This month (November)

November is nearly over and it's time for a quick catch-up of what we've been up to this month.

Autumn walks in the woods

 (with home-made dart shooters)

Visits to home ed group to do Chemistry, Spanish, Art, Arts Award (and time for dd to sneak off and play on the communal computer)

Bat-themed activities

Bat origami

Online bat jigsaws (here )

Putting together a festive mini-swap for Worldwide Culture Exchange (sent to the USA). Pick three to five items representing Christmas/The Winter holidays in your family and send it to another family. Mini-swap sign-up form can be found here (festive mini-swap open til the end of November)

Digging for dinosaurs in a wolf suit (thank you 99p shop!)

Playing lego games

 Fungal foraging

 And spore printing

 
 Enjoying outdoor times with friends

Looking at lichen

Sewing Christmas decorations and printing cards

Making a mobile of the solar system (printable here)

Ds digs up our area in the name of archaeology (and finds pottery, nails, bones and a medieval tile painted with a griffin) 

Leaf rubbings

Making a printer out of Lego Mindstorms

Artwork (experimenting with symmetry)

 Trip to Aldeburgh Poetry Festival (me, without the children). Hence plenty of time to take arty photographs...

Fencing competitions

Bug handling workshops

What have we been doing..?

With the change in seasons we've been a bit out of sorts. However, slowly we are getting back into a rhythm, and these are some of the things we've been doing...

Dd has been learning to crochet:


Ds2 has been reading up about design for computer games:

We've downloaded the free 3D computer graphics software Art of Illusion and ds2's been getting to grips with it. It might as well be Japanese to me - I just make approving noises with the occasional interested-parent comment, like: 'What does that bit do?'

We've also downloaded the trials for various Sony video/music editing packages here . today the kids have been testing out Sony's Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum, which looks on face value a little like Windows Movie Maker, but with a million more whistles and bells.

Ds1 has been reading about survival techniques and has created his own survival kit (everything but the kitchen sink stuffed into a rucksack I think). He's also been reading about guns. And more guns. And weapons in general. And been watching the series 'Weaponology' that I recorded which shows techniques that snipers use,and real footage of war time shooting (nice). This child-led learning is fabulous, but there are times when I wonder if there is such a thing as encouraging the wrong hobby?

We've been to a fireworks party:

and the boys have attended their yearly Capoeira Batizado

"Batizado literally means "baptism"; besides being an initiation rite for new students it is also a graduation ceremony for advanced students and a great capoeira community celebration with masters from near and far are invited and the fraternity of capoeira is measurably strengthened by the camaraderie and interplay."

For more info see here

And today I took the bears off to the woods to let off some of that grizzly energy:

The low rope swing over a muddy ditch was particularly popular:

(This is what wellies and leggings were made for)

and there's always time to poke in the sand:

I am brain of Britain (but shhh it's a secret)

Last night I answered 8 questions right on University Challenge. Perhaps they were particularly easy...or maybe I have a few more brain cells than usually displayed while cleaning the toilet or washing up. Don't worry, I'm not going to make a habit of being brainy. I know my place (somewhere between the kitchen sink and the chocolate display at the corner shop).




Yesterday we spent a wonderful day with friends, walking by the canal. Ds1 went off fishing with one of their sons (well ds1 dangled the rod optimistically over the edge of the bridge into the water, which is closer to fishing than he usually gets). My friend and I wandered along the tow path with small people leaning precariously over the water, not-quite-so-small people waving swords and disappearing into woodland, and two dogs (one of whom needs some lessons in gender identification) doing what dogs do. We talked about living on a barge, chickens, knitting, jam, decluttering, life, the universe and everything important. It was one of those days.




I abandoned our very noisy cockeral in their garden (these are the people who have already adopted our secondhand rabbit) and dd chased their teeny puppy around the house like a demented terrier (her, not the dog). And then after prising ds2 off the life-support-machine (computer) i took them all home.

(Has anyone seen the littuns - you know, the non-swimmers?

Oh yeah, there they are, disappearing into the distance)

Tonight I am doing a performance with other writers in one of my writing groups. I'm not quite sure how I said yes, but obviously somewhere along this unrehearsed, slow-motion train crash that started way back in October I thought it would be a good idea to hop on. Are we doing it somewhere quiet and secret - no! We are doing it in a restaurant. A restaurant! Now whose big idea was that?! (not mine). And people - public, non-writing human beings - are actually coming and paying to see us do...er...not very much, very poorly. And if anyone mentions positive thinking to me I will smack them. Not even chocolate can fix this.

Why the inside of our car looks like it does...

Long live muddy interiors!