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.

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?!)

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.

I am from brown velour sofas, Doctor Who, a Commodore 64 and cassette tapes.

I am from the Old Bakery, the house in the village square where the mobile library used to stop every week, so we always took the librarians cups of tea after school on a Thursday afternoon.

I am from the brambles growing down the lane, and the tree hanging over the stream where we used to cross it and paddle in it. And in the summer, from the woods where we played hide and seek to the soundtrack of trains going past at the bottom of the garden. From lavendar, raspberries, and all sorts of flowers, mixed with the scent of chlorine from the swimming pool.

I am from long drawn out cups of coffee on Christmas morning, and always being right. From Colgate Palmolive, from hand made and embroidered doll’s clothes, Great Danes, and tomato plants.

From ‘sorry means I won’t do it again’, and ‘that’s understandable but inexcusable’.

I am from Cote Baptist Chapel, from the Charismatic movement in the seventies. From Bible verses memorised, from a Christian school, and Psalty the singing songbook. From a strong heritage of faith and my own personal experience of Jesus.

I’m from Oxford, yet a mixture of Liverpool, Wales, France and Belgium thrown in as well. From croissants-aux-amandes, framboisines, baked ham with a crust around it, and toast with cheese and marmite.

From the time the field flooded and froze over in the village, and we all went skating on it, two of us in ice skates and the rest in wellies. From working out exactly how to play Spider and Fly on the morning my sister was born. From excitedly getting up in the early hours of the morning to go on holiday.

I am from a trunk in a garage, boxes that haven’t been opened in 20 years.

Josiah has been really making friends over the past couple of weeks. I am becoming more and more superfluous to requirements in the mornings; we walk to school and he tends to run off ahead, eager to get there. On Monday morning he hooked up with a little friend on the way in, they chatted all the way to the classroom, and he hardly gave me a backwards glance (I have to steal a goodbye kiss if I want one, these days!).

Then after school this little friend of his came out of the classroom first and accosted his mum asking if Joe could go back for tea, so she asked me, and I didn’t have any reason to refuse, so said yes. Little friend went running back into the classroom to tell Joe, who came out in a huge state of excitement, the two of them made their teacher laugh they were so excited. So he went, and had a fabulous time … and he and this little boy have been inseparable this week, so I understand.

Abbie had a big-headed moment yesterday too. She came home bragging about how Mr Cook (her teacher) had said that she should be in Yr 5, and how he’d told the class that if they needed help with maths they should ask her. All this came from some activity or other they were doing with counting blocks, dividing by two. Dividing by two! I am seriously wondering about asking whether she can be stretched a bit more in the classroom, honestly – apart from anything else, it’s the same activity they did last week, according to her! Anyway somehow she ended up having a conversation about square numbers and square roots, which Mr Cook was obviously impressed with. I’m not terribly impressed, for her that’s just normal, but she was very proud of having been singled out in front of everyone.

Abbie’s still loving the friends thing, too. Although I wish she’d learn not to share head lice with her so-called friends

Anna came out of school and met me with a string of verbal diarrhoea about her day on Monday too … measuring in maths, writing stories in literacy, making powerpoint presentations about the river Exe in geography, what she had for lunch, who she sat next to, how her pencil case broke – honestly, for her, this has been the best thing ever. She is loving the variety and the motivation that school gives her, and I’m really pleased for her. It is becoming a logistical nightmare to fit everything in though!

Me. I still miss home education. I miss being the one to see connections being made in their brains and being the one to help them make them. Don’t think I’ll ever feel differently about that.

But they are enjoying themselves so much, they’re loving every minute of it. They’re happy to go, happy while they’re there, and happy when they come home (if a little tired and hungry ). I am irrationally cross with them for being so happy about it, when I miss what we had so much. But there we go, I have to let them get on with being the people they want to become – I know they could have done that either way, but actually in some respects they couldn’t. So yeah, it’s a compromise of my ideals, a compromise academically, but if I have happy thriving children then I’m not complaining. At least we always know we have a choice.

Meanwhile, the workshop has been rushed off its feet – we only opened a month ago and we’re already chock-a-block, with literally hardly any advertising. The sales garage had its best month ever in February and this month isn’t looking too bad. So there’s plenty going on.

As a counter to school and the busyness of work we are working to getting weekends freed up again, with no lessons/activities in them unless absolutely necessary – then every weekend that Steve isn’t working we’re going to take the van and go away with kids/bikes etc, and really make the most of weekends.

Oh, and we had a new carpet fitted in the lounge yesterday, hurrah. Things are all wired in, now all we need is some furniture

It has been a beautiful day here; bit gutted that we haven’t managed to make the most of it, but there we go. I had the annual Memorial Service for babies lost through miscarriage, stillbirth, and neonatal death to go to this afternoon, and Steve had to go in to work to let someone test drive a car, so it was always going to be a non-starter of a day, really.

The children have played out a fair bit though, with Mollie and Ruby in the close, Josiah is out there still in his pyjamas, and Abbie is in her sunsuit! Just couldn’t be bothered to insist on anything today.

Abbie spent the first part of *her* morning on a hamster hunt, she did admit responsibility in having accidentally left the cage open yesterday, so I think she breathed a huge sigh of relief when she found him in her dolls’ cot.

Anna has dossed around, but came with me to the service this afternoon. Her comments were that it was a short service, and that she was surprised at how much crying there was. Doh. My feelings on the whole thing are pretty much the same as last year and the year before that. I can’t quite decide if it’s good to give time to feel stuff all over again, or if it’s just a strange sadistic thing to put yourself through once a year. I am really considering stopping the support group, and if I do stop it I don’t think I’d go to the service, which leads me to think that it is just me getting emotionally carried away by the situation rather than any real grief of my own. Obviously I did and occasionally still do grieve, but the service itself doesn’t help in that for me personally, I don’t think. Still, having said that, someone read a very powerful poem today which I might post one day.

We had a lovely night out (at Harry’s) yesterday, too, which deserves a mention – we were celebrating a decent month of sales at the garage, so it was a works’ do – felt like a proper one for the first time ever though as it included our mechanic and his wife as well as Steve’s parents and us. We might even manage it this month as well, if we’re lucky

I do remember having a real tree, and decorating it being a lovely family time. I can’t really remember having stockings when we were very young (did we – I know we did later on but really can’t remember earlier?), but I can remember my Dad’s endless Christmas day breakfasts, as we weren’t allowed to go into the lounge to open presents until he’d finished countless slowly consumed cups of coffee.

Some traditions revolved around food – for a few years Boxing day was the only day in the year that we cooked real chips in a deep fat fryer, to go with cold turkey and ham cooked with a crust, but I think my family have got too healthy for that now!

There is, however, one thing that stands out as the thing I loved about my early childhood Christmases. We used to go carol singing in the village where we lived – usually a large group of us from the church we were part of. My Dad would bring out his piano accordian for its yearly outing (the one and only thing it’s really good for), and I just remember loving the feeling of being out in the cold, with our friends, singing as loudly as possible, and usually ending up somewhere for mince pies at the end. I absolutely love carols, even the bad ones!

That tradition kind of changed when we moved into the city – I seem to remember we did carol singing a few times but it never had that lovely community ‘walk round the village’ feel to it. The piano accordian has been used less and less, unless I’m very much mistaken, although Dad does still bring it out at Christmas usually to torture us all – well, we say it’s torture but we love it really, you can tell by the look on my sister’s face in this photo

My kids love it too, and happily for me (not so happily for Steve, who is very bah humbug about that sort of thing!), are also developing a love of Christmas music – carols and other music too.

Which is why I’ve been hankering after one of these (spotted slightly cheaper here) for the children ever since I saw it – I reckon Anna would love it, and she’d probably be able to do a jolly good job of playing it as well …

So, what’s your most memorable childhood Christmas tradition and why?

We’ve just been doing the normal stuff here, working, and the usual round of child-related activity. Yesterday was quite productive – Anna did some geoboard maths on perpendicular/parallel lines, and Abbie did some pattern block maths too, as well as some reading. Music practice has been well done all round over the past couple of days, and Anna’s expecting to take Grade 1 in both cello and piano next term, now. We’ve agreed monetary reward for pass/merit/distinction in those, which she is quite excited about, and is already planning a shopping spree based on maximum payout

Home Ed group at the park yesterday included a friend’s birthday party, so that was fun, as well as the usual dance/cello combo for Anna.

Last night we saw Maria (of cake-a-month fame) for the first time in ages; she’s been to Thailand recently on a ‘help rebuild a tsunami-bashed house’ activity holiday so had photos to show us, which were really interesting and inspiring. She recommends Amandara Island Resort, where she stayed (the first people to stay there since it was rebuilt), if anyone is remotely interested. It was nice to spend the evening with her, just catching up

Today the plan is to bake, once bedrooms have been tidied – which is currently taking a very long time! We got up early and the kids watched Raven before breakfast, we’ve done music practice, but have since stalled somewhat! I’m making pumpkin pie (yes, we have a glut of pumpkins!), and the children are planning a sponge cake, I think.

And as I typed my title for the blog post today I was reminded of a kids’ song that we have on CD somewhere.

Even if I’m lost in space, Jesus can find me
He’s bigger than the universe, he’s all around me
It doesn’t matter where you are
Even on the farthest star
There isn’t anywhere too far from Him

Might seem cheesy, but I was just reminded of the closeness of that relationship and how much it means to me. And also reminded that maths, reading, and even music are secondary to imparting the value of that relationship to my children. Which is a challenge to me, personally. Love moments like that, where I’m not thinking of anything spiritual particularly, but God just speaks through little things – keeps me going.

Strange old day, the main part of which, for me, was taken up with the Remembrance Service for lost babies. I feel fairly emotionally battered this evening as a result. It gets me every time, I see people walking in to the chapel in the hospital and I end up feeling *so*full of grief on their behalf and on my own as well, I guess. And then I have to stand up and read stuff, which is quite horrid, why do I agree to these things?! Actually this time I was drafted in at the last minute … anyway, it was a good afternoon, there were loads of people there and plenty of conversations went on afterwards in the strange ‘have a cup of tea with people you’ve never met while you’re feeling really emotional’ time afterwards, which I always think is slightly bizarre.

Noticed the strangely ironic line in ‘Lord of all hopefulness’ which seems to be a regular feature in the order of service: “be there at our labours”, hmm. I know I believed God was there at mine, but only the times I made it that far! Anyway, time to pack away all my thoughtfulness for another year.

Steve was on childcare all afternoon and I confess to spending an extra half an hour out having a cuppa with a friend so that he would have to go and pick Anna up as well as having dropped her off, I just couldn’t face it after the service.

Anna had a ball at Stagecoach, so there goes another load of money. Ho hum. She complained that she wasn’t very good at the dance; I think it was modern dance whereas she’s only ever been taught ballet before, albeit with a contemporary edge to most of her performance dances, she’s not ever done what I’d call ‘pop’ dance so it was strange to her. But she loved the drama and the singing. She said ‘I made friends with someone who wouldn’t believe that I was allowed to not go to school, so then I made friends with someone else!’

We’ve had a friend round for dinner which has been pleasant, and we’re about to watch the Motorcycle Diaries together, goodo, I need some escapism this evening, and I’ve been looking forward to seeing this film for a while now.

Oh, and we’ve seen some photos of Robyn today, very exciting

And so because I’m procrastinating (do some things ever change?) and to give Nic something else in the sidebar to click on, I’ve added my birth stories to the ‘Pages’ section in the sidebar. They were on our family site but it’s broken at the moment.

Of course the other reason for all this baby thinking going on is that I’ve been working on Miscarriage stuff this week, a couple of people at swimming this morning had heard me on the radio yesterday and mentioned it all to me, and I guess it just brings all the remembering to the fore again – which is fine (no hugs please!), in fact I think one of the strengths of having something significant to do once a year is good as it brings you to a place where it is okay to remember things, and then the rest of the year you (well, I, now) don’t really think about it as much. Anyway, I need to carry on with the display stuff as I didn’t get much done yesterday due to printer problems, so I’m off …

UPDATE!
Emma had her baby, a girl called Robyn, at 13.37 7lbs 15.5oz, home birth went swimmingly Congratulations!

We are currently listening to Poet in my Window, which I first had on cassette when I was about 16/17 and there are stacks of memories attached to different songs for different reasons. Can’t begin to explain it all, it’s way too personal and filled with teenage angst, but Ruth H, if you’re reading this, I’m still thinking of all those hours we wasted listening to this stuff. Fancy going to this?!! Next I have to start refilling the Garth Brooks gaps, although that song hasn’t been the same since Ronan Keating rehashed it …

Have to say, country music sounds particularly superb on our current hifi, too.

It’s our 10th wedding anniversary on Friday, and I count that as quite a big achievement. Certainly there have been times when I’ve wondered if we would make it this far! Typically, I’ve been looking forward to it and building up to celebrating it as something a bit special, so typically, despite having had a lovely Christmas in some ways, the past couple of weeks have been completely naff between Steve and me. It’s a bit like the feeling you used to get as a child if you were looking forward to your birthday, and then ended up feeling disappointed when you didn’t get the present you wanted … as if the person giving you the present should have known you well enough to know what you wanted without you necessarily asking, but then feeling let down when they didn’t. Or maybe that’s just me? Nothing’s really happened, I don’t think, we just feel a bit distant, which is not the state I wanted to be in on our wedding anniversary!

So I’m up at this stupid time of night having been thinking stuff through, not coming to any conclusions, but sometimes I do wonder if we know one another any better after 10 years than we did on the day we met?!! On nights like this we can both manage to push just the right buttons to annoy and hurt one another completely – and that’s not supposed to be the way it is with the one you love, is it?! We can’t think of a suitable yet not hideously expensive way to celebrate, and this evening Steve just suggested that we put it off for a bit.

Well, I’m cross with him on a number of counts, I don’t feel like being romantic, he probably feels much the same towards me, and we can’t afford to do much anyway. However, I have come to the conclusion that despite all this, if we believe in this marriage (and I do), then we need to put it first – so whatever happens between now and then, I’m keeping Friday night free, and I’m hoping Steve will too. Soppy and romantic it’s not, love is a decision I have to keep making when the going gets tough. Honest and in the public arena – yes, because then I can be held accountable and not hide behind some blog-facade or other.

Of course, if he sorts himself out, apologises profusely, confesses his undying love, and buys me a huge bunch of flowers, all will be forgiven, we can make mad passionate love all night and everything will be hunky dory