Once in a blue moon

We went out to gaze at the moon. We tried to howl at it, which turned out to be harder than I thought. When the moon is 100% full it is as if it is bursting in its roundness.

Thrilled

I can't explain how thrilled I am. Yesterday a parcel arrived while I was out. H had ordered a cushion for me with a photo printed on the front as my Christmas present. It is lovely.

Waiting for more snow

The forecast says we will have snow tonight. So today I will stock up on the food which gets eaten fastest in our house.

I had an idea about how to clear snow paths: lay down old cardboard in a line as it starts to snow, then pick it up once it has stopped. I can't see a problem with that. The gravel would be protected and then form a snow free path for us to walk along. I can't wait now!

I'll run this idea past the children to see what they think.

Advent Calendar 24 - Confused by Mah-Jong

We have worked out a very simple version of Mah-Jong, and even that is a bit too complex for our Christmas brains. The pieces make a lovely clacking sound as we stir them round on the table.

Advent Calendar 22 - Snow All Around

Mmm, it is just lovely in our village. I walked round in the evening so I could post some cards to my family.

The bend in the road by the Cross was covered in ice.The dog drinking bowl outside our pub was frozen over. Earlier in the day I did some stone bashing and boiling water tipping to break thick ice for the birds.

There is such a sense of peace and quiet. It is literally a silent night out there.

Obviously there is anxiety at the risks of falling over and of finding ourselves needing to drive and having problems, but for the moment we are stocked up with essentials and some very non-essential extras!!

Is anybody there, said the listener, knocking at the moonlit door

Please can brave visitors put a "Merry Christmas" in the comments box. I'm feeling a bit curious about who is crossing my threshold. Mind you I hardly ever put comments in other people's blogs unless I feel I have something helpful to write, so I can hardly talk!

An early Merry Christmas to one and all.

Advent 13 - Lights

We have beautiful twinkling deep blue lights around our front door.

Last night I realised around midnight that they were doing a slow flashing pattern which would drive me nuts if I lived opposite us, so I rootled around until I was able to find the plug and switch it off for the night.

It is lovely, but I will be switching them off at 9 or 10pm each night from now on!

Learning

I really like this post at:

http://www.marcprensky.com/blog/archives/000050.html

My children are busy online at this moment. We have no parental controls on the web in our house. My older son IS the techdesk! I say that I am the parent and will intervene for them if they get stuck on any website with some wierdo. We have the medium settings at the moment on Google, I think...mainly to keep the results predictable in a good way.

All the books in our house are available to them. They may buy any paper freely should they wish to. I have the right to be shocked if I want to, but getting knowledge and questioning is their job.

Advent Calendar 6 - Nativity Play

Good - I went to see the children's service and nativity in the next village.
Good - T and H went out and about taking photos in that village while I was busy.

Bad - Why do present discussions get me so riled?
Bad - Coffee keeps me up til 5am, if I had known I would have had another tomato juice.
Bad - A second present discussion went *badly*.

Good - Lots of paths for stomping along round here.
Good - Nice phone call with my parents.
Good - I did listen to a lot of soothing Radio 2 last night, I was one of the 3.46 (am) club.
Good - T and H are out at the cinema.

Advent Calendar 5 - Dinner Party

We had a change of plans last night and found ourselves with 4 boys round the table tucking into pizzas and having some lovely chat.

After that we used all the spare sparklers from 5th November. They burnt quite a few matches too, plus the plastic wrappers. I made comments/squeaks like 'watch your fingers' and 'keep it away from his hair' and they had a great time.

I cleared up the debris from the grass today in the day light. I love parties!

Advent Calendar 3: The Gateway

At our gateway there are some convenient tall stems of a shrub. I have hung a silver star and a beautiful Christmas tree bauble from them.

Since it is customary to put pumpkins out by the gate on Halloween I thought it might be fun to experiment with something Christmassy.

Advent calendar 2: The Crib

I put the crib up today. I like my 3 kings so they are there too.

There isn't an Advent Calendar 1, I just started this idea today!

Skyscrapers and Whales

Recently H and I were chatting and I somehow recalled one of the first library books I got out for him after I started home educating.

One was a beautiful book of 100 tallest skyscrapers. The photos were lovely, far more lovely than I had expected and their names were far more varied too. I sat there reading out name after name, city after city, going round the world with it. H had enough after a few, naturally!

Another was all about British wild animals and fish. There were so many whales, I had no idea. That book came with me while I waited in the station car park for T, coming home from his school each day. Again, H didn't need too much of that book either :)

Quite often I thank H for this opportunity to be at home and to be able to read and read. I never expected to have this time with him and on my own when he is busy with other things. I explain that I don't know how long it will last because when he decides he wants to head off to classes here, there and everywhere, or some special sport, then my life will change again.

Candles

T is doing fire experiments and taking photos at the table. The fact that I can supervise while looking in the other direction and while blogging shows how different 14 is from say 10. I am in the room though! There is a bowl of water as a safety device, but T set it up before I had time to go through my standard fire warnings.

It reminds me of one of the first projects H and did after deregistering nearly 2 years ago, a life time away. We took the old scraggy candles I had in the back of a cupboard and wanted to throw away. Instead we burnt them down to wax ponds in my old serving dishes. We sat doing this outside in the cold garden, huddled up to the metal garden table.

We sat and watched the wax run down and we poked the soft walls of the candles. We destroyed all of them, one by one! We took all the time in the world and just played at messing around with candles. Happy memories.

Really of course I was discovering what processing unexpressed anguish feels like and how long it takes, but the mechanics were grey afternoons outdoors with those hideous candles from the back of my laundry room.

Progress

It has just dawned on me how being in the system relieved me unwittingly of the need to follow and really track the children's progress once they were in pre-school and primary school.

I trusted the schools completely. I assumed they knew better. I felt as if I were expected to leave them to it. I assumed I should pay attention to going back to some sort of work and no longer be primarily a mother. So I took my eye right off the ball. I tried to develop myself...train for other activities, when my primary activity was right under my nose.

Now I realise that tracking how each child is doing healthwise, academically and in other ways is just part and parcel of parenting. I cannot pass the buck to a school, even if the system assumes that I must. Nor can I assume that paying taxes or fees means that all issues are automatically dealt with. It would be nice and most issues are covered, but with the best will in the world the parent still has to step in as soon as there is a problem.

Caveat emptor (buyer beware) simply means keep your head screwed on in *all* aspects of your life.

Maybe one day I will be able to do the parenting bit with ease and have brain space to do other things too, but I'm not there yet and can't afford to drop the spinning plates that are children.

Song of Roland

Looking at the Saracen forces:

'Oliver's climbed a hill above the plain,
Whence he can look on all the land of Spain,
And see how vast the Saracen array;
All those bright helms with gold and jewels gay,
And all those shields, those coats of burnished mail;
And all those lances from which the pennons wave;
Even their squadrons defy all estimate,
He cannot count them, their numbers are so great;
Stout as he is, he's mightily dismayed.
He hastens down as swiftly as he may,
Comes to the French and tells them all his tale.'

Prayers before battle:

Then to their side comes the Archbishop Turpin,
Riding his horse and up the hillside spurring.
He calls the French and preaches them a sermon:
"Barons, my lords, Charles picked us for this purpose;
We must be ready to die in our King's service.
Christendom needs you, so help us to preserve it.
Battle you'll have, of that you may be certain,
Here come the Paynims - your own eyes have observed them.
Now beat your breasts and ask God for His mercy:
I will absolve you and set your souls in surety.
If you should die, blest martyrdom's your guerdon;
You'll sit on high in paradise eternal."
The French alight and all kneel down in worship;
God's shrift and blessing the Archbishp conferreth,
And for their penance he bids them all strike firmly.

The French rise up and on their feet stand close;
All of their sins are shriven and made whole,
And the Archbishop God's blessing has bestowed.
Then on swift steeds they leap to saddlebow.
Armed with the arms prescribed by knightly code;
All are now ready into the field to go.

Where is he? Teen Thursday

A bit earlier I realised T wasn't in the house. I guessed he had gone out taking photos, but was a bit embarrassed that I didn't know how long he had been out in the dark for. Or for certain what he was wearing, or what he had with him.

He has just come in with cold feet, a big smile and lots of photos. He agreed with my idea that I put a note up on the door with blutack so he can move it somewhere obvious as he goes out. Telling me would be better, but hey!

Finding Opportunities

I needed to find a way to phone my mother without being interrupted.

So I go out into the garden with my mobile and sit there in my coat.

Success! Relief!

Wordless Wednesday

Draft

I am surprised and pleased by my efforts this evening. I decided to do a first draft of a monthly review, starting with October 2009. If it is useful I will be able to send a copy to the LA inspector as I like to deal in writing with the LA now. It is really to reassure myself and to allow me to spot any big gaps in provision.

I looked in my appointments diary, the weekly book of conversations/tv programmes/outings etc, a daily diary log looking at specific issues I want to track, my nature observations diary and this blog. It was only by looking in all these places that I found notes of most of what happened in October. So many items only appeared in one place.

What I had thought would be much less than one side of A4 will now fill it nicely. We have visited so many topics I have had to think of new headings. History needs a current affairs section. Maths leads on nicely into economics. There are so many entries for PHSE. Adult life needs separate Medical and Cooking sections, or should those go under science! Social leads on into pure fun, which definitely deserves a mention.

Facebook - Act I

Not anything to do with Home Education. What do you do when you are facebook friends with your children? They get to see all sorts of messages from my mum friends, not all in terribly good taste. And the other way round, my dear relatives get to see tasteless comments from my offspring if they have a look at my wall.

I have ticked off each of my sons once via a comment after some mis-spellings of swearing (double whammy). I have now promised I will not 'see' anything I might be annoyed by in future. We have sort of agreed that if any of us defriends the other it's just part of facebook and we have the perfect right to defriend whoever we want. All very mature so far.

Let's wait for Act II.

The Moon

Well, I love the full moon because it is so round and lights up the house at night.

Earlier I suggested a sit on the bench outside to the children, but it's too much like middle aged nature worship for them.

I'll just have to go out there by myself.......

It is very still out there, just the ringing of the bells for 11 0'clock. There is a breath of wind, colder than before, but the trees aren't moving. The moon is burning through a thin layer of cloud. I felt very transitory sitting on a door step which will probably be there in 50 year's time.

Taking photos

We went off to take photos today. I'll add some when I can. It was such a good feeling to be asked to get into the car and just go to somewhere photogenic.

The children have discovered the joys of going to playgrounds to lark around and take pictures of each other. We swap cameras/mobiles and snap away. I hold onto the kit when they need both hands for climbing.

It means being outside so I get some nature observation time too, ie touching sticky leaf buds on low tree branches and peering at nettle flowers. I had no idea they flowered until so late in the year.

It made a good contrast to my filthy temper of yesterday :)

Not good

For an autonomous home educator I can rant and rave about handwriting and spelling with the best of them. I well and truly turned into a mum from hell today.

All those awful phrases came out. The ones you know about because you have used them in anger and fury when you are fed up of not being able to easily impress the family and friends with neatly written letters or lap books.

To be fair I only suggested one word of handwriting practice per day, ie copywork. I even said it could be their own names, which they started writing at pre-school. Eye roll. This is regressing by 8 and 10 years!

Oh the arguments ran on and on, upstairs, downstairs....

Private schooling, state village schooling, they said that if with all those years of school their writing wasn't very good then so be it. I said that meant it was now MY turn to impose decent handwriting on them. That stumped them.

Confess, who amongst you hasn't yet used the example of Obama and his mother as an argument for doing the school work your mother sets you? Well, today was my day for bringing that one out.

Finally they both gave me examples of fresh handwriting and I stopped roaring.

We did have a discussion about the fact that I still think my autonomous approach is best even though I can't really say why. My son explained that it was because of my approach he started saying 'I love you' to me. That is the heart of it. They told me to lie down under a duvet and stood around watching me calm down. I felt a bit of a twit after that and couldn't help smiling.

Change

I am using this as a starting point for reflection.

1. My older son has a work experience week next June. So we have been discussing ideas. I approached one local company on his behalf. The answer was no, but I'm glad I asked them. Then my son had a second idea, I approached them with an email, and lo and behold, the answer is yes. I am over the moon. We need to do a careful follow up to confirm things with them and with my son's school, so everyone knows what the position is.

What a change that is, thinking about the world of adults, work and business.

2. My younger son astounded me 2 nights ago by asking to do some maths right there and then. I zipped down stairs to my maths HE shelf, took the appropriate year book plus an exercise book I had free, then whizzed back. We looked at the contents page, saw how clearly it was laid out and my son asked me to just say things when he asked, and asked me to do the writing, so I did.

Come the morning he told me he wants to do Maths O level and A level. So my next project is finding a kind maths tutor and finding out about the Maths sessions at the closest Montessori secondary school to us. The book I have is ideal though and I have the next book up too.

3. My last change has been about the old debate on age ratings. This one just won't go away. However time is on my side, on all our sides, because the children are moving inexorably towards magic 18 anyway. The change was that I used the phrase 'trust the process' with reference to my own growing slackness as a parent.

As they get older I will worry less about obeying the strict rules and will be more of a push over, but pushing me to be like this just makes me jam in my toes! So I am advising my younger son in all seriousness to back off and let me get more relaxed as a parent in my own time. He has, so I think he can recognise a universal truth when he sees one!

LAN party

We loaded up the car with 2 computers, plus all the extras. There was a one hour set up period, then the lights were altered to be more party-ish and Guitar Hero was turned on.

It was such a good experience, calm, fun, chilled, relaxed, silly. There were some parents there too, mainly fathers, for the whole evening. The age range was 8? up to 20ish?, plus parents. There were some girls there too. They played with each other more, laughing and joking, lovely to see, that little bit different from how the boys interact, but all in the same room together, getting what they wanted out of it.

There was a pizza and garlic bread supper at half way, but people took their own sweets if they wanted, so it wasn't regimented at all. I drove off to get some crisps my children wanted half way through.

Someone I knew from years ago was there too and for the last 2 hours I found a corner to sit in and read my book with a cup of coffee beside me!

People took their systems apart around 11pm, all very calm. We were busy at home afterwards setting up the systems again. Amazing...no cables were lost, nothing was damaged, no drink spilt on anything. I'm still on a bit of a high after all that.

Thumping Bass

Yes, the ceiling above my head is almost moving! Our household has well and truly moved into the teenage years of music, games, computers etc. One person wears headphones and the other likes a room full of noise. I'm like that too, so I can't complain.

I actually asked H if he'd consider bringing his music and speakers down here so the kitchen would be more fun.

A Midsumer-Night's Dream

'The raging rocks
And shivering shocks
Shall break the locks
Of prison gates;
And Phibbus' car
Shall shine from far,
And make and mar
The foolish Fates.'

This is what I love about choosing to read the Shakespeare play listed for each term. Slowly, in my own time, I discover what has been on my shelf for decades, just there, funny bits, shocking bits, single words used with meanings I had forgotten about. Even the print is frail, some of the letters must have been a tiny bit worn when they were type set, so they have not picked up the ink evenly.

B is for Birthday

My son H doesn't like his biological birthday, so a couple of years ago he appointed 12th October as his official birthday. This took some getting used to. I was worried that come his bio birthday he would be unhappy at not getting a present from me. Anyway we managed to divide up into the people who agreed to go along with it and those like me who preferred to give a present on the anniversary of his birth.

This time I was more content with the idea and while he was asleep went into his room to attach a big Happy Birthday banner right across the walls. I made a little heap of presents and cards too.

When I woke him in the morning he smiled the largest smile ever, a wonderful beam of joy and surprise on seeing the banner.

All netted out

I will have an internet free day tomorrow.

All week I have been following what has been happening at the Select Committee and the Lobby to Parliament. Apart from a crash introduction to exam invigilating on Monday, when my coughing older son was determined to do his maths mock gcse at the same time as his classmates were doing it at school.

Wow, teachers have to cope with a lot, I was so nervous, printed off a second copy, just in case, got a calm book to read during it, went to the loo beforehand, read the instructions loads of times, had a drink first so I wouldn't be drinking in front of him, didn't know whether to look at the worker or not....copied it carefully afterwards, mailed it off straightaway, heaved huge sigh of relief.

Over the weekend I need to complete my response to the Consultation. I want to have proper notes so I can rewrite it and resubmit if the link doesn't work. Just in case...

It's hard to find that balance between paying attention to all this and being available to chat and enjoy being at home with my son. Every so often he asks me if we 'have won' yet. I was able to tell him with joy about the video of passing traffic hooting their support in Westminster on Tuesday.

Overwhelmed

Does anyone else get that overwhelmed feeling when contemplating all the languages yet to learn, parts of history yet to find out about, etc?

It is only slowly dawning on me how many states there are in the USA and how varied and ancient they are.

Am I ever going to learn Hebrew, Arabic, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, more Ancient Greek?? What about Welsh and Persian?

I think I will go and shuffle (reorganise) the history section of our home ed library into chronological order.

The children don't seem to get this feeling, they simply immerse themselves in whatever takes their fancy. Why don't they worry about this sort of thing?

Escaping Worms

My mother's wormery needs to be rejigged because the worms are escaping.

I spend a bit of time each day browsing the links at the side of the blogs I follow, so I knew I had read an entry all about exactly this problem. Within a few minutes I had found the blog entry and was able to point her in the right direction.

So those minutes/hours surfing are worth it!!!

Book Medicine

I went on a mercy mission to my favourite book shop. T asked for the latest Cherub book and the latest Terry Pratchett. He read the Cherub one this afternoon and is whizzing through the Pratchett as I write.

Someone on another blog mentioned buying books on the offchance her children would want to look at them. I used to do this when T and H were little, but have got out of the habit, feeling it was wrong to buy books they didn't like, a waste of money. When I mentioned this to T he loved the idea, so I picked up 2 unfamiliar books at the same time.

Some of the unschooling discussion lists have mentioned creating abundance in this way, not considering it a waste, but considering it a worthwhile expense to collect interesting items for the house. Even if things are not used right away thay are there and are available. I will try to spend more time in charity shops again.

Maybe it is time for me to try doing more reading out loud to H. As the younger brother he has the advantage of a house full of books for someone a little older than himself. We couldn't have planned it better.

When he was younger he demanded I read out to him every day for literally hours. Morning, noon and night. We spent a lot of time cuddled up together doing this.

Back on the flu train

T has flu again. I'm using the digital thermometer to track progress. Both ears sore this time. He is still coughing from the last bout of flu. Had only been back at school for 4 days.

Know Thyself

As T went up the stairs to bed and I asked the inevitable questions, have you brushed your teeth and done your puffer, he explained that something I had bought for him didn't suit him.

It was an experiment on my part and something I thought might be nice for his beauty routine.

I found myself telling him that that was exactly my aim in bringing him up. My overall aim is for him to know what suits him and what doesn't. It means recognising the feelings, putting them into words and knowing what it is like to be in an environment where he can openly share them.

Today H had a similar process, but with electrical equipment. It was more bumpy and lasted all yesterday as well as today. His birthday headphones had started to buzz constantly. He wanted me to return them and get a refund, he still wanted to use them, they just weren't right.

After a lot of feeling frustrated he hit on the idea that the batteries might be worn out. He took them out, asked me for rechargeable ones, fitted them in, tried them for a while, hit on the idea that they might have had hardly any charge when they came out of the packet, let me charge them up again, tried them out, then set up a system for having 2 on charge in his room while he wears out the other 2. Happiness all round.

So 'know thyself' involves a search for truth at all levels and can be easy or difficult. There is a feeling of rightness when it is found.

The Swing

H and I have chats while he is on the swing. The school next door to us has a very annoying security light which flashes on and off all night. It is now a very valuable and useful night time light for us because the swing is right next to it.

Last night's discussion touched on maths. I want to buy maths text books and he explained carefully to me that he likes autonomous education. So I counter explained that my plan was to have a well stocked maths shelf which he could ignore or read privately when I am not around.

I think he can spot mission creep a mile off. I very much hope my mission is not about to creep and the books will not turn into weapons in a household maths war.

the dead parrot sketch

oh my goodness this is from 1972 and is wonderful

this bird is no more

this is a late parrot

the children are glued

Free Food Friday

My mother in law brought us 2 doughnuts with icing faces on them.

I gave a friend 2 strawberries before she rushed off to do more errands.

My son T gave a sweet to his brother H.

The village had a harvest supper, we were given extra chocolates at the end, yum.

Giving and receiving rather than foraging this week.

Duty Doctor

I had a call back from the duty doctor today to discuss T's chest infection. All I needed to know was what to look for if it was getting worse and whether to take him to be listened to with a stethescope. It sounds like there is no need for antibiotics and time + rest will cure this.

The discussion took about 3 minutes and I learned just enough for today's duties as a mother/nurse. If I need to know more I can google and I can call for NHS expertise by phone anytime day or night.

Now I need to spend some more time with H. He is well, but being very patient about being ignored. I have forgotten how mentally and physically tiring it is looking after an ill child. The rest of the household is on the back burner. Tax return, tree surgery work, a little cousin's birthday tomorrow....all unattended to because they are lower priority at the moment. I think my mind processes are slightly off kilter too.

Boast Boast Boast

In the last half hour H and I have discussed rebuilding an old outhouse and the falling down shed added on to our garage years ago.

Then, miracle of miracles, he asked his brother T for tips on a course to learn soldering, T replied that he could show him. Followed by asking T for help at the weekend with taking apart his own computer and then putting it back together again.

This works, this really does!

Sign here please

As of this afternoon there are 3552 signatures on the petition.

Brilliant.

Let's get it higher still, by clicking.

If you don't want to, just have fun by checking in every so often to see the number of signatures rise.

Joy

Joy was a beautiful hour this afternoon.

T has been stricken with flu, but at 10am this morning I went in again to see him and he had changed from a roasting, motionless, grey faced person to a smiling, laptopping, got out of bed for one tiny trip to the kitchen person.

H and I shared one sofa and one duvet while T sat in state with a whole heap of pillows and a good book. Our next door neighbour's black cat came to visit. She sat down and purred with us. Until now I have been zipping around between T and H, keeping H separate so he wouldn't get flu too.

It is so special to be able to all be together and have peaceful time. I got up from time to time to deliver cups of milk and pizza slices, the way you do! I did some laundry in between times, then went back to the sofa and our wandering conversations!

EHE Guidelines 2007

Here is my link to these important guidelines. This is like an Easter egg hunt, only it is for real.

Oddly they seem to have been removed from the DCSF website. So the Home Ed community is busy ensuring the Guidelines are still available for reference by anyone who needs them.

People who need them:

Parents
Voters
Members of the Select committee which will soon be looking into the Badman Review
MPs
Lords
Interested individuals following these events from overseas
Me, as they are relevant to what I am doing right now as a Home Educating parent

and of course the many Local Authorities.

Destroying books or data is a very, very serious matter. Controlling what is available on the internet is clearly an issue of huge importance.

As far as I know the 2007 guidelines are in force. So why would they be removed? And by whom?

New words

I only know when my sons have picked up new words when they pronounce them wrongly. That means they have never heard someone say them. If they have picked up the pronounciation correctly then the only way I know is if I 'know' I have never heard them use the word before.

The other problem comes when they use a new word when I am not right there to hear it!! Then I won't ever know. It will never be documented on my weekly HE book of pride (only good things go in there) and worse, the LA will never know.

But the new words are picked up, learnt and used whether I observe the process or not. What is a home ed mum to do????? What is an LA inspector to do???????

Chuckle happily to ourselves about the mysterious and wonderful ways of growing up.

Trees

We went out collecting conkers, beech nuts and sycamore seeds. Then we put lovely dark compost in some pots and planted lots of trees for the future.

Now the pots are settled in a special place in the garden and H is watering them each day.

I have decided to just sit when I am with H rather than just sit with a laptop on my knee. What a big difference this makes. The power of patient attention. I like to have a hot cup of tea in my hand at the same time. I can't remember such a successful day for ages and ages. Today H doesn't need me so much, so I am here on my blog.

Why don't mothers like me have this level of ability to just be when the children are really little? Why did nature plan it so badly that I am only beginning to have the talents I need as a mother over a decade into the job?

Badman

Oh, I don't know where to start..... the misrepresentation of facts, the twisting of words, the comment that 'most of my recommendations have not been challenged', the sheer, jaw-dropping arrogance of a man asking LA workers, who *we* pay for via our taxes, to find data to support his assertions.

Well, Mr Badman, if you are reading this, I do challenge most of your recommendations. If anything your words have put fire in my belly to get on with writing to my MP and keep up the fight. Your efforts are doing more to bring us home educators together than you really planned :)

Fellow home educators, I have found several more Home Ed blogs to add to my long list of links on the right of the screen. Please read them and get inspiration.

Nature

Lovely surprise mushrooms. Why do mushrooms grow in different places each time? I had never expected to find them here! This is a patch of gravel at the front of the house where there is a bench to sit on and lots of grape hyacinth.
Here is its brother. There is a third one, but putting that up might be overkill. Each one has a different shape. I can see why people talk to plants, or rather sit and listen in silence to them.
I prune my roses hard after flowering, and now I am getting a second set of flowers in the year. This is the very first bud of the autumn.
These wild courgette flowers are so large. The yellow is much brighter than the photo shows. It is such an act of faith or foolishness to produce these beautiful flowers late in the year. The bees and wasps seem to have gone already.

Will this work?

Bear behaving badly

I love this, we have little sessions of watching the after school tv programs. The nice thing is that we are not tired and stressed, so the uber activity of the programs isn't too much of a problem.

Book List

I am starting a list of books I come across which involve home educated children.

1. A Child Alone, The Memoirs of 'BB' - by D J Watkins-Pitchford

Born in 1905, educated at home by his father and others, followed many country pursuits, rode a lot, draw a lot. Left home to go to art college, joined the Territorials (horse artillery), then taught at Rugby School. The book is illustrated by the author. Published 1978 by Michael Joseph, London.

to be continued...

More Maths..kettle and toast

How long does it take to boil a kettle of water?

My guess right now is 3.5 minutes.

And how long for toast to toast to the way H likes it, brown, but not burnt.

Hmm, maybe 2.5 minutes.

Interactive maths post

Square root of 4981 is 70.9, H's guess.

Competition time, please put the right answer in the comments box!

What interferes with Home Education?

I am in two minds about this. Over the past couple of days home ed has not been working, but the reason it has not been working is in fact the reason why it does over the longer term.

Life happens, my friend has needed me and I have wanted to be there to help out in ways I can, with her cat and by bringing T to fix her computer. T has gone back to school into year 10 and I am concentrating on bonding with/telling the support teachers what to do.

The result of that has been huge tiredness, exhaustion, lack of attention to H, meal provision has gone out of the window and my hip and arm are hurting again. I was so tired I couldn't drop off to sleep until after 2am.

However.....getting back into a calmer way of life, getting back in synch with each other, making nice toast with butter and H's favourite strawberry jam, having discussions about 'what is the meaning of life?' (seriously, this is how lots of our chats start off) is how home ed is re-established.

Without the ups and downs there wouldn't be much to discuss! I'd rather not have the ups and downs though. What I'm getting to is that the ups and downs are real, not fabricated by me to teach H about real life, they *are* real life. What happens is grist to our mill, that is what we discuss.

Pool

Our pool table turned quickly into a place I put things on. Today my brother came to visit so we cleared it off and he beat me.

So I really want to improve my aim and my control over the amount of force I use. I also want to learn what angles to use to make the ball go off at an angle to roll sweetly into the pocket.

H isn't particularly interested by pool yet. Maybe we need to make up a non-standard version which is exciting enough for us to both play and enjoy. T has studied it carefully over a year of lunchbreaks.

I look forward to seeing my parents having a go!!

Really sad

My friend's dear little black cat has been killed in a car accident today. She loved her so much and was so happy when she literally walked into her garden and house. Pucci wanted to live with my friend and made her so happy.

RIP Pucci
xx

Being mugged or hugged?

H is in a very huggy mood, so we are doing a lot of that. It's part of his plan to encourage me to get a new pet cat.

Reading books

I am trying to relax when I read a book I don't agree with 100%. Even if the style of writing implies that I the reader also think the same way as the writer, I have free will and an ability to simply see that and just take what I need from the text.

I do find it mentally tiring to be reading with that sort of detachment. It is so much easier to read and agree with everything. Then I have the feeling of being understood, which is always nice!

Since starting to home educate I have had to engage with authors in several different fields, while engaging with the issues in real life at the same time. Assessing a whole field and learning the vocabulary at the same time is hard work. Within each field there are a range of approaches. Judging these for real, not just as a university level academic exercise, is what mums do.

Sometimes I want a holiday from the responsibility and the worries. Now I am 45 I can see that many adults do not know the answers and haven't the grace to simply say so. Interacting with anxious adults who feel they want to tell me what to do is a real old waste of my precious time and sanity. Not in a good mood at the moment!

Red Dwarf + Mock the Week + Qi

I love the guy with the fangs, and the plastic headed, slanty headed man.

The rest of the evening is going to be spent camping in H's room with channel Dave, the best medicine for feeling out of sorts. We are all sitting in a row with therapeutic crisps etc.

We even had a power cut earlier, my fault entirely because our tumbler keeps on fusing and I keep on using it! It was fun, we lit the tea light candles inside the ironwork lanterns I had bought for fun/HE purposes and were about to have an old fashioned evening of chatting in the flickering candle light. Then we realised that all our neighbours had power, so that was the end of that.

Photo and a questionnaire

Photo of me, the question master.

Questionnaire for H

1. Smells H hates: lunch box, dirty and horrid smells, hair gel, apple, fruit.
2. Smells H likes: nice, new stuff.

3. Music H hates: rock, rap.
4. Music H loves: anything really nice.

5. Surfaces/touches H hates: anything dirty or disgusting, bugs, flies.
6. Surfaces/touches H likes: stuff that I like, things that are new.

7. Likes to look at: things that are mine and that I use and respect.
8. Doesn't like to look at: ?

New term

I am doing a lot of thinking about all those going into new classes and schools this week.

When T joined his secondary school I got from somewhere an idea that a new demanding start for him automatically meant time for a new demanding start for me.

I started Friday night swimming classes and I certainly had no plan to take life at a slower pace. I thought that as the children got older I needed to speed up and take my proper place in society.

Life got in the way and I have spent the last 3 years learning how to slow right down the hard way.

So to anyone thinking that the first year of their first child going to secondary school is the time to start evening classes, a new demanding job......It might well be the time, but it might not be....just saying!

The black sheep and a foal

In our village there is a plot with hens running on it. Recently a new carer took over who has put 3 sheep there too.

This evening I started to walk past the plot and one of the sheep literally ran over to sniff me and say hallo. I found myself making noises to him, the sort I make to a cat. I have no idea how to talk to sheep! Then he went off and scampered to be with the others again.

Last night I walked past a paddock with a mother horse and her foal. A fierce notice said 'no feeding, petting or calling the horses' so I just stood there at a distance from the fence.

Soon enough the foal came over and spent some time looking at me and trying to eat the electric fence ribbon, which can't have been switched on!

The mare looked rather big and heavy in the belly, pregnant again maybe? Or maybe horses just are pretty big...

3 desks in one room

T is just visible as he rearranges the wires. Any IT person spends a lot of time crawling on the floor. You have to be good at squeezing into small spaces! This is H's work/fun/play station, see his lovely speakers and the general neatness. He likes to design and plan his environment carefully.
A little glimpse of H. The pool table is one of our educational/fun/HE investments for over the summer. Since taking this photo it has become a work bench for one of the computer cases and had some coke tipped over it.

T and H moved the desks over so the pool table could be that bit further from the glass window. I have had to have quite a few panes replaced over the years, but maybe those days are over.
This shows how happy I am to be back behind a desk. From my place I can peek through at H. T wants me to put up postcards etc and make myself at home! I think I will start with a bin. We have needed a place for rechargeable batteries for years, so I will be the charging champion and keep the chargers beside me.

I can't wait for the Christmas season, we can put up tinsel and a tree and have the whole office atmosphere without the boss and phone calls.

We have just decided that I will be in charge of the office fridge. T says I will have to get rid of the horrors inside it!! Oh well, I'm a mum and we are good at that sort of thing.
If I hold my camera up I can take pictures of T and H while they are busy. We don't talk that much...apart from when we do. The noise level in here is something else. 2 different games on simultaneously.

Flinging

I'm in a real mood for flinging out old stuff. 3 black bags of broken bits and pieces are now down on the ground floor.

I looked through a small portion of my book collection and decided on a good dozen books to take to our village shop to be sold alongside the bubblegum and bubblewrap.

Next up is the bag of old papers from university and letters from a very long time ago. If I don't shed this sort of thing I'll be paying a lot of money to counsellors for progress I could have done myself with a bin bag! I'd rather take more tricky issues to my future counsellors.

I have always had a dream of taking all my possessions and putting them outside my room/house, then only taking back those items I actually wanted.

What is growing?

I thought I was putting stuff in the green boxes to compost down into earth. Then it would be put on a bed and sown with seeds. Eventually new vegetables would grow. Mother Nature is far more effective...some potato chunks have simply grown into whole plants, and today I spotted what looks like a courgette plant!
Here is a closer look at the leaves and stem of the "courgette". It has tendrils, which I don't remember, and little flower buds which do look very like mini courgette flowers.

The wasps are making hay in my peelings and the fruit flies are happy as anything. Each time I plonk a new load on top of the heap there is a cloud of angry little creatures disturbed from their munching.

Probably time to turn my heaps again and see if the compostable wrappers from the supermarket have begun to do so. I put wooden lolly sticks in there too on the basis that they must rot down eventually. I put an old sock in once wanting to see if the cotton components would melt away to just leave the nylon, but no, the sock persisted in one piece. The joys of playing with my green boxes!

Disaster

T's screens went dark after H uploaded a new game. He couldn't even reboot because nothing happened.

He told us both to go away, so we fled to leave him him in peace to work out what to do. All computer problems get solved sooner or later in this house. We stayed out of range for an hour maybe.

Calm is restored, T's screens are all back in action and life goes on. They might be built on logic, but they seem very temperamental to me.

Just now I solved a simpler problem, H had an ID and password for his email which were far too complicated to ever spell correctly. So I have re-registered him with a deadly simple ID and password so at least he has a functioning email account.

Brownian motion

T and H walking around the room debating the effects of adding more RAM to a computer. Talking, walking and thinking seem to be linked.

"I have a theory..." starts another round of discussion.

Tech fun

H received his new speakers today. They are now fully installed. Now I need to prepare for loudness limiting duties each evening. The house will do a lot of shaking from now on.

From where I am sitting all I can see is a huge tangle of wires.

Heavenly summer day

Looking up right into the branches of the big tree. When there is a storm the whole trunk moves. We cross our fingers it won't crash down into our roof and then on into T's bedroom. His bed has always been well away from the corner the tree would come through...just in case.

If the tree is well over 100 years old, think of the different conversations and games which have gone on under it over the 20th century.
Hollyhocks taller than me. My favourite plants are tall ones so that the space is taken up and they form a live wall around me. This goes for vegetables too, Fennel, leeks and gone to seed spinach/greens.
This is pretty, the brilliant green against the dark, dusty spaces by the wall. It was so overcast yesterday in comparison. Life is so different when the sun is out!
The lawn is partly shaded by the big acacia. I did some shady sun bathing, lying on the very slightly damp grass, breathing in the warm air. There is a light wind, what would be called a light air at sea.

Night time

OK, blurry in the extreme, but if you squint you can see the ETA: infinity sign at the bottom of the display. Normally it shows an ETA of anything from 1 to 7 years for whatever game they are waiting for. Crossing fingers and toes that it is relatively legal to download. Anyway T will be 21 after 7 years has passed!
I stuck my camera round the door to get this, they chat all day and the atmosphere is rather like a cheerful office. Whirling chairs and cans of coke. Leads all over the floor behind the desks. I use the bed to rest and use my laptop sometimes.

Thank you to my son T

He taught me, for the nth time, to upload photos from my mobile to my laptop.

What will I do when he decides to leave home and take his knowledge with him??

Our wireless will wilt, and no one will remember the admin passwords. We will bribe him to come and stay for a day or so to straighten us out again. He will be so fed up with us!

Within 300 yards

I like to stand by the gate and see the cattle walk over to be with me. They sniff the smells I make as a human and I sniff the smells they make as cattle. They came right over and jostled each other. I wonder why they choose to come over. We don't have much in common.
Our nearest corn field. I have an irrational wish to walk into the rows and get lost. Clearly not a good idea, even if I could find my way out by listening for the hourly church bells or looking at the sun. The plants are taller than me and the field is enormous.
Here is the top of the female part of the plant, turning into a corn cob. The red strands are called silk and are a guide to how ripe the corn is. Harvest is once they dry out.
We walked down our drive and see more of these survivors from when the wall fell down and all the old planting was dug up to make new foundations.
Arty photo of 3 sweet, then tart, blackberries. I half crushed them in my hand and got covered in "blood"...simple pleasures!
Our rowan berries. Very glossy and sturdy looking. That tree never grows any taller, just continues from year to year in that corner by the garage. A truly content tree, in the right place and at the right time. All is well in its world.

The year is turning

I went on a walk round the village after dark this evening. It was cool enough to wear a zipped up jacket. The air smelt of cut grass and had a tiny nip in it. I was buzzed by a bat. I don't hear that well, but it was remarkably still and silent, no cars, no sirens, no shouts, no-one drumming, no sheep or cattle noises at all.

1001 Nights

I have decided to simply start at the beginning and read.

This evening I was up to the Porter following his mysterious maiden through the market as she bought an eye-popping sequence of delicious things:

'she stopped at a fruiterer's shop and bought from him Shami apples and Osmani quices and Omani peaches, and cucumbers of Nile growth, and Egyptian limes and Sultani oranges and citrons; besides Aleppine jasmine, scented myrtle berries, Damascene nenuphars, flower of privet and camomile...'

'she stood before the greengrocer's, of whom she bought pickled safflower and olives, in brine and in oil; with tarragon and cream-cheese and hard Syrian cheese...'

The translator is Sir Richard Burton, who had an amazing life. The introduction says: 'He lived like one of his heroes, travelling in Goa, Equatorial Africa, Brazil, India, and the Middle East. He took part in the Crimean War. He went with J H Speke to find the source of the Nile and discovered Lake Tanganyka. He disguised himself as an Afghan dervish and doctor and went on pilgrimage to the sacred cities of Mecca and Medina - a journey where unmasking would have cost him his life.'

Rest

I think I know what is wrong with my sore hip now. Just a chronic inflammation which can be allowed to heal naturally with rest, ice, heat, massage, physio and avoidance of weightbearing and overuse.

So I have a very good reason to read great books, surf to my heart's content, watch TV, sit under a duvet with a warm hot water bottle and let my boys grow up without too much interference from me.

I can hear T and H chatting away in T's room. They each have a game they like and are playing alongside each other. Every so often they visit their grandmother next door for little bowls of sweets then come back for more playing. All I do is nag about toothbrushing and provide familiar meals.

"counting gifts is addictive"

2. So glad I'm not living under Stalin!! Just read a book on the Americans who decided to emigrate there in the 30's. Evidently he had the census takers shot when it was revealed in 1937 that the population had dropped by some staggering amount, 23,000,000.

Things I want to do in my life

Make money
Run a business
Get more contributors to my blog
Live by the sea
Live in London
Go to art school
Learn to knit, make bread...grandma stuff
Learn to cook
Have a pet cat
Collect beautiful 70's children's books
Sell board books, French, German etc
Move house to a 70's bungalow with wonderful broadband

Gentle reading

for me is The Plague by Camus. I whizzed through half of it last night. After my hip went all sore I reckoned it would take my mind off it. The plague is in China at present and my hip is right here, so much more immediate.

Anyone want a spare leg, I don't want it anymore!

Letting go

I have been forced to let go of my home education note book for the past 2 weeks because other things were more important.

The 2 weeks are not being documented in the way I usually like to, but they still happened and were full of activities and discussions. In fact, ironically, they were probably by far the most interesting weeks for months!!

So there will be a 2 week blank.

How can I explain Autonomous Home Education to the LA inspectors when I am discovering it for myself?

Recovery

My father I is doing very well. He is back home from hospital. He went to his favourite cafe this morning and was planning to go to the local library. My mother A sounds happy when I call her.

July

July means a lot water bottle warming up my feet
July means 2 dressing gowns worn at once
July means putting the heating on for an hour in the evening
July means being glad I didn't turn the Aga off

I bet tomorrow will be beautiful and summery again though!

Books, glorious books!

To help my father recover I have been scouring his bookshelves to find easy and fun things for him. So far he has been broadening his mind with:

Memoirs of a foxhunting man - Sassoon
39 steps - Buchan
Wodehouse
Hornblower - Forrester
As I walked out one midsummer morning - Lee
(the one about living in Paris) - Hemingway

"Life is a train"

Or more like a bus. My mother A and I shamelessly plonk ourselves down on the disabled seats at the front of the bus and sit there in a sort of stupor as we head back to my parents' house after the daily visit and medical crash course at the hospital.

Outside the CT scan department I sat there with my head resting on the back of the chairs, legs stretched out in front of me.

There is a soft sofa in the relatives room by my father's ward I have my eye on. I may curl up there for 5 minutes tomorrow.

Blummin home education, I can't shut up my mind. I am learning about pneumonia, oxygen saturation, oxygen bottles, little pipes to attach this to that, even the names of the medical staff. Debates about morphine levels and anaesthetic gels and other stuff I won't put on here. Learning the pace of a gentle recovery with its fits and starts.

No idea what is going on with T and H off at Centreparcs. No news is good news :)

Anyway our train is visiting all sorts of great places like the lifts, the concourse, georgeous Carluccios opposite the Hopsital, a bookshop to get into debt in, 2nd hand clothes shops, fruit and veg market at the end of our street, all the different taxi routes to the hospital.

I love seeing the newborns carried and cherished right in the middle of the emotion and bustle of everything. Other people stare too, eating them with their gaze.

I spend my life saying 'bless you' silently to each person in a wheelchair or on a trolley, and all the hugely pregnant women coming in for their checks.

I have come to realise that my mother's time off happens while she immerses herself in the newspaper, while mine happens at the screen or channel hopping/big brother watching.

Hospital

My father I is in the Chelsea and Westminster hospital after an emergency appendix operation. I have come to stay with my mother A to help out. We make food in the morning, go over what symptoms we are concerned about and take food with us in the afternoon. We see the cycles of alertness and tiredness and are getting to know the staff and other patients.

As always happens there are other family events causing all sorts of emotions at exactly the same time. Also big plans for an event in Scotland which is *very important* and requires family members to wear special formal clothing.

And, as also always happens, awkward questions about why this? and why that? to do with my children T and H. So my energy levels slump further. Mind you reading other people's blogs is such a treat, those beautiful photos, those glimpses of loveliness and order and experimentation. Familiar voices in words.

Graciousness has deserted me, I do a nodding dog impression to stave off critical conversations and still land up in fearsome rows. Yesterday's was about suggesting to a relative that she wear a seat belt in the back seat of a car.

Without the reassurance and good humour from my children T and H family life becomes more threatening and alarming.

This is where a pet cat comes in handy, they purr, eat food and walk by themselves. Best of all they have no unrealistic expectations at all. And there is no cat here or at home either. We watered the tomato plants on the balcony, next best thing I suppose.

I'm sure living in a convent/monastery is like this all the time, constant waves of those parts of life you just can't escape.

Anyway my father's tired smile is bright and lovely.

All kind comments gratefully received.

Different reactions to strewing

Yesterday I realised that I do strew something interesting and new each day for the children.

The difference between my two children is that H glances for half a second at the new thing and in that tiny space of time takes in all he wants to about the item.

Any attempt to encourage him to engage further is met with a no and persistent encouragement leads to irritation and swearing, at which point even the stupidest parent backs off.

T on the other hand generally looks and touches and chats with me about the item for up to 5 minutes.

Now I have spotted the different reactions I can regard each one as a success. Maybe I will go back to noting down each strewing in my home education log.

Funeral pyres and barrows

Here is the last section of Beowulf in Seamus Heaney's translation, wonderful...

The Geat people built a pyre for Beowulf,
stacked and decked it until it stood four-square,
hung with helmets, heavy war-shields
and shining armour, just as he had ordered.

Then his warriors laid him in the middle of it,
mourning a lord far-famed and beloved.

On a height they kindled the hugest of all
funeral fires; fumes of woodsmoke
billowed darkly up, the blaze roared
and drowned out their weeping, wind died down
and flames wrought havoc in the hot bone-house,
burning it to the core. They were disconsolate
and wailed aloud for their lord's decease.

A Geat woman too sang out in grief;
with hair bound up, she unburdened herself
of her worst fears, a wild litany
of nightmare and lament: her nation invaded,
enemies on the rampage, bodies in piles,
slavery and abasement. Heaven swallowed the smoke.

Then the Geat people began to construct
a mound on a headland, high and imposing,
a marker that sailors could see from far away,
and in ten days they had done the work.

It was their hero's memorial; what remained from the fire
they housed inside it, behind a wall
as worthy of him as their workmanship could make it.

And they buried torques in the barrow, and jewels
and a trove of such things as trespassing men
had once dared to drag from the hoard.

They let the ground keep that ancestral treasure,
gold under gravel, gone to earth,
as useless to men now as it ever was.

Then twelve warriors rode around the tomb,
chieftain's sons, champions in battle,
all of them distraught, chanting in dirges,
mourning his loss as a man and a king.

They extolled his heroic nature and exploits
and gave thanks for his greatness; which was the proper thing,
for a man should praise a prince whom he holds dear
and cherish his memory when that moment comes
when he has to be conveyed from his bodily home.

So the Geat people, his hearth companions,
sorrowed for the lord who had been laid low.

They said that of all the kings upon the earth
he was the man most gracious and fair-minded,
kindest to his people and keenest to win fame.

(those are the last lines of the poem, long but worth it)
(Beowulf was part of the Geat nation/people, somewhere near Denmark)

When Mummy is 60

I'll be 26 when you are 60.

36..70
46..80
56..90 or dead
66..100 or dead lol

Reading aloud

I have just been reading a post about how much a mother has to read aloud to her children when they are little. Charlotte Mason writes about this and some of the mothers online were discussing it.

I used to have to read to H from as soon as he woke up to when he went to sleep for a while. It really was all day, he just wanted to be on my knee and hearing all those stories. I got away for little bits of time to do other things, but only just.

At the time I would never have believed that the reading out days would stop. But they have. The last books H wanted read out were the Cherub books plus a bit of Casino Royale. I had to use my well-honed censoring skills, skimming a little bit ahead so I could miss out the worst vocabulary of these books. Little good it has done me as they know all the bad language anyway!! At least I tried.

T had a stage of needing me to read his science encyclopedia out to him, paragraphs about electric circuits and so on. That was the last he wanted read out. I didn't get to read out Harry Potter because he read it himself.

I managed to read out a random chunk of the Bible a while back. I wanted to prove to them that it includes every variety of bad behaviour. The bit I opened it at proved the point very well!

One month on from the Badman Review

I am tired by it all, but I shall read on and spend precious hours on the net taking in more and more information.

So far I have learned about Early Day Motions, the conventions about who to write to, TheyWorkForYou web site, Hansard (addictive!) and the feel of a diverse community pulling together.

I am sleeping better again. I have a Badman file and a pen beside the laptop. I no longer read emails in bed before I go to sleep. So I am in charge of my life again.

Just like the old days

I have a house full of children.

They were wrestling on the trampoline/having a cage match,

then drank drinks and ate biscuits,

then more wrestling and discussions about having a bonfire another time,

renovated the bonfire square,

did hide and seek all round the house,

now all in one room playing on ps3/chatting,

next to the kitchen for pizza.

Nice :)

(It all ended in tears though...I shall find out more later)

Inspired by Phyllis in Ukraine

She is on a very high number of lovely things to give thanks for. I will start at 1 and see how far I get.

1. The red poppies glowing in the meadow on the South side of the Fair Mile into Henley today. I could see each one in a way I have never experienced before.

Wonderful Wildlife

Multi Coloured Asian Ladybird

We have loads of these, one on each leaf of the tree outside our back door. They are turning into ladybirds. I had thought they were caterpillars!!

Crickets

I spotted one on our bookshelves last night. I caught it in between my palms, carried it outside while it bounced around inside the space I made for it, then it hopped away across the gravel once I had released it.

Many thanks to Hagbourne Wildlife for posting about these.

Unusual bird

I saw a couple of little birds with vivid colouring at the other end of the village.

End of Term

Now it is the end of term there is a chance for our timetable to synchronise again. H gets up late usually, but T has to get up at 6.30am in term time.

So in a few days T and H and I will have moved onto holiday standard time of going to bed late and sleeping very well, then geting up late. It makes life a lot easier and more relaxing for me and more fun for T and H.

COD4 - General comments from me

Wet Work

Look at that rocket up in the cloudy night sky. The graphics are still fabulous. The light is so intense, the rain comes pouring down, even the containers are hyper-realistic. I love getting glimpses of the sea.

Classes

Unstopable
Ninja got ya
Nerdragespecial
Aids Inducer

Showdown

Now we are back in Baghdad. The sunshine is so bright and the shadows so clear. The statue of Saddam Hussein is standing in the middle of a rather formal square of buildings with what look like medieval stone arcades. The flags flap permanently in the breeze.

H had a nice clan tag which looked like this: [o+<]

"Shot guns are the funnest, but the worst guns in the game. And ninja-defusing is great." H comments about COD4.

Postcards

Didcot Library has a display of BBC/Poetry postcards. They are free, so I took 2 and am planning to use these for my letter on Home Education to our local MP Ed Vaizey. Now I have written this I am honour-bound to get going with writing and sending it.

Do look in your local libraries for these, they have striking designs on the front and a snippet of poetry on the back and front.

Gold star for Didcot Library, it has such a lovely load of brand new books to enjoy.

Breastfeeding - brainfeeding

When I first deregistered H from school I saw the beautiful turning of his face towards me. His face lost its anxiety and fear. What I realised was that all of a sudden I had my authority back as a mother. This is not in a bad sense, but a truly wonderful sense.

He turns to me for my views and information. He doesn't agree with all of it, but that is his starting point. For lots of things he goes straight to the internet or other people. He knows I regard his health as most important, I don't dismiss his views.

What I want to write is that while breastfeeding is about security and feeding of nutrients, there is a next stage no-one has named which I call brainfeeding. It is an intellectual taking of what is needed from the parent. There is a natural assessment of the value of what the parent says, I get told that what I have said is rubbish every so often, or I am asked why, or my children tell me something and they want to see what my reaction is. Sometimes they simply bring up a topic and after a bit of discussion they move the talk onto something else. I can see the 'say no more' look on their faces. Sometimes they are polite and will glance at an interesting, to me, photo of an insect I show them, but I can tell it is never going to become a big interest!

What is nice is that I can ask a question about something technical then I can tell them I don't want to know any more, that is enough for now. Then they stop telling me about it, so I can regulate how much information coming my way, just as they can.

That not being swamped by information is similar to the self regulation of breastfeeding, which is the opposite to the forced feeding or spoon feeding of information by a school approach.

De Jure

A few days ago T used this phrase while we were chatting in the car eating KFC as we drove up the A34. I corrected his pronounciation, 3 syllables, not 2. Then I pointed out that I had never said it myself until right then, nor had I ever heard anyone, child or adult use it in conversation either, so I could be wrong about how to say it.

That is home education. Experimenting with a new phrase, wondering about how to say it, pointing out that it is Latin. So what that it was on the way home from his school. He chooses to go there, mind you at age 11 it was a choice of several schools, I didn't offer HE as an option back then. He knows it is an option now.

Sleeping

What is it with home education and sleeping? H really does sleep at least 10 hours a night, every single night. T would too, but he can only do this at weekends and on school half terms and holidays.

I'm beginning to think that practically everything people say their schooled teens 'would spend all day' doing, is what they are hard wired to want and need to do. So those activities are like the wild flowers peeking up through the cracks in a formal pavement. And it could be a wild flower meadow instead.

For some teens is could be a lot of gaming, for others a lot of chatting with friends, for others a lot of being in town with friends, a lot of preening and hair experimentation or making things on our kitchen table....:)

Here's to a beautiful wild meadow summer holiday. Term ends just after midday this Friday...yippee.

Remember this?

"And now there came both mist and snow,
And it grew wondrous cold:
And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald."

I read this out to T.

"Moonpig dot com"

T sang this to me, he can't get it out of his head.

And there is a song with those words too....one thing leads to another...

It's late

I can't concentrate because something is squeaking every 2 seconds out in the night. Maybe it is a baby bird that has not been tended by a parent?? Is it an odd owl?? I wish I knew.

Now that has stopped and a different pitched thing is regularly tweeting every one second.

18 hours ago it was early morning and a woodpecker was pecking out there.

The well-grown lambs on our nearest farm have stopped suckling from their mothers now. I wonder why. They still stand right up close to their mothers though. Do they snuggle up to their mothers all night? I bet they do.

Soldering

We will work out how to do this tonight, all being well. I have a light soldering iron, some flux and solder. T has lots of components he wants to put together and good enough eyesight that he can see what he is doing with all those tiny wires. Also the love of electronics which pushes him on to work on such things.

Butter

It's very easy to make butter. I did a bit of googling, bought a large amount of double cream and whizzed it just like making a cake. A cake bowl is the wrong shape for it though. As soon as the whipped cream turns into solid butter the buttermilk gets sent everywhere!

I want to find a deep straight sided mixing bowl for next time.

Washing the butter was ok, tipping away the buttermilk (into my soup) and whizzing again with fresh cold water from the tap maybe 7 or 8 times. The clear water turns cloudy and is tipped away each time. Watch out for the butter heating up, if that happens it melts and is tipped away with the washing out water, not the plan.

I am not yet clear on how to get the remaining clear water drops out of the butter. It goes rancid if this water remains in the butter. So I need to google some more and look it up on YouTube.

If I eat it all in the next few days there won't be a going rancid problem.....By the way it is surprisingly pale and tasteless.

Learning New Spellings

As an adult I am having to face the fact that English is shifting and growing as I breathe.

Here are the spellings I had to get right, ie get wrong then Google to check how to get them right, just in the past few minutes.

LEDs
IDE adaptor
Bluetooth
ThinkPad

Here are the ones I actually knew already:

10Gb, pronounced gig, ie gigabyte
USB hub
Compact Flash drive

T has a shopping list so I offered to write it down there and then as I have a pen and A4 pad. He is recovering from the lurgy so is at home and doing lots of computery stuff.

My comment to Ed Balls today

Re: Badman review of Home Education

I want to point out that it is the responsibility of parents to ensure their children are educated and cared for.

Home education is a precious option I never knew I would need to choose.

There is a huge amount of debate at the moment among home educating parents. You will see evidence of this as the topic of home education becomes more of a mainstream issue.

Be aware that there are many parents of younger children who are planning to continue to home educate once their little ones get to age 5. Home education starts at birth and is a demanding and rewarding occupation.

There may be parents with children amongst your own circle of friends who are considering home education. Do listen and observe them.

My Name

Go to http://www.edballs.com (look for the 'Ed Balls wants to hear from you' section on his website)

Charlotte Mason and Nature

Every so often I read a little more about Charlotte Mason. This is what I found today:

http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-mason.htm

Until I read the piece above I hadn't realised that she had suffered from depression/a breakdown. It makes so much sense that she turned to nature and perhaps found solace there. I'm guessing on this. So being in daily contact with nature may help the home educator as well as the children on different levels.

I have 2 indoor children, but we observe the wildlife indoors too, bugs which fly around the lights at night, slug trails sometimes, dead bees, flies and bees needing to be let out of windows, spiders I catch and release outdoors (I am the champion spider catcher). Our visiting cat simply walks in and goes to sit beside H.

Even driving to the station each day means that we check which field the sheep are in, see the seagulls come inland when the weather is bad, look at how the steam from our power station rises right up to form neat clouds when there is no wind or smell the manure if it has just been spread. There is so much nature to look at and talk about briefly. Because I have got into the habit of noting down details in a desk diary each day, I make a point of searching for new things to pay attention to.

Conversation

T and H are talking away, spam, getting a second broadband line, horror films I won't allow "I do have some standards" I squeaked, computers, shopping for new cables, toolbars for flash, apps, some special back lit keyboard, face cream!!, American ads on TV, YouTube, how to pronounce 'derogatory', insults on COD4, getting an email address, making up new words, 'that's the second time I said that and I regret that', getting a headset, mistaking an insect on the screen for my cursor, B and V lessons, psychological test on critical thinking, being out of the house in the drive when H was busy indoors, our visiting cat starting to scratch the furniture, new approach to the cat, possibility of the cat scratching the fan of the computer, hoovers, silencer on a hoover, Delta fan and a finger (not recommended), don't touch the red button, tasting ear wax, Scooby Snacks, bad breath in the morning, gunk in your eyes/sleepy dust, tasting apple flavoured washing up liquid when I was 16, why?, coco pops, Coke, Jane Austen went to school for one year around age 11, mindless drivel, laughing at your own jokes, Bugatti Veyron with mile high spoiler, what is Jeremy Clarkson doing right now?,

The clock, turquoise paint, carpet in bathrooms, light fittings are awful, bulbs are see though and filaments burn your eyes, bad fireplace, dead bees in the blue sofa room, bugs flying round the room in the evening, why did we buy this house, this would be a nice conversion, make it more modern, light, Grade 1 listed, Grade 3??, problem with a g2 listed house no one would ever want to buy it, couldn't even sell it to the bank, knocking though to next door, non sequitur, I want to go to bed, I really like Stonehenge, pulling a piece of shocking chewing gum.

The Badman Review

Well I haven't read it yet. I will sit down when I feel strong and make notes as I go with a pad of A4 beside me.

Since I am known to our local Local Authority I have no anonymity to lose. This means I am able to use my real life name on emails and letters on behalf of those who are not known. This is a daunting responsibility.

There is a lot of discussion online about coming together to speak with one voice. So I will bide my time and see what campaign/s will come out of this. I only want to write one letter to my MP, and it had better be a short, effective one in tune with whatever approach we collectively agree on. Luckily I am new to all this and will just watch and wait from the sidelines.

Parallel Housework

I am so excited. A friend of mine, F, suggested the idea of parallel housework. We think it will mean doing gardening, clearing out the grotty garage, moving piles of books from here to there. Since it is with a great friend and we can eat cake and drink coffee at the same time, what better way to spend a Home Ed Friday?

My HE son H is pursuing his interests with a dedication which puts my keenness on facebook/mumsnet etc in the shade. So he'll be doing that while we do something a little different.

Experiment in the Garden

Method

My son T was full of beans when I picked him up from the station after school today. He asked if we could buy a box of matches and some firelighters, then simply light the box to see what would happen.

So we wandered round Tesco to find them. Got home and went straight ino the garden to set up the experiment. We put one firelighter on a metal garden chair in the middle of the lawn, placed the box of matches on top, filled the watering can with water, I wetted the grass under and around the metal chair, went through the 'roll a person on the ground if they are on fire' warning I always mention, then T lit it and we stood 20 feet away.

Results

There was a flash of flame from one side of the box, which was very slightly open. Then the fire lighter continued burning. This was the 'is that it?' stage. After a while there was a bigger flash of flame from both ends of the box, simultaneous. There was a whoosh noise too. T said this was the magnesium. We decided to pour water over the lot once it was clear it was just burning quietly, no further explosions. The fire was doused immediately.

Conclusions

When we poked the box open with a stick, we found that only the ends of the matches had burnt, the middle sections of wood were still pale. If we had let it burn itself out it would have taken some time. I felt a bit stupid for having risked the paint on the chair going up in smoke, luckily it didn't take. Next time I would use the fire pit or a sturdy foil bowl as a fireplace. T said he had wanted to try this for years, ever since I had lit 5 matches at once as an experiment one time.

Farm Town and our visiting cat

I'm 2 days into this and am wondering why I didn't try this before. I've just rearranged my fruit trees and found out that their harvest % has gone down to zero. So I now have to wait for them to grow again.

vc5tttttt6rrrrrrr That was our visiting cat walking across the keyboard!

3wwwwwwwww We have named her Furry Ninja.

Anyone else addicted to Farm Town? I wish it had a better name though.

Old English

This is fascinating, so many words haven't changed a bit. The translation I have runs alongside the original, practically line for line. Seamus Heaney uses simple English words to emphasise the similarity I think.

Sae - sea
Sande - sand/beach
Worde - words/speech
Aesc - ash (sc is pronounced sh)
We - we
Under - under
Thaes - this

There is a great online OE dictionary. I have found myself simply reading down the lists of words and meanings. I wonder when all the ge- verbs disappeared.

I keep on bounding up to my sons and telling them that head, nose, hand, foot, tooth etc must be Old English, because they are short words and are for the essentials. I have pointed out the -ing ending which we use to create verbs from new words, making them our own.

I have a sort of giddiness when I think of words like hall, work, gear, shield, spear, anchor, sun and winter. It is all so ancient. Rather like when I see the ridges of the old farming strips lit up by the evening sun.

The Lambs

As I drive past the lamb fields I look over to see what they are up to. I love it when 2 strapping lambs rush up to their mother, one each side. They head butt her udders and she stands there so stockily. Both lambs' tails wiggle furiously in the air. Try telling them they are too old to be suckling!

My Obama Mug

I am so grateful to my friend C. She went to the States and managed to buy an Obama mug for me. I keep on saying my President, which is incorrect. However politicians make a big impact, beyond their own countries. A vote in one part of the world can have an influence on people somewhere else in the world.

Music and Meditation

This is turning into a boasty blog, but I'm sure things will even out in time. At the moment I'm on a roll.

The music for this term is one Bruckner piece and 3 Mahler pieces. I have the CDs and am trying out paying attention to the music as I drive on my own. So every time I think of something else I aim to let it go and come back to the music. Clearly a big part of my mind is alert to the road and the traffic.

They also say not to lie down to meditate, however it is a brilliant way to fall asleep, counting each breath and starting again at 1 each time I get to 10.

Sitting in our garden is hard because doing the thinking/thinking/thinking and feeling/feeling/feeling meditation gets very confusing with birds singing, the wind moving past etc, it is all too busy. I need to find a way to allow all that sensory imput to flow over me.