Today

Today I tried to work out exactly how much sugar you need to add to homemade rhubarb crumble to make it edible. I got as far as half a bag of white and then (thinking I really needed to do the healthy thing) I added about a third of a bag of brown sugar (it was a big pot of stewed rhubarb). It's like when you make homemade jam and realise that the recipe requires 1lb of sugar for every 1lb of fruit. So much for a nice healthy alternative to shop-bought products.

Anyway, enough about jam and rhubarb.

Today it was hot. Yesterday it was hot. That's two whole days of hotness. No doubt we will have just acclimatised to this unusual summer weather when it will turn back into the sludgy greyness of a normal British summer. In the meantime I'm going to try not to complain about being hot. Honest, I really am.

The kids had a swimming birthday part to go to today so I sent dh along with them. I find swimming one of those things that is very difficult to enjoy. It bores me. I swim to the end of the pool and think 'Oh yeah, it's the end of the pool again, [yawn].' and then want to get out and go sit in a jaccuzzi (except that there isn't one). Still the kids enjoyed it and it was probably the best place to be on an unseasonably hot day.

While the kids went off and I had some peace and quiet I made headway into an article I'm writing for ThenUK. Somewhere along the line I seemed to have volunteered to edit their magazine. Perhaps I thought I had rather too much time on my hands [mad hysterical laughter as woman snorts into her red wine surrounded by piles of washing and an un-made house].

Yesterday I got up early and cycled on my rickety shopper to the allotment. I mostly cycled on the pavement as I'm not yet up to being released to the public roads. But it was early and the police were obviously still in bed and not bothering to harrass wobbly pavement-cyclists (either that or they saw the mad glint in my eye). The allotment looked pretty much as it did about a month ago when I last cycled and looked at it. Except that the weeds were taller. My, don't those weeds grow.

I made some feeble unsuccessful attempts at digging and then, because it was hot (see paragraph earlier) and the wheelbarrow tyre had deflated as usual and we're not allowed to put weeds on the allotment dump anymore so I didn't know what to do with them. So I cycled home, via the key-making person. I'm not sure where all the front door keys of the world go to, but probably the same place as all the odd socks. When you're down to one door key it's time to do something about it before the key fairy removes that last one.

It's ds2's birthday soon and I am in denial about needing to organise a party/outing/expense-fest. But it needs to be addressed and soon. Or birthday boy will be most displeased.

I have some catch-up to do about the kids' activities this past week. Mostly they involved fishing at the sailing club (Wednesday) and then yesterday ds2 did a sponsored walk, followed by bbq, canoeing, and waterpistol fight with siblings. I'm saying all this because the photos are on the other pc and if I don't get around to posting the photos up then I might forget to mention these things at all and then I'll look back one day and wonder what on earth we did in the week up to May 23rd.

So that's it. I'm going to go and continue being hot. Did I tell you it was a hot day?

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 Long Winter

It's that time of year when everyone is feeling tired and longing for signs of spring.

For a brief while it was beautifully sunny today, and equally freezing cold. Then the rain came and we rushed out to see if there was a rainbow (there wasn't). The rain went and came again, then hail, then more rain, and then just the cold greyness, traditional of our British winters. I felt guilty for not dragging the kids and the dog out for a walk, but the thought of trying to anticipate the next half-hour's weather and dress everyone accordingly was just more effort than I could summon up.

Instead I badgered the kids into doing some maths. Yeah yeah I know. I never claimed to be consistently and entirely autonomous.

So ds1 did some stuff on fractions and decimals in his CGP book. It was ok cos we had the accompanying book that explained at least most of what it was all about.

I always struggled with decimals and fractions. Never really understood it. Not sure I do now. And I passed A level maths. Right now, I think an understanding of fractions and decimals would be far more helpful than all that work I did on differential equations (no, don't ask me, I've never used them since). Education is a strange thing, isn't it? Why is it that in school you're made to learn all the unuseful stuff, but never the stuff that you need or want to know?

So today, eventually defeated by the weather and the maths, I started assembling a large flat-packed cupboard unit. We were given two units by friends at the weekend, Ikea storage units, that they no longer needed and had disassembled. No instructions. I thought about leaving it till the weekend, then thought again. I managed most of one unit by trial and error, but found the drawers perplexing. I left dh battling with the problem tonight as I went to work, reassured that it wasn't just me being incapable, the drawers really were tricky.

Today seems such a contrast to yesterday. Today slow, grey, long, and yesterday bright and busy with a packed house and lots of wonderful company. I forget how lovely it is to have a family over, to have adult conversation while the kids play. So often when you home educate it seems that your children have plenty of playmates but there is little adult company to while away the time. Of course I understand that it's a relief to be able to do child-swaps, to get a little bit of time to yourself, but on days when I herd in another 3 child visitors and wave the parent off, it feels as if I am nothing more than an unpaid creche supervisor :)

So thank you, my visiting family yesterday (you know who you are!). You brought the house alive and reminded me that this is what my house is meant for. I plan to do it again. Soon.

And ds1 says a big 'thank you' for the sling shot :)