blogging. Why is it that the longer you leave it the harder it is to get back into posting?

Anyway, we've been up to a few things recently and I've just uploaded some of the photos off my camera. These are in no particular order, but give an idea of what we've been up to over the past fortnight. It looks reassuringly like we've been very busy when I post a whole load of stuff like this.

As mentioned in my last posting I've been decorating the kitchen. I had a little help from dd, who has now got the decorating 'bug' and wants to paint all the walls everywhere...

Anyway, the kitchen is looking good, or at least better than it was. All clean(ish) and new(ish). Seeing as I only usually bother decorating when I'm pregnant (no I'm not) it's nice to actually have a saner un-pregnant perception of colour. Previously any rooms I've painted in this house took on a certain orange or bright yellow 'theme' (see above for an example!). It seemed a good idea at the time.

This bad taste when pregnant thing reminds me of a friend of mine who whenever she was pregnant would buy the most hideous clothes or shoes, something that she would never normally choose. On at least one occasion I had to say 'take the shoes back, they're gross and in a month's time when you're less hormonal you'll regret buying them'. (If this sounds harsh, don't worry, she's still a very good friend of mine, and she wouldn't hold back from giving me the same advice lol). That's not to say that either of us are fashion victims - far from it - just that pregnancy does weird things to your taste, and not just the tasetebud sort of taste. It's a kind of brain rot that sets in. I'm not sure if I ever recovered fully; I've been buying 'comfortable' shoes this past year...

Last week we took up an offer for a local 'palace' whereby you could swap a day ticket for a year's pass. The day ticket is extortionate (something like £40 for a family) , but it is worth it for a whole year. Although the day was cold we made use of the adventure playground, the train, and butterfly house, in the palace grounds. Hopefully it will be warmer next time - I plan to get lots of book reading (and maybe some writing) done there over summer while the kids entertain themselves.

On the train

Ds1, just hanging around in the adventure playground

A butterfly (I'm guessing you worked that one out for yourself).

Ds1 freaked as they kept dive bombing him

And , true to our non-resolution of going somewhere different each week, we went to The White Horse, a chalk horse on a hillside, with friends. This is the horse's head:

It was a bit of a hike up the hill, but not as bad as I'd remembered from BC (before childbirth) which was probably the last time I visited (yikes! Over 10 years ago). I even lugged the storm kettle up the hill in our cowprint granny trolley, just to prove a point. And yes the kettlelit beautifully in the hill-top wind, though I think I smoked out all the other hill-walkers!

Dd was rather frustrated that she couldn't see a horse - I told her it was more of a stick-figure dog than a horse, which probably confused her even more lol.

Proof that I pulled the cow trolley to the top of the hill.

(That's the castle mound in the background)

And here's a view of the walk to the nearby castle mound:

So what else have we been up to? Well we've been to the woods and done some fire-lighting. Here are the kids toasting marsh mallows:

In the woods

And ds2 cooked pancakes for us on Shrove Tuesday. In the background you can see the new colour of the kitchen walls (we haven't done the gloss at this point, so the yucky yellowy-pink is still on the door frames)

A couple of weeks ago we went to a local garden centre that has an animal farm and a small stream. The kids played for ages (and got rather wet feet) while I sat and nattered with a friend who was visiting from Nottingham. And yes, the storm kettle had another outing. Here is ds1 fishing for shrimps with a plastic bag on a stick. These home ed kids like to improvise!

And we visited a science history museum. Here is ds2 after I told him to look 'excited' for the camera.

Ok, well I'd better go now. Will post more soon.

Oi! Hadrian! We got some bricks for that wall of yours!

My non-resolution is still continuing successfully (see my blog entry for 13 January 2009). Perhaps so successfully I should take it out of the non-resolution classification and re-categorise it as a 'pending resolution', or even as a - shock horror - a 'resolution'.

Though if I call it a resolution (in a very quiet voice) would that be tempting fate to strike and turn it into a short-term-non-happening-doomed-to-fail-in-public-disasterous resolution? At least while it's a non-resolution, I can't possibly not succeed to make it a success because it isn't actually something I have determined to be a challenge that I need to succeed at.

IYKWIM?*

Maybe I think about these things too much.

Anyway, I suppose what I'm trying to say (yeah, hang in there it's coming) is that my non-resolution of going somewhere new once a week/fortnight took us to a Roman Villa on Wednesday.

I'd played down all expectations (in fact I distinctly remember telling the kids that we were going with some friends to see a pile of old bricks in a field and not to get too excited about it). But...our low expectations were far exceeded and the site was greeted with oohs and ahs from the children (shame I didn't get that bit on film).

The Roman Villa

All 10 of them (+ one baby) spent the afternoon running (not the baby obviously) around the ruins pretending to attack each other, form fighting alliances and generally do 'war type' stuff in and out of the trenches and courtyards. They even took a brief look at the under-cover Roman mosaic AND the map of the Roman Villa layout. Shhh...don't tell them that was the educational bit.

A Roman mosaic (you have to squint a bit to see it)

In between the 'war stuff' ds1 told them the trick about hunting in mole hills for ancient relics; this treasure-hunting kept them happily occupied for quite some time. It's addictive stuff, so I couldn't resist joining them too.

[If you haven't tried digging around in molehills I can thoroughly recommend it. Moles are pretty good at digging up good stuff from underground and over the years I've found some fab fossils in their piles of earth].

One of the children found a Roman tile in a molehill - yes a real Roman tile - and others found bits and pieces of pottery that looked rather like the modern chunks of brick and flowerpot that I find in my garden, but of course these were much more Roman {g}.

A real Roman tile

We had to disuade some keen collectors from taking anything larger than pebble-sized molehill junk. Some sensible members of the company (adults mostly) firmly discouraged the more enthusiastic junior archaeologists from dismantling the Roman Wall and carrying it home in a bucket**. Thinking about it, Ye Olde Roman Barbecue might have been an interesting addition to my back garden...

I think English Heritage would rather those bits stayed here...

Lighting up the Storm Kettle on our excursion proved an interesting experience; the damp newspaper and sticks ensured that the Roman Villa and most of the surrounding fields disappeared in a cloud of thick grey smoke. So, despite our quiet entrance, we made our presence known to everyone within a 2 mile radius. Hello! Here we are! Come and investigate what we're doing! We're lighting a bonfire on your monument!

Conscious of our predicament I tried to tame the metal beast, but to no avail. Once a storm kettle gets going, it smokes like a Victorian chimney. Thankfully the water boiled quickly. I could return to looking like a normal tourist - at least a normal tourist in the presence of 10 'truanting' children running wild across a national monument.

[*As they say in Brainiac: 'If you set out to fail and you are successful, what have you done?'

[**Disclaimer: (just in case anyone from English Heritage finds their to this website) No ancient monuments were harmed in the making of this blog, though a few moles may have to do some renovations to their molehills]

Mud, Mud, Glorious Mud! (until you have to scoop it out of your washing machine)

If you thought it was only hippos and pigs who have a natural affinity for mud, think again.
And no, don't ask about the state of my car...

But, hey, they're having fun! All that fresh air and exercise and space for creativity and exploration. Just think about all those poor school children in their neat uniforms sat down, being slowly and painfully tormented by the literacy hour [Yay, time to have a smug home educating mother moment] .

But I don't suppose their mothers have to have to scrape the grit out of their washing machine drum before they go to bed. And yes I scraped quite a lot out last night.

Ok, back to smugness (while I'm on a roll ...). Got our storm kettle working AND managed to boil a pan of milk on the top to make hot chocolate. Ok, so this was in the back garden and I could have just used the microwave, and the milk was full of ash because I blew in the hole in the bottom and loads of ash came out (ho hum), but this was FIRE! Crackly smokey sort of stuff that gets in your eyes and makes you smell like a Guy on bonfire night. And you can't poke stuff in a microwave (well, not with the same crackly smokey dangerous satisfaction and it's certainly not advisable to poke it with a metal fork unless you want to create your very own miniature firework display).

I don't think having a storm kettle will help our attempts at minimalist travelling. Whereas we used to just go out with a flask of hot choc and some cups (and a sack of other unrelated stuff which I wont list but would have fed/clothed/entertained a football team), today we went out with the storm kettle, a bag of dry kindling (it had been raining), a tabloid newspaper (to burn, not read), a tin of soup, a tub of hot choc, a tub of dried milk powder, a couple of cup-a-soup packs, plus a pan, tin opener, matches, cups, bottles of water, cloths to wipe everything over afterwards AND a camera and spare batteries to photograph the kettle in action. All I needed was a tent and a sleeping bag we would have been set for the weekend!

Do you reckon Ray Mears keeps all his gear under his shirt. Perhaps that's why he looks like he's built like a brick outhouse? Wonder if he's got a storm kettle stuffed up there..?

________________________________________________

Just been reading this with regard to the latest government consultation...
Have included an excerpt, (possibly not the best bit, but read the whole thing for yourself)

28 January 2009 The coming war against Home Schoolers

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2009/01/the-coming-war-against-home-schoolers.html

"And as long as it was just a matter of a few retired hippies and eccentrics keeping their young at home, which it was until very recently, home schooling didn't matter. But what is happening now is that many parents are taking their children out of state schools because a) they are being horribly bullied in anarchic classrooms and playgrounds and b) they have begun to notice that many of the schools aren't teaching them anything much anyway. - despite years of propaganda, stunts, gimmicks, 'specialist status', absurdly glowing OFSTED reports and allegedly improved (but fiddled) exam results.
If all the plumbers in your area were no good at fixing leaks, and kept flooding your kitchen, you'd teach yourself plumbing and do it yourself. The results couldn't be worse. Why not take the same view with schools? Why not just keep them at home and do a better job yourself? Of course this is impossible for couples who both trudge out to work every day. But one way or another there is now a significant minority of households where this isn't the case, where homeschooling looks like a serious option and may take off. I suspect the left-wing establishment want to nip it, hard, in the bud. Though of course I'm not prejudiced, and will wait with interest for the report."

Ok, more stuff to blog about but it's getting late and I'm too tired to continue with this displacement activity (perhaps I should try sleep instead?)

And 'The Booker Prize' goes to...Jack the dog!

The storm kettle has arrived!!

Jack seems to think we've bought him a new dog toy.

(And no, I don't normally keep camping equipment on the lounge floor)

Are you wondering why my blogging has suddenly become more frequent? Displacement activity of course...still haven't done my homework from last term's writing course (er, yeah, the one that was meant to be in several weeks before Christmas).

I can do the week-to-week writing stuff, cos that's fun, but can't seem to summon up enough mental energy to complete anything longer. Besides, with my short attention span, it's far more fun to start something and ditch it for something new the following week, than to persevere and stick to it. Ho hum..sounds scarily like my attitude to home educating.

We did something in a class the other week that was fun. We took a piece of writing that each of us had been working on, printed it out, cut it up into its separate words and then rearranged it to make interesting sentences. Here are some of the ones I came up with:

'Who am I? I rise with unfamiliar legs, waffle-dusting the fluff with each of my functional toes.'

'Coordinated clouds weave wooden skylarks in A minor'

'I notice that a metal head can strangle the line of aesthetic'

I quite like the idea of waffle-dusting with my toes, particularly if they are functional. I'm not sure how difficult waffle-dusting would be if you didn't have functional toes.

The original piece was a descriptive essay about 3 different beds. Most of the sentences were far improved in the muddled around product. Ok, so it was a bit dodgy in places where I had to try and make a sentence out of the leftover words (3 'and' s and 4 'bed' s and 1 'duvet'- not a great combination for exciting writing). But it's a fun technique to give 'added value' to writing - a bit like turning boring old potatoes into a pack of fab cheese and onion flavour crisps. And yeah, I write alot of potatoes...

So I now feel inspired to do something similar with the children (no, I don't mean cutting them up with scissors and rearranging their parts, though there are days when that might be tempting). I thought I might take some poems or song lyrics, preferably ones that they know fairly well, and get them to chop them up and rearrange them into something else. Of course I haven't told the kids that I'm going to do that.

Hmm...I'm not quite sure how to approach it with the kids. I have to totally not emphasise the possible educational slant (a guaranteed put-off). Though if I just leave some printed poems with a pair of scissors on the table, in the hope that a child might get the urge to cut it up and rearrange it, I'm not sure they would tune into my subtle approach. And of course the dog might just go and eat it. Or maybe (thinking really abstractly) the dog might tear up the piece of paper - scissors are kinda tricky without opposable thumbs - scatter it on the floor in a really artistic manner and make his own marvellous contribution to world of literature.

I need to get out more...

Dens, fires, bird tables, hills and views

What is it about dens that kids love so much? There are expensive courses you can send your kids on to build dens. There are also training courses for Teachers and preschool workers to enable them to enable children to make dens. What is it all about? Just stick a bunch of kids in the woods and 'bobs your uncle' they will most likely go and make a den. Or maybe that's just my kids...

But you have to admit, this is a pretty good den, made by my kids and their friends this week. It was very nearly sabotaged by Jack the dog and his best mate, a large lurcher-type who decided to that running over the roof might be an interesting thing to do. Dogs have a strange concept of 'interesting'.

So what else have we been doing this past week? Well, true to my non-resolution, on Monday we went out for a trip to somewhere we hadn't been for ages. And it was very muddy and uphill and cold. BUT...there was a good view at the top.

So, there I was, having gone all the way up this hill in the cold - have I already mentioned the UPHILL and COLD bit? - pointing out the fabulous view...and what do my kids say?

'I'm hungry, where are the biscuits?'

Perhaps I would have done the same at their age and perhaps my parents would have given me the same withering look that I gave my kids.

What do you mean 'where are the biscuits??!! Look at the view!!!'

I must be getting old. Turning into an 'old gimmer' as one of my friends would say.

The view at the top of the muddy hill. (The view that the kids didn't notice)

dd sat in front of the other view that the kids didn't notice

At the top of the hill the kids explored the woods for a while...

Ds2 chilling out on a branch (not looking at a view)

and we had a sliding down the hill race (though as you can see I was very skilful not to have my attempts filmed!)

The following day - i.e. after we walked at toddler pace back down the muddy hill and put everyone through the washing machine and got some sleep - the kids did some woodwork and made a bird table. It's just a plank with some edging and some cup hooks screwed in the side, but it'll be fab when we get it up in the apple tree in our garden. Ds2 and dd have volunteered to come up with a pulley system to get the bird table up in the tree and down again to restock it. Here's the progress so far:

Nailing in the edging (after the kids had sawed it into pieces). And no, we didn't even have to get the first aid kit out.

Putting in the cup hooks (the chain will be fastened to these, so the table can be hoisted up into the tree)

Painting the table with bird-safe preservative

And today, in between den-building, we had a go with a Kelly Kettle (we had a go last week, but um the fire kept going out)

These storm kettles (also known as Kelly kettles or Aussie Kettles or Irish Kettles or Volcano Kettles) work as follows:




'Made from aluminium it is essentially a double-walled chimney with the water contained in the chimney wall. Once the campkettle is filled with water, simply start a very small fire in the base, set the kettle on the base and drop additional fuel (twigs, leaves, grass, paper, etc.) down the chimney. The large internal surface area of the chimney heats the water very quickly.' (as you can tell I nicked this explanation from someone else, cos I couldn't explain it myself)




And it really works! We tried it today, lit a little fire in the bottom with some birch bark and a few twigs, and the water boiled in hardly any time at all. Not quite the 4 minutes that was advertised, but that's probably because getting damp twigs to light takes a certain amount of experience and quite a few matches and a bit of puffing...




This kettle belongs to a friend. I've now ordered one for our family cause I thought it would be fab for when I'm out with the kids in the woods or at the allotment. And its a good excuse to play with fire.

Don't tut tut me, it's playing with matches that you're not meant to do; playing with fire is fine. And playing with your food is ok too in some circumstances, but not when dining with royalty (apparently though I'm yet to test it). [I have met a duchess, but I didn't have dinner with her. And I once met Jimmy Saville, but I don't suppose I'd play with my food either if he invited me round for cucumber sandwiches. And he's a bit like royalty]




Where were we? Oh yes, playing with fire. Well, we've been having a bit of a fire week. Not only did we have a go with the kelly kettle today, but we also managed to light a really good fire too. A proper one with proper branches and all red and glowy (and rather alot of smoke too). All those years in the girl guides have obviously stood me in good stead. Move over Ray Mears...

A proper camp fire

Our next plan for a day out is to visit a local Roman Villa. It's in a field somewhere up a lane and it doesn't cost anything to go and visit it.

Ok...run through that again...a Roman villa in a field and it's free.

Hmm...if I put on my pessimistic head this probably means that it wont be the most spectacular thing my children and I have ever looked at. Being free doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be a pile of rubbish (it might be a pile of roman tiles), but from experience these things are never quite as exciting as Time Team might make them out to be. 'Ah yes, here we have a small Roman buckle and we can learn a lot from this' [cut to fancy tv graphics creating whole Roman from a single roman buckle, including details about what he had for breakfast and whether he likes his eggs sunny side up and what size feet he has... you get my drift].



But, hey, perhaps I should put on my optimistic head instead. Yes, do a worzel gummage and screw on that optimistic head.