Music and Dance!

Today we went to a local annual Multicultural Festival - The Mela.

We're very lucky that we live in a multicultural area and I think it's a wonderful experience for my children to see people of different cultures and religions on a daily basis and for them not to think it is unusual. When I was growing up in a small village the only people I saw of a diffferent nationality were 2 black children from the local children's home (who came to our school) and, once a year on my Mum's birthday, I would see the staff at the Chinese take away in our nearest town! Needless to say, it was quite a culture shock to move to where we live now. I remember being very conscious that I spent the first few weeks just staring at everyone who went past, as if I'd just landed on a different planet!

Dd1 was particularly fascinated by the different music at the Mela and insisted on standing right at the front by the stage, in front of everybody. I didn't feel too self-conscious until the Bangra Hip Hop band, when I started feeling rather old and frumpy stood there at the front with lots of young Asian - and 'wannabe Asians' in their replica ethnic gear - getting into the groove (or whatever the Hip Hop equivalent is - hey, what do I know??). Anyway, there I was, this white middle class mother, stood in my cords and M&S t-shirt with a headscarf tied badly around my unwashed hair to stop it blowing around and getting in my face, a balloon on a stick that the kids had got bored of holding, and my pockets bulging full of hankies 'cause I've got a cold. Hmm...I really blended in with all those teens!

When the above was happening Dd1 kept asking 'When is it going to stop?'. It wasn't that she wasn't enjoying the music. It was more that it didn't follow the usual recognisable pattern of European music, so she just couldn't work out at what stage the song was at. I must confess that I'm usually more of a 'verse-chorus-verse-chorus' sort of girl, but it was still fascinating to watch and to listen to. I'm not sure what the instrument is called.

The dog finishes off Dd1's ice cream!

Don't let my balloon float away!

Percentages at the Dinner Table

It's funny how much simpler some things are when they crop up in everyday life than how I remember them being taught at school.

Somehow a conversation about percentages cropped up as we were all sat at the table eating dinner tonight. I'm not sure how it started but it was something along the lines of ds1 saying he'd had a certain percentage of 100% 'because it's always out of 100% isn't it?'.

Me: 'Percentage just shows how many of something out of 100 there are. So if you had 100 donuts and ate 5 of them, you would have eaten 5% of the total number of donuts.'

Ds1:'But it doesn't have to be 100 of something, does it? If you had 25,000 donuts you could still work out the percentage couldn't you?'.

Me: 'Yes, percentages are good because you can apply them to any amount. So for example if something you bought was 50% off, how good would that be?'

Ds1: 'That's half-price!...So, is that like "buy one get one free"?'

Dh: ' Yes it's still 50% off, or half price'.

me: 'well unless you only wanted one of the items and not two!'

Ds1:'Then it's 100%.'

Me: 'So what if it's "buy 2 get 1 free"?'

Ds1:{groan}'That's too hard.'

Dh: 'No it's not, it's just division.'

Ds1:{groan}'Division!Maths!'

Dh: 'But it's like when you had your tuck shop and you had to work out how much each pack of crisps cost when you bought a pack of 24.'

me: 'That's just division and that was ok.'

Ds1:'But that's different: I used a calculator'

Dh: 'I use a calculator alot at work.

Ds1: 'That's one of my MOST favouritist things in technology - the calculator!'

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I think I've just undone all the good work of my recent frugalness (is that a word?). After years of camping with just a basic cool box (or, more often, a simple bucket of water) I have blown some cash and bought an electric cool box. I've always resisted - it seemed such a silly luxurious waste of money. Hey, what kind of fair weather camper needs an electric coolbox?! Well, apparently, it seems that we do :) We've always managed camping by having to buy new milk and other food every day, or putting up with runny butter and gone offish humous! But now, having spent 40 quid, it looks like this spells the start of middle age and the end of my minimalist camping days. Well, that's a lie...we've never had minimalist camping days, not since we've had children.

So, here we go again. Once more, we'll be the family that turns up at the campsite with everything but the kitchen sink - but this time WITH an electric coolbox! And once again we'll probably be embarrassed by our charming minimalist neighbours who'll turn up with a simple yurt, a stove and some rugs! Ah at least I'll have the satisfaction of knowing that among all their minimalism, they'll have some very runny butter and some going-offish humous!

Bedtime Delaying Tactics

'What's big toe?' ds2 asked, waggling his foot under the duvet.'

'What do you mean "what's big toe?" '

'I mean, what's big toe.

'Big toe?'

'Yes! What's a big toe?

'What do you mean "what's a big toe?" '

'A big toe, what's it called?'

'Oh! Well. It's a big toe.'

'Yes, but what's it called?' He stuck his foot out of the duvet.

'It's called A BIG TOE'

'But doesn't it have another name?'

'Well. No. I don't think so.'

'Oh.'

'It's not like a thumb on a hand. It's just called A BIG TOE. Like, you know, your little toe.'

'So what's a little toe called?'

'Little toe. Just little toe. At least I think it is'

'Oh.'

Ds1 pipes up from the top bunk: 'Like a little finger.'

'Yes', I say, 'like a little finger.'

'But'- he continues'- there's also an index finger.'

'Er...yes. But toes don't have other names. They are just toes.'

'Oh. Right.' Ds2 pauses for a moment and sticks his foot back under the duvet. 'Mum?'

'Yes.'

'What are we doing tomorrow..?'

Ds2 wanted me to take a photo of him as the Statue of Liberty. And yes, that is an ice cream in his hand.

(Taken at our camping weekend in May)

Look how strong I am!

"Home education's time may have come"

Home education's time may have come
The Independent Thursday, 19 June 2008

'...Compulsory schooling was introduced in 1876 not primarily for the benefit of young people, but because with the curtailment of juvenile labour too many were making a nuisance of themselves on the streets. In an echo of the 19th century, the Brown government is legislating to extend the period of compulsion to age 18, mainly to deal with those not in education, employment or training.
You can have too much of a good thing. If the education that society insists upon means anything at all it will have enabled young people to discover what they like doing and what they are good at. By 16, if not earlier, they should be free to make up their own minds. We should not be criminalising those who do not wish to remain at school and find the government-imposed alternatives unacceptable.
Home education's time, therefore, may have come...'

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/schools/alan-smithers-home-educations-time-may-have-come-849616.html

Autonomous Education in Action

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Dd1 opened her hand and showed me the millipede she had caught in the garden.

'He's going to be my pet. He's got very tiny legs. He's got more legs than a spider'.

'Yes, a spider has eight legs'.

'And he's got more than a sponge'

'Really?'

'A sponge has zero legs.' She laughs.'Because zero is none and a sponge doesn't have any legs at all. None. Zero.'

'Would you like to put him in a box? ' I say, passing her a tupperware tub.

'Ooh yes!'

'You'll have to put some soil in to -'

'-I know! I was just going to do that!'

She returns with some soil.'It's nice and moist,' she declares.

'That's right, 'cause he wont like getting too dry will he?'

She pauses: 'I wont take him on my scooter though.'

She puts the box on the side in the lounge and goes out to play.

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Yesterday the boys attended a workshop with a costume designer to make block-printed scarves based on a collection of wild birds in the museum. They seemed to enjoy it, though, as always, it was difficult to draw any information about the session from them. I took dd1 to a small indoor play centre to spend a bit of one-to-one time with her (and catch up on a bit of reading when she was otherwise distracted!).

Today I decided I needed to get the front borders tidy and make some space to plant out the remaining plants in the greenhouse before we go camping. The front border is heaven for slugs and snails, so anything planted there has to be tall and unappetising to molluscs. I thought I'd better tie back some plants before the postman started complaining that he couldn't get up the path; one year the milkman started leaving the milk at the end of the garden path because he got fed up of getting his trousers wet from all the plants hanging over the path!

Strawberry Teas Forever and a Minor Rant About Celery.

After dropping dd1 off at preschool we ventured to the allotment to try and get some ground clear enough to transplant some popcorn and pumpkin plants that had been sitting in the greenhouse far longer than they should have. The popcorn plants had been grown from just plain old popping corn from a supermarket, so I wasn't expecting them to grow as well as they did. In previous years when I've bought sweetcorn or popcorn - i.e. the seed packet stuff - the germination rate has often been poor. With the supermarket popping corn the germination was almost 100%, really impressive! I guess we'll see if they actually set seed, but if the experiment works I'll be chuffed.

I had a feeling that after the recent alternating warm and wet weather the weeds would be growing fast and I wasn't wrong!

Ha ha! Bet you can't spot the Dwarf French Beans under here! There are also supposedly some mangetout and some runner beans. Methinks the weeds may have grown {g}

Ok, so with a bit of weeding I finally found the dwarf beans again.

They look rather stunned at seeing daylight.

The weather has benefitted the fruit as well and it seems that suddenly everything is starting to ripen. As you can see below, we had our first strawberry cropping of the season and what a big crop it was! The piled up tyres that we made into 'raised beds' for the strawberries were only experimental, but by the look of it we'll be doing lots more for next year. There has only been minor slug/snail damage and with some protection from netting the crop has so far been protected from birds.Best of all because the tyres are on a weed suppressing material the only weeds I have to worry about are the few between the plants and these are easy to pull up.

Looks like the redcurrants and blackcurrants will be next. We don't have any of the new commercial varieties which have fruit that all ripens at the same time, so we'll be picking off the occasional ripe berries over the next month or so I guess. We've only just finished off the redcurrant jam we made last year, so I'm hoping for a good crop again this year.

This is probably the best cropping of strawberries we've ever had at the allotment, and we're are only at the start of the season. Guess what we're going to be eating every day for the next month??! Perhaps if we plant up more tyres next year we'll be able to go into business selling strawberries to the neighbours.

Ds2 with a crate of strawberries.

There are a few raspberries in the tub next to it - I think ds1 ate most of the raspberries he picked!

We also picked a whole heap of mangetout - once we could find them among the weeds - and some broad beans. Broad beans really aren't my favourite. In fact they are lowest on my list of edible vegetables, about one or two up from celery which is really yuk and a totally pointless vegetable (only good for dieters and rabbits in my opinion). And while on the subject of celery, why do they put it in pretty much ALL vegetarian meals?? What's that about??! I have to waste time picking out all those little 'horsehoe' slices of celery...grumble...

Anyway, celery rant over, last year we made the mistake of picking the broad beans rather too late when they had gone huge and chewy and urrrggghhh. Dh ate them, but then he eats absolutely ANYTHING, so that's not much of a comment. This year I've started picking them young and we had the first cropping tonight,parboiled and then fried in butter. Ok, so no matter what I do to them they're still not high on my list! Plan B is to try a recipe I've found for 'Broad Bean Puree'. If the beans keep cropping I'm gonna get desperate for ways to disguise them! You might think it would just be easier to grow things that I like, but gardening just isn't that simple. At least I don't bother growing celery.

Mucking about at preschool