just another morning here

It’s been a busy yet lovely day in the main (Steve’s grumpiness excepted). The girls and I set out early this morning to set up for an orchestra concert outside the Cathedral in town, part of the Lammas Fair; the Cathedral Green was taken over with a craft fair this weekend too, so there were loads of people milling around.

Abbie really enjoyed looking after Richard (the DM/conductor)’s dog, and had the lead attached to her chair all the way through! Unfortunately she ended up with really itchy eyes afterwards, not sure if it was hayfever, dog allergy, or something else random, but there we go. I ended up being official photographer as the usual people who take photos had forgotten their cameras, hence the overload of photographs on flickr!

Anyway, as well as it being a lovely day for a concert (and they played really well as usual), we also had secret plans to celebrate the director of music’s 60th birthday with party poppers and a huge cake – that all went off really well, and Richard didn’t even look *too* embarrassed!

Steve and Josiah had joined us by this time, better late than never We stayed in town for a while after that, had coffee with my sister, then shopped for a bit – geocache loot – we may yet get around to hiding one tomorrow.

Home for a bit of relaxation and preparation for Josiah’s birthday ‘do’. He’s just got one friend over for a sleepover – his first ever! When his friend arrived, Steve whisked them off to Sainsbury’s to choose their pizza (Pizza Hut dinner here again, think that might turn into a tradition!), while Abbie, her friend and I set out to put clues around the area, for a treasure hunt that Abbie had designed.

The boys loved the treasure hunt and literally ran around the route after all the clues The prize was a box of food for a midnight feast – not sure it will last until midnight but we’ll see.

They’ve played on a car racing game on the playstation, watched Inkheart again, and shock horror, Josiah even got his violin out to play the James Bond theme to his friend – a jaw drop moment!!

Anyway, they are sleeping in the tent, so that’s a treat as far as they’re concerned, and they’re being relatively quiet at the moment! Planning pancakes for breakfast tomorrow

When I’ve had a moment to myself, I’m reading a lot around the reaction to the Home Education Badman report, and despite not being an active home educator at the moment I still believe in choice in education, and am therefore also outraged at some of the recommendations in the report. There are a lot of better blogs than mine with more eloquent authors than me writing about the subject – so many that I don’t really know which one to link to first! In particular today: Renegade Parent and Dare to Know. I’m guessing that the average Joe Public may not even realise that the review exists, or the implications of it – but it *does* matter to everyone, not just home educators. It’s a question of choice in education being removed, privacy and individuality being eroded, and it’s unacceptable.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 13th, 2009 at 23:26 and is filed under celebrations, home education, josiah, music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.