just another morning here

Couldn’t be bothered to go and get a proper camera so the photo’s rubbish but I don’t care all that much any more.

Spent most of the afternoon helping Abbie with her science homework. Just sometimes I am grateful for my folder of home ed links, as we first did this activity over four years ago (when I had an even more rubbish digital camera!).

Had orchestra this morning, and while the kids were there, I showed a friend and her partner around our ‘to let’ house and they have decided to rent it so that was a great result. Their first baby is due in 5 weeks’ time so they needed somewhere to live rather urgently!

Now cooking a roast and getting through the essential housework very slowly … and looking forward to a relaxed Saturday night.

We had toyed with the idea of going to Longleat Safari Park today, but given the weather and the general health of the family we decided to opt for Paignton Zoo instead, and the kids were thrilled when we told them first thing this morning. While we’d been away over the summer we’d refused to take them to the zoo in Amsterdam on the grounds that it would be pretty similar to a zoo in the UK, at which point they commented that that was all very well, but we’d never taken them to the zoo in England. Entirely true, hence the trip this week.

It was grey and misty for most of the day, then rained in earnest early afternoon - we braved the rain for a while but having got wet and cold we decided to head home for cake (the orange chocolate potato cake is great btw) and a film!

Had a fantastic day though, the children loved it. Anna played photographer during the day, having been inspired by the exhibition of wildlife photography (these images) that we saw at the museum yesterday, although even she realised that a few snaps around the zoo were never going to be as amazing as some of the images we’d seen. Here are the best of hers, anyway … and a few of mine and Steve’s here and there - and a couple more on flickr for anyone who’s never seen an elephant wee!

Working backwards, just to be confusing.

Today Josiah and I accompanied Anna’s class to the local high school for a ‘Cool Science’ show. It was quite fun, and basically consisted of sticking various items into liquid nitrogen to demonstrate various things. Josiah enjoyed it as much as all the Y6s, and even answered a question, which astounded me somewhat, that he had the confidence to stick his hand up! He then threw a wobbly on the way home which wasn’t too helpful (he wanted to walk on the outside of the narrow pavement near the busy road, I wanted him to walk on the inside), but never mind. Photos are rubbish but give you an idea …

Yesterday we were in school again making Momos with yet another group of children - Abbie was there this time so that was nice. I was on my own, the other mum couldn’t make it, so it was more hectic than usual. Oh, and the school photographer was there so the kids kept disappearing to have photos taken - but that did mean that Josiah got to be in the girls’ group photo so an added bonus there.

And back at the weekend, a photo from the balloon launch that took place at the MA’s 25th Anniversary study day. I found it a strangely emotional and moving part of the day, surprisingly, despite not usually being touched by that sort of thing.

We got home very late last night (early this morning?) from a good week away. We were incredibly grateful for a week of fantastic weather, bar one night of very heavy rain at the beginning of the week it was great. Finally!

The wet night did make the whole site a bit muddy for a couple of days but nothing too terrible on our side of the site anyway. My parents did have a bit of a Kessingland week in their awning though, and ended up throwing their groundsheet away rather than cleaning it! Think swamp mixed with cowpats and you have the general idea, yuk.

We were camped with friends from one of the other churches in the network, which was nice, because we were the only campers there from our own local church, so it meant that the children had friends to play with, I had more hair to braid (!!) and we had friends to laze around and share coffee and wine with

Saw a number of old friends throughout the week which was nice, and we also saw rather a lot of my youngest brother as well, who clearly had too much time on his hands and kept coming back to be clambered on by small girls - lovely to have him around though.

The organised ‘churchy’ activities (for want of a better word!) consisted of various meetings most mornings and in the evenings too, as well as sports and other stuff going on during the afternoon. The children all had groups to go to, which they really enjoyed and got lots out of. I was on a team helping with the 3 and 4 year olds during the morning sessions, which was a lot of fun.

Managed to get to most of the evening meetings as well, and generally felt like it was good for me, the spiritual kick up the backside was long overdue.

We had a couple of free days as well, where we escaped the site (it was *so* noisy!) and did our own thing. On the first day we went to Herstmonceux Science Centre where we met some of the Screamteam and most of the Monsterteenies, and had a fab day there. (I didn’t ever get my email from the Art Machine by the way, what happened to that I wonder?!)

From there we found a swimming pool in Hailsham - decided that was the easiest way to clean all our children at once

On our other day off we ended up in Eastbourne visiting Ros & Tony at Bonners Music Superstore. Steve made himself at home immediately and made a long phonecall but for some reason didn’t want me to take a photo Anna made herself at home too We didn’t spend too much money though!

Mooched around Eastbourne for a while, then went swimming again, then ended up at Pevensey Castle on the way back to the campsite. Fab castle with lots of interesting different parts added over the years. Tried desperately to get a picture of all three children looking nice at the same time but after four attempts I gave up!

We spent a fair bit of time enjoying Ashburnham again; it is a gorgeous site. Tried hard to get the camera to do things it isn’t really cut out to do with the lens I was using but the results weren’t too bad, all things considered.

As an aside, my Flickr post bar has miraculously sprung back into life tonight after months of not recognising me as a user - don’t know what happened there but I’m very glad to have it back!

Got a bit of washing done today but generally lazed around as we were fairly exhausted. Our wonderful neighbour(s) had done a fantastic job with the guinea pigs which was an extra blessing.

Can’t believe it is May already, time seems to be flying, we must be having fun or something.

We all had a lovely weekend away chez Portico, it was great to relax, do practically nothing, but catch up face to face for once. None of the children wanted to come home on Sunday.

Yesterday Joe and I had a relatively good day at home despite a few things taking longer than they should have. We got through violin practice and some maths/music workbooks before going to Sainsbury’s. I think I could almost give Joe a list and let him do the shopping for me while I have a coffee in the cafe, perhaps I’ll try that next week

In the afternoon he played a bit of Wii and then we looked at some maps and atlases together; we are trying to plan where to go in the summer, having booked a Dover-Calais ferry crossing. Belgium is a hot favourite at the moment but none of us can really decide! Opinions are split between coast and cities, and we have time to get down south if we wanted to, just can’t make up our minds!

Abbie went to play with a friend after school while Anna came home and took ages to pack her bags for her school residential. She’s staying at the Courtlands Centre until Friday.

This morning everyone was up bright and early and got music practices done first thing; Joe and I went off to work while Steve took Anna (and her kit bag) and Abbie to school. Our work was pretty fruitless as the DVLA staff were all on strike! Still, we ran a few errands before coming home.

We’ve worked through a few more science kit experiments, still on the subject of forces, demonstrating Newton’s 2nd and 3rd laws. Not sure if this information will be retained, but we’ve had fun anyway

And finally, I am tired of usedcarspecialist. No hidden messages in there, honest Even Steve has dumped the usedcarspecialist tag at work, and I’ve been annoyed with it for a while too, so I’m dumping it as well. It was just the first thing we thought of when signing up for stuff and it’s a rubbish ID, especially as it’s always been mine not his which is topsyturvy really!

So if you ever want to IM me again please can you add my new yahoo id which is two_red_boots Or if you’re on gmail I’m now using tworedboots[at]gmail.com so can chat via that (usually better than yahoo as for some reason my yahoo messenger frequently drops out on the laptop), although my main email address is still the same. Just marginally annoyed that the flickr post bar can’t seem to find the flickr ID, it’s returning the error code ‘user not found’, any ideas anyone? I think the time is approaching for a new blog template too …

As usual, home education leads me to realise that I don’t know anything about anything (and to think I trained as a ‘professional’ teacher, supposedly so much better than a parent at educating children - er I don’t think so!).

Joe chose a science kit to do this morning, and it was all about forces. Gravity, friction etc. demonstrated by the standard ‘toy car down a ramp’ experiment, etc., which he really enjoyed. Then we got onto centrifugal force, spinning things around his head and in bottles, etc. At which point I had some vague recollection of there being centripetal force as well, and went to look up the difference between the two, thinking that centrifugal was an outwards circular force and centripetal being the opposite but now I’m completely confused, because this article says centrifugal force is not really a force at all!

Anyway it must be time for coffee! Hopefully by the time I get back someone might have educated me …

Weather still fab, can’t remember an Easter holiday quite as good as this one!

Yesterday the children and I joined Rog, Caitlin & Riona on a cycle ride down the canal to the Turf Locks which was very pleasant - Anna rode all the way there and got a lift halfway back, while Abbie did the opposite. Joe and I did a shorter ride from the Quay to the Turf, but still a decent ride. They all enjoyed digging up various things in the estuary and were well educated by Roger on sexing crabs and how crabs grow out of their shells (as was I!). I have managed to get rid of the bag of foil-wrapped crabs and pottery that somehow had to come home with me though, ahem!!

Later on we BBQed with friends - a great idea at the time but it did get a bit chilly! Some people moaned far too much though, it wasn’t *that* cold! Watched Brick afterwards, which was just too weird for me, I couldn’t follow the story or stay awake!

Today after some room tidying and music playing, I took the children swimming. Felt very happy to have done some decent swimming myself while they were mucking around in the pool, but then followed it up by eating chocolate, which sort of defeated the object but there we go.

After lunch they all watched Narnia, joined by Riona. Meanwhile I cleaned out the guinea pigs … then they all played outside for a while. Later on Joe played more Sonic and the girls got the beads out to make necklaces and bracelets etc. And a new mobile phone decoration for me since the last one broke.

We’re off out to play poker tonight, must run and get changed!