The Tidy Fairy

Yes, indeed, the tidy fairy has visited our home, and for once it wasn't me or Jon in disguise. Emily woke up this morning and announced that she wanted to tidy up. And so she did. She spent all morning tidying her bedroom beautifully, including clearing the top of her chest of drawers which had been several inches deep in "stuff", and even finding sensible homes for all said stuff. Not content with that she then set about clearing a rack of stacking baskets in the corridoor outside her room - something that's been on my to-do list for, oooh, since they were put there - and again found sensible homes for everything. Then she cleared her computer desk, again inches deep in homeless items. All the while happily chunnering away, except for the odd, highly indignant "What on EARTH is THIS doing here?" Bless.

I did wonder what an LEA bod would make of finding Emily knee deep in dust, polish and piles of stuff instead of "being educated", but decided we could always mark it down as citizenship and/or Home Economics (do they still do that??) ROFL!

This afternoon we've been out to a soft play area with Romy and Hazel; judging by the colour of the girls' faces after over 2 hours of non stop rampaging, I guess we can also tick PE. The pub we were in already had it's Christmas stuff up, for heaven's sake!

A conversation with Romy in the car on the way home prompted Emily to go off and write a Christmas/Birthday wish list when she got home (her 7th birthday is a week after Christmas). Child after our own hearts - top of her list was "interesting non fiction books". Well, OK, top of her list really would be the assorted Barbie & Magic of Pegasus junk, but having explained that we are NOT getting them this year, she didn't bother writing that on her list, and the rest of the list was refreshingly and entirely free of other assorted plastic one minute wonders, too. An Elizabethan dress features highly, as does a journal, more jigsaws, artists pastels, real "grown up" paints, craft stuff, a sewing machine, a curtain on a rail to go under her bed, and more artist software, among other grown up, wholesome things. Aaah - our little one's growing up. Mind you, this mature and interesting wish list may yet change once she's been subjected to a whole three months of the adverts on the kids channels......

Vikings R Us

So. It has begun.

Started our Viking project this afternoon, by spending time with Emily working out what "we" already know about the Vikings (as ever, in true home educated child style, I discovered that Emily already knows a lot more than I thought she did...) and what "we" want to find out. Naturally, given Emily's previous fascination with Egyptian hieroglyphs, she was thrilled to discover the runic alphabet. She'll be even more thrilled tomorrow when I give her a set of gemstone runestones (we sell 'em) to work with ;-)

We had a good look around the BBC Schools Viking section, as that seemed as good a place as any for a general introduction to the subject. Emily didn't know the answer to one of the quiz questions (what type of king was Knut...wise and Christian or psycho barbarian?... perhaps it wasn't phrased quite like that) but she leapt up to go and get her Tony Robinson Kings and Queens book to research the answer. She's getting soooo good at knowing where to find information, and she's definitely no longer thrown by not knowing an answer (she used to be, at school). She's also very keen to find out more about Viking legends, so I think I'll be reading plenty of The Orchard Book of Viking Stories over the next week or so. I love that series; they're so well written and interesting. Emily's very into mythology at the moment. Must investigate that further at some point, maybe looking at creation stories across civilisations or something.

It's been a good day for Education with a capital E all round, really. This morning we started off well with more practice on change from a pound, and we spent ages playing a dragon/princess times table game we got from ebay ages ago...it's homemade, with a big laminated sheet and little cut out laminated questions - sort of thing you could easily make yourself if you had the time. Emily's doing very well with her times tables recently. She has the 10x off pat, and also both the 2x and 5x up to 12 and 25 respectively, and she can work out the rest by counting on in twos or fives from then on. I'm pleased with that considering we don't do (and I never intend to do) times tables 'drills' of any kind. She's figured all that out herself through problem solving and games.

After maths we did some more in the Write About Me book from the Just Write series; today it was a piece about where she would go if she had magic shoes. Just about finished that book now, so we're ready to move onto the Just Write 1. Then followed science, finding out about friction. Emily got really into an experiment in rolling objects and measuring how far they'd gone, and whether they would go further on different surfaces, and why. Recorded all that in a chart. Followed by a mad dash around the house rubbing things to see if she could feel much friction heat.

In snatched minutes, I've been reading "Those Unschooled Minds: Home Educated Children Grow Up" by Julie Webb. Very inspirational. Heartily recommended to anyone who hasn't read it - very reassuring that the people interviewed are now all happy, well adjusted adults with a wide variety of interesting careers!

Meanwhile, Romeo has turned into the andrex puppy and refuses to relinquish possession of a very chewed and scratched roll of loo paper.....

...and Juliet has finally worked out how to climb up the bookcase in our hall and therefore over the barrier stopping her from getting to the front door. Oh yes, and *this* is why packing the orders each night is taking longer than ever....

Drunken Kitten & Doggy Paddle

Went swimming this afternoon with Romy and Hazel, and was pleased to see that despite not having been throughout the summer (crowded pools and me don't mix) Emily was very quick to get her confidence back. Today she at one point managed about 5 or 6 unaided doggy paddles towards me, and was consistently doing one or two at the end of her long glides towards me. We'll get there. :-) Despite our having got there for 2, it turned out the pool opening times had changed, and it wasn't open until 3. So we wandered over to the 20/21 Visual Arts Centre for a look around. Liked their outdoor twelve witches sculptures....was less fond of the digital art Communion exhibition, which may well have had something interesting to say for itself, but some background information/clues about what was going on would have helped. There's usually lots for the kids to do but today there were just handbag shapes to colour in. Not quite up to their usual standards, although a helpful guide more or less insisted the girls had a go. At least he didn't ask why they weren't in school....

Back at home, Emily decided to go and do some face painting, and came back half an hour later with a rather impressive tabby face painted on herself. Better than I could have done.

This morning we tried the kittens' harnesses on them; wanted to get them used to wearing them for when we can finally take them out in the garden. If we lived somewhere different we might not bother with the harnesses/leads, but as it is we live right on the road only about six doors down from a major A road junction...and they're still very, very tiny....and they're both a few cat biscuits short of a full packet and seem to think the giant four wheeled mice they can see from the upstairs windows look fun to play with.... so harnesses and half hour trips out it will be for the time being, before we finally pluck up courage to let them loose, probably not until after they've been neutered. And gained a few brain cells.

Anyway. Juliet didn't seem to mind hers at all. Romeo, on the other hand, did. His party trick of the day, whilst wearing harness, was to tuck his tail between his legs and waddle, bottom rubbing, across the kitchen floor for a few steps, before collapsing on his side. Repeatedly. Whilst looking reproachful. Thought we'd accidentally trodden on him and broken his tail or something, before we figured out it was his way of saying he didn't like the harness. As soon as it was removed, he was happy as larry. Tough. It's harness or inside, matey boy.

Education, ah yes. There's been some of that, in between today's outing and yesterday's massive retail therapy session (had to buy Emily lots of winter/autumn clothes as she's managed to well and truly grow out of most of last year's, so it seems). Yesterday Emily enjoyed "bathroom door maths", which is when we blue tak a load of number cards to the door and she has to race to get the right answer to random sums I call out, or she has to race to get one of her choice and bring it back to me and tell me a sum that goes with it. More handwriting practice, more spelling, some work about the skeleton (which I thought would be quite challenging for her, but she raced through it giving expanded answers.... gawd knows where she learns this stuff...).

This morning we practised some editing - Emily went through the cat-first-time-in-garden story she wrote the other day and added more description and details, then went through it again checking spelling and punctuation. She seemed to quite enjoy that, so we might make a regular pattern or write rough draft one day and then edit it another. Also some work on teeth (she now has three top ones wobbly all in a row, although two have been wobbly for *months*) and some measuring with ruler type stuff. Fun fun fun.

Invasion of the Giant Kitties

No, not the title of an old, corny horror movie, but it was rather comical this morning when Emily wanted to play with her barbie house only to find some giant kitties in residence instead, rofl!
Move over barbie, you have been evicted!

Meanwhile, I have finally finished one set of deadlines this weekend, and am getting nowhere with the other set....Jon is knackered after only a few hours sleep and feeling poorly to boot....and Emily has negotiated terms with the giant kitties and she's playing in her room with them - she gets to play with the barbie house provided, so it seems, that they get to approve the furniture layout.

We're all quite excited at the moment as my Mum and Dad have returned from holiday with the news that they've bought a caravan on a lovely site on the beach at St Bee's in Cumbria, which we're free to use at any time. Now all we need to do is carve out a gap in our increasingly hectic work schedule so we can visit it before the end of the season in mid November.

Now, stop faffing about on the blog and get some work done, woman!

A Whole Three Inches Overnight??

So there we are, winging our way out, late, to ballet, when I suddenly notice that Emily's trousers are approx 3 inches too short. I swear on all sorts of worthy things that when she last wore them about a day and half ago, they were fine :-/ Apparently, the small person is growing rapidly. Or I somehow shrunk them. Take your pick of the most likely explanation. The good thing is that these trousers had to be shortened back in May, so I only have to let them down again.

Ballet was a bit of a pain today. Far from the 12 kids and civilised, grown up stuff they had last week, this week there were over 30 children and it was absolute chaos. The teacher couldn't control them at all, half of them didn't really want to be there and just messed around, and you couldn't hear yourself think. Considering every time they changed exercise she had to spend ten minutes getting them into lines and organised and standing still and listening, I'm not convinced that this lesson is money well spent. Hrrrrrmmmph. It's so annoying. Why oh why do parents take kids to "lessons" that the kids clearly aren't interested in??? It's not fair on the kids who don't want to be there, and it's certainly not fair on the kids who DO want to be there. I can't stand this mindset that kids have to be ferried about to umpteen clubs/activities/groups just so the parents can go on about how much stuff their (exhausted, bored and stressed out) little one is doing. It's one thing if the child loves it, but quite plainly many of them don't.

Anyway. Rant aside, we had a good day yesterday. Emily wrote a story about a kitten's first time out in the garden, and I was very pleased with the interesting vocabulary and lively sentence structure she used. In the afternoon, she tried making a mosaic from scratch - she used an empty strawberry carton, drew round it, worked out a design (cat, obviously) to go in it, rolled out some air drying clay, painted portions of it in her chosen colours, cut it all up into interesting random mosaic tiles, filled the carton with plaster of paris and set her tiles into it. The end result is pretty impressive, so that's probably something we'll do more of as and when the mood strikes.

The rest of the day was spent fussing over kittens and manically tidying up; Emily was incredibly helpful with changing beds, sorting washing, tidying, cleaning and all that malarky. So - we'll tick citizenship for that one, then.

Must Just Add These Two Piccies

Just as I was typing the last post, the two kittens were fighting on the desk at the far end of the room, among the stock and paperwork. Here they are mid fight, awake:

...and here they are literally two minutes later, having fallen asleep in exactly the same position, lol. Bless 'em.

Painting Like A Wild Animal

Or, at least, in the "fauve" style, which means wild animals in French. Using unnatural colours in natural portraits to express meaning. Apparently. Good excuse for a real colour fest in other words. And a prelude to the abstract art movement, so it says here. Something Matisse dabbled in, which is why we were dabbling in it today. "When I put a green, it is not grass. When I put a blue, it is not the sky." - Matisse.

This afternoon, Emily continued working on her artists project, writing some interesting facts about Matisse and creating a fauve style cat painting:


inspired particularly by Matisse's "Woman With A Hat" seen here for the benefit of those who haven't a clue what I'm on about (because I didn't have before about a week ago, so I'm guessing I might just not be the only one!)


All good stuff. She put a great deal of thought into this one, and spent ages on it. Again, I'm enthused by how much Emily seems to be enjoying this famous artist malarky. She's already making intelligent comments about styles and similarities when we look through various art books. I guess it combines her love of history with her love of arty things - what more could a girl want? Picasso's next on the list.

This morning Emily did more handwriting practice, wrote a piece about "a favourite memory" (the day we went to fetch the kittens, so not too taxing on the long term memory banks, lol), did two pages of quite complicated maths (without a fuss!) and a couple of pages in a science workbook. This latter was asking her to name the seven processes that show something is alive. Umm. She thought of five - that it moves, reproduces, reacts to stimulus, grows and "eats". Considering I couldn't off hand think of the other two either (although I guess one might have to do with processing oxygen) there was much puzzlement over that, lol.

A busy, productive day. Oh yes, and for the last hour and a half, Emily's been humming away to herself in her bedroom making a "feely sunset" picture for the benefit of anyone who can't see very well, entirely of her own suggestion. Ticks design and technology. Again.

And the big cats are tolerating the kitty bits slightly better too. A Good Thing. Although that may have to do with the fact that it's been raining all day and neither of them are fans of wet paws. Hmmm, imagine the dilemma they must have faced....stay out here in the rain or go IN THERE where the small fluffy things are.....

Designing, Making & Visitors from Canada

Better blog what's been happening these last couple of days, while I've got the chance. Emily's gone "design and technology" mad - she's always loved doing any kind of crafts, but she spent all day Sunday working very hard on making lots of bits and pieces, completely independently (we were in here, busy trying to catch up on deadlines and packing). She made a fan with straws and material, stitched a felt loveheart with sequins on it and beads for M & D (Mum and Dad, bless), and made a fantastic tabby cat mask, and various other bits and bobs too. Oh yes, and she practised her cross stitch, got the hang of threading a needle by herself and clearly put a lot of thought into what she was doing and how she could achieve the effect she wanted with it all.

On Monday morning she helped me make lasagne and berry baskets for Uncle David and Aunty Barbara, who came to visit from Canada to pick up Grandad and take him back over there for a few month's holiday. We don't get to see them very often, so Emily was thrilled to show off all her project work and introduce them to Romeo and Juliet. They brought Emily a gorgeous book on Tudor Dolls Houses, so when my Dad gets back from holiday he may find himself being pestered....

This morning Emily typed a Tudor story in Word - a whole page of it, and finished it off nicely with some clip art she'd found, and some fancy fonts. Romy and Hazel popped for a few minutes this afternoon so we got to meet their very cute new piggie Willow. When David, Barbara and Grandad got back from their trip to the antiques centre, Emily helped them repack their cases to include their newly acquired spoils, and then just had time to write a letter to Aunty Barbara's niece Elise, telling her about Romeo and Juliet, and including a photo for her. We waved them off - house seems awfully quiet now, lol - and Emily went back to yet more design-and-make with some of the crafty bits D&B had brought for her.

Kittens are *frantic* to get out and explore the big wide world, lol. Juliet has taken to standing up on her hind legs to look out of the big cats' cat flap. She looks like a meerkat, rofl! It's a good job the flap's lockable! She also likes sitting on our windowsill in the upstairs sitting room watching the traffic go by. Rather alarmingly, both kittens seem to be regarding the cars as giant mice. Gulp.

Oh yes. And Jon has just discovered several marijuana plants growing wild underneath one of the bird feeders, among a forest of other seedlings which have self planted there. Okkaaayyy. I can quite picture the scene. "Here, Mr LEA Officer, Emily has been doing some lovely leaf rubbings and has cultivated these cuttings in the greenhouse too."

Back To Ballet

Emily's ballet lessons started up again today - albeit at a very inconvenient time, namely 12:45 to 2:15 which, being neither morning nor afternoon does tend to bodge up the day in terms of getting much else done!

Still, it's the exam class now, and it's a vast improvement on the screamy, noisy, overcrowded chaos that last year's class was. There's only about 12 children in the class now, and they all behaved very grown up and set about learning some "proper" ballet positions and movements, much to Emily's satisfaction :-))

Back at home it's a mad scramble to get "things" done. The list of "things" requiring doing seems to just get longer and longer, no matter how many "things" we manage to cross off it. Hrrrmph. It's BBC deadline day; we have masses of new stock to get listed both in the shop and/or on ebay; we have masses of junk to get rid of (sorry, that should read "lots of lovely, as new items to offer for absolute bargain prices on ebay"). Not much of any of which is actually happening. Jon is working wonders with sales of our second hand books on ebay, though, which as been on his to-do list for a very, very long time, but is now proving well worth the effort. :-)

Couple of piccies, firstly of The Ballerina herself, enjoying a cuddle with Big Cat Merlin and taking her nose out of her book just long enough to have her picture taken.....


And of the two fluffballs, whose manic behaviour continues unabated. They both went missing about an hour ago. Found them playing on the front stairs just next to the front door. How they managed to get there, through the Fort Knox precautions we have taken, remains a mystery....

Much Better

Started bright and early with some of the M-word. Yes, it was maths time again. Emily was perfectly happy about it this time round, and spent ages working with our loose change and conquering the art of giving change from a pound. We did this months and months ago, and I thought she had it down pat, but then a few weeks ago she claimed not to know where to start. Today, we started with simple amounts like round tens until she was eventually confident with random amounts like 37p and 62p. Not a problem in the slightest.

I think part of the problem with maths though is that Emily often can't see that it's relevant to her at the moment. Yes, yes, I know, we all use maths of some sort every day, so they say, but, well, a six year old doesn't. Not really. Not the adding up, subtracting, times tables bit. Sure she measures ingredients...but weighing and measuring have never been a problem. She has a use for telling the time, and again she's pretty good at that. But she doesn't really have a practical, real world use for the arithmetic side of things, unless we're going out somewhere and she can pay for something. So I need to find ways of making maths have a point. Not a pretend 'let's play shops' point, but a real point. Hmmm.

Anyway, maths passed pretty well considering, so we moved onto English. Emily impressed me with her spelling again - you see, she can see the point of spelling. She likes to write, and she writes a lot each day of her own accord, and she understands that if the words are spelt correctly, it's easier for her audience to understand. And she has experience of the frustration caused by not being able to read her own mis-spellings, which was a big prompt too, I think. Then Emily asked to go back to looking at the handwriting books we had when we first started HE. We dug them out, and she chose to spend quite a while revising and practising the various letter joins. Ha - she can see the point of neat, fluid writing too. I'm sensing a pattern here.

This afternoon we got back to our art project, and read about Matisse. Emily spent ages designing and working on a picture using cut outs, as Matisse did in later life when he was too ill to paint. Her resulting "Six Dolphins in the Waves" is quite striking :-) Tomorrow, whilst I'm catching up on deadlines, she and Jon are going to carry on with Matisse and Emily's going to choose a subject to paint in the "fauve" style, with weird colour choices. I think she's really getting something out of this, and it's interesting and enjoyable for us too, which is a plus.

Forgot to blog this about the kittens - on Wednesday morning, both Emily and I independently noticed that their baby blue eyes have gone! Our kitty binks now both have golden eyes. Our babies are growing up already :-)) In a break for retail therapy yesterday, we went to petsathome and bought an enormous crinkly tunnel for them with hanging toys in it and cut away holes. Cost £20 but it IS huge and they DO love it; it's now Juliet's preferred sleeping place. Romeo, meanwhile, has taken to sleeping in the box of printer paper behind the desk. As you do.

Desperately Bleak Day

One of the worst I can remember in this last year. And we'd started this "term" so well, too. I was going to blog a sanitised, prettified, keeping up appearances version, but then I figured that it helps me to read other blogs sometimes when people have had a bad day - to realise that we're not alone in it not always being tiptoeing through the daisies and lots of jolly fun. So in case anyone else out there has had a pig of a day - so have we.

Major meltdown over maths, again, with Emily claiming that she couldn't do stuff she'd been doing without thinking a few months ago, refusing to try and generally throwing a wobbly about maths being too boring, too hard, too easy or a combination of all the above. Feel like I've totally failed in that department - all the progress I thought we'd made this last year seems to have gone down the drain. Incredibly depressing. I don't care how good or not she is or ever will be at maths, but I do care that she tries - and when she doesn't, she and I fight. Majorly.

School has been mentioned, and even seriously considered. I can totally see the point of being semi-autonomous in "interest" subjects like art, history, animals, whatever, but I don't do autonomous when it comes to core skills. I may be totally failing to grasp how autonomous education works, but I don't understand how a child becomes competent in maths without learning the basics, and without practice. So the option of "not doing maths" doesn't exist as far as I'm concerned. So we have to find a way. Today we've failed to find a way that hasn't ended in tantrums and tears all round.

I used to believe that even a bad day home educating was better than a bad day at school. Today, I think I've realised that's not true. After a bad day at school, at least it feels as if you and your child are on the same side, and you can feel righteous anger at "them" for getting things wrong. After a bad day at home, there's nobody to take the blame for things going wrong except the home educating parents. I'm the one that's been shouting all day. I'm the one that has battled with an oppositional child all day. I'm the one that has had all the wrong buttons pushed and failed to come up with a strategy for averting that. I'm the one that has (must have, somehow) handled everything all wrong. There's no passing the buck here. And that really hurts.

Work, Work, Busy, Busy, Work, Work, Bang, Bang

Can't remember where that saying comes from. Think it has something to do with a penguin biscuit advert from when Emily was a baby, but anyway, it sums us up!

Up extraordinarily early to get to vets. Was on schedule until Emily decided at the last minute to come too and had to scramble to get ready. Kittens charmed everyone in vets waiting room. Discovered, downhearted, that Juliet's heart murmur is definitely still present. Cheered up slightly since this vet was more upbeat about it than the previous one we saw. Got back, dealt with lots and lots of post and emails. Rescued Juliet from a fight on the stairs. Cheered up even more upon discovering that Jon had cleared the playroom (of stock) while we were out, so we could start work without further delay.

Emily spelt (or is that spelled? lol) lots and lots of words entirely correctly. Nearly finished My Spelling Workbook B now, which is the 6-7 year one, so that's not bad. Emily doesn't bother with the exercises in them, we just use them for word lists of approximately what she should now be able to spell. Rescued Romeo from a close encounter with the loo. Listened to an animated explanation of how come she can spell this stuff when asked to, but doesn't bother spelling it right when she's writing something of her own. Apparently she's in too much of a hurry to get her thoughts down to bother with the spelling. Fair enough. Sure as hell not going to start correcting her spelling in everything she writes or she'll lose the enthusiasm she currently has for composing her own stuff. Time for that (much) later if it's still necessary by then.

Lots of maths, mostly adding and subtracting in tens from a given number. Tried to coax Juliet out of a post-vaccination sulk and into a purr. Failed. Giggled as Emily corrected a KS1 science workbook which was talking about the senses in terms of "feeling" and "seeing". Nope, that should be touch and sight, thank you very much! Fiddled about on computer as Emily had lunch up here with Jon, watching schools TV. Despaired at how rude some customers can be. Despaired at how daft some customers can be. Reminded self that most are lovely and after all have impeccable taste if they're ordering from us. Rescued Romeo from a close encounter with the swivel chair.

Talked more about Van Gogh. Looked at a gallery of his most famous works. Emily created a word doc showing the ones she liked best. Added that to the rapidly growing wall display. Left her to write out four interesting facts about Van Gogh from her book. Was later amused to discover her choice of wording. Pointed out subtly that "completely loopy" was not a very polite term to use when writing about one of the world's most gifted artists. Even if he did chop off a bit of his ear. And then shoot himself. Made mental note to revise "senstive handling of those suffering from depression" in Emily's life skills department. Tried again to coax Juliet out of her sulk. Failed. Gathered together our large collection of Roman resources to see what was what for imminent use. Emily informed me that she already knows a lot about Romans (this is true) and that she therefore wants to work on Vikings instead. Pinned smile on face. Wished she's said that a week or two ago before Roman resources were quite so extensive. Put away extensive Roman resources. Gathered very unextensive Viking resources. Indulged in retail therapy and ordered some Viking stuff from one of our book wholesalers. Patted self on back for being very restrained and only ordering a few items from series we've had and enjoyed before with Egypt and Tudors.

Helped Emily mix paints in shades of red and pink to paint her Van Gogh inspired version of the sunflowers. Except we don't have any sunflowers left, so it turned out to be "Rose, Fuschias and Begonia in a Vase" instead. Very creditable attempt. Added that and the fact sheet to the wall display. Persuaded Romeo not to eat the wallpaper. Loaded Sim Park for Emily and sat with her while she played it. Not impressed. Tried again to coax Juliet out of sulk. Finally succeeded in getting a purr with the help of some milk drop treats. Tried to persuade Romeo that my fingers were not food. Tried to persuade big cat Merlin not to growl at the kittens. Failed. Tried to persuade big cat Merlin to stay in the room longer than a minute with the kittens. Failed. Searched for big cat Cassie. Failed. Rescued Romeo from grandad's room at - gasp - the wrong side of the barrier that stops them getting to the front door. Had a rethink on ways to stop kittens getting to front door. Failed to come up with anything.

Still worrying about that one hours later. Cheered up slightly on doing a home cholesterol test and discovering that mine's only 4.4, not the life threatening level I had happily imagined it to be. Jon needs to test his later, although since they automatically threw medication at him for cholesterol when he was diagnosed with diabetes, it had better be reasonable. Now ready for a decent meal and a glass of wine.

So, A New "Term" Begins

It was a bit of a funny feeling this morning, knowing we've now officially been home educating for exactly a year. It was an even funnier one - in a not nice way - to realise that if we weren't, we'd be dropping our little one off this morning into the clutches of the very same teacher who wreaked so much emotional havoc in her life during reception year, since she is now "teaching" (if that word can actually be used in her case) Yr 2. I watched some kids walking to school this morning, and breathed a sigh of relief that Emily wasn't one of them.

We got off to a good start today. We did some spelling first thing, and Emily wrote a piece about her favourite season. We did some basic maths too, and looked through a KS1 science workbook. Lunch out in the garden (how did it turn from such a murky, damp morning into such a hot, blazing afternoon?) and then back in for some art. Emily chose Van Gogh as the artist she wanted to look at. We read Sunflowers and Swirly Stars and talked a bit about his life and his style of painting. Then the fun bit - Emily mixed some flour in with paint and worked on her version of Starry Night.



She really seemed to enjoy that. Must get some proper oil paints. Later on she experimented with creating the same thick, swirly, brush stroke effect in her Dazzle art software too. Tomorrow we'll paint some flowers in Van Gogh style, and Emily's going to make a fact card about him - she was particularly fascinated to discover that despite his paintings now selling for millions of pounds, he only ever sold one painting during his entire life and had to struggle to pay for his food let alone painting supplies. And he only painted for 10 years before he shot himself. I didn't know that. I'm learning too!

We have the Matisse and Picasso books from that Smart About the Arts series, so I daresay they'll be next on the list to look at. Meanwhile, I finally managed to get Emily's Ancient Egypt project into a proper folder, and sorted out the various Tudor bits and bobs into a pile ready to do likewise. An achievement indeed, since I've been meaning to do the Egyptian one since March!!!

We're now letting the kittens go up and down our back stairs - hadn't done until now as they didn't seem very stable and the stairs are very steep. Romeo rewarded our trust in him by promptly falling 3/4 way down and hanging off the third step from the bottom by one claw. Hmmm. So that's why we've kept the stair gate on all this time! They've also been allowed into Emily's playroom/workroom/our stockroom bit. Hadn't done that until now a) because really it's big cat territory and b) because the front stairs lead off it, which leads right down to the front door, which is constantly in use with all our deliveries. So we had to block the top of the stairs off. Much time was spent rescuing the kittens from the results of their inventive "how do we get round this barrier" ideas..... They're off to the vets tomorrow for the first of their two innoculations, as they're now 9 weeks old. So, another three weeks before they "could" go out (although I'm not at all sure we'll be letting them that soon). And when they do, we'll enjoy a whole new set of worries!

A Tudor Visit & Autumn Plans!

Spent a quiet weekend this time - Emily's had a stinking cold for most of it. She spent lots of time on Saturday making a large hama bead fairy and snuggling up with the kittens, whilst on Sunday the paddling pool came out yet again so she and Daddy spent hours out in the garden reading, drawing and generally getting wet. Not even sniffles, sneezes and a high temperature can keep Emily away from a pool, lol.

Today we had a fun visit to Gainsborough Old Hall. Emily's been there lots of times, but today we were booked in for an educational visit like they do for schools. We had a guide dressed in costume who told us lots of very interesting bits and pieces, but best of all as far as Emily was concerned was the chance to dress up and take part in a pretend banquet. She was Queen Catherine Howard (who apparently visited the Hall, with Henry) so got to sit next to Henry at the table. Here she is in costume with Romy, and with King Henry:





The schools here "go back" tomorrow, and we're intending to get back to some more formal work tomorrow too. Having had a much closer look at the national curriculum Schemes of Work site for Yr 2, some of it looks a lot more interesting than I'd thought, actually. So, we're going to cherry pick the most interesting units/ideas/projects/whatever and give those a go. For instance, the Art and Design one about nature sculptures, and the Design and Technology one about Joseph's Coat of Many Colours - although I daresay we'll find it much more fun to make it a history themed coat, or perhaps an autumn fairy cloak or somesuch. When I first glanced at the "coat" one I thought it sounded wayyy too complicated (6 year olds designing and making from scratch a full sized fitting and properly measured coat?) but on closer inspection the expectations are somewhat more, um, age appropriate, so I think we'll be able to manage that, and it does sound like Emily's kind of thing. Yes, some of the ideas aren't bad at all. As home educators, we're in the luxurious position of being able to pick and choose what we do, and although some of the NC seems entirely pointless I must admit I do quite like some of what I've read this last weekend. So. We'll give it a go, personalised to our own levels of tolerance and interest, of course!

We also spent some time at the weekend thinking about goals for Emily between now and Christmas. I like to have something to aim for - mainly because I'm not a huge fan of "aimless", I suppose. We need to firm up the basic maths, for instance. Emily has moments when she seems way ahead of her age...but then other moments when she struggles, so I think getting that on a firmer footing and not trying to run before we can walk would be a consructive thing to do. And more practice on things like telling the time, both digital and analogue. Get the 2, 5 and 10 times tables off pat. More practice with money. In English, we're going to subtly work on Emily's handwriting - she writes beautifully, but sometimes she does like to make her writing too swirly and complicated, which can make it hard to read. And definitely some more poetry work, and we'll continue with spelling.

We're planning to do some work on famous artists - just looking at simple biographies of some, and then trying to paint/draw in their style, both freehand and on the PC. Science is tricky - most of the science type work for this age group in school is mind-bogglingly obvious stuff like plants needing water and light in order to grow. Um, I think we have that covered. Emily completed the bronze badge from the BA First Investigators Programme some time ago; we could work for the silver, I suppose, but tbh it's not that interesting for her. We mights just do our own thing with lots of experiments as and when the interest strikes. History - well, where do I start? Anything historical will go down a storm, but I think we've narrowed the options down to Romans next!

Which leaves Geography. Well, like science, most of the KS1 type work seems very simple. Again, we'll probably make that up as we go along.

Now, I'll look back at this come Christmas and realise we've gone down a completely different route altogether, lol!

Fun In A Field!

Well, the fieldwalking seems to have been an enormous success! Emily loved it, and was bubbling over with things to tell me. Evidently they found flints, medieval pottery, musket balls and all kinds of things. She can't wait to go again. Daddy quite enjoyed himself too, so I gather :-)

Later on yesterday evening, Emily set up a museum using lots of her ornaments and fossils and bits and pieces. She had them all arranged on cushions of rolled up loo paper and in display boxes, and had written little labels to go with each one. She'd even organised it into themes. There was a lovely workshop on at the museum over the summer where a small group of children worked with one of the museum curators to create an actual display - but it was for age 9+ only, apparently. She would have loved that. Their young archaeology club is also for that age group only. Seems a bit unfair, really. Oh well.

Here are a couple of pictures that Colin took of Emily and Romy doing their bit for local archaeological knowledge :-)

Kitten Bathing & Storm Struck Barbecue

I seem to have lost the art of regular blog updates!

Let me see now. Notable events this week. Well, we gave the kittens a bath on Tuesday, which was an experience. I don't think we'll be making a regular thing of it, but they were a bit smelly, bless 'em. Don't think they've quite mastered the art of washing properly yet! So, we got some special kitten shampoo and gave it a go. Juliet just looked at us reproachfully as she stood in the sink. Those eyes! As for Romeo, well, I still bear the scratch marks all over my shoulders and neck. He's earned himself the affection nickname of vampire bat, just because that's how he sounds when he miaows. Which is often. But as he hissed, spat and clawed his way up my arm out of the water, he was more like something from a Stephen King film! Anyway. After their bathing experience, we towelled them dry and left them in the sunshine in Emily's room looking like two poor little orphan kitties after a rainstorm. Within about ten minutes they were back to being bundles of fluff, though, and appeared none the worse for the ordeal.

Yesterday Emily had a ball out in her paddling pool. She was out in the garden for about six hours non stop, playing all kinds of pretend in the water, playing with her polly pockets on the grass, devouring the trial issue of that new Roald Dahl magazine and generally having fun being Emily. We had planned a big barbecue for yesterday....so Jon worked hard getting everything cooked and ready....and no sooner had we sat down outside than it started tipping with rain! Still. Never ones to be put off by a bit of the wet stuff, we just moved the parasol over the table and carried on regardless. Fortunately, the thunder and lightning didn't arrive until much later in the evening.

Today, Emily and Jon have gone on a fieldwalking expedition arranged by the local museum. Colin and Romy have gone too. They've been out all day (got up at 6 this morning trying to find wellies and make packed lunches, lol) so I've been getting on with filling in our tax returns (fun, fun, mind boggling fun), installing the new printed (yay, this time it works!) and catching up on plenty of work. They're due back shortly, so I can't wait to hear all about it!


Juliet hitches a ride on Emily's shoulder....

.....but even that's too exhausting for sleepy Romeo!

One Year On

I was 34 yesterday. It looks much bigger and scarier written down than it feels, so I guess that's OK. Emily and Jon went to so much effort for my birthday. I felt thoroughly spoilt :-)))) with lots of lovely presents and handmade cards and a fantastic surprise birthday tea with balloons and confetti and party bags :-)))

On Friday we went for a play at Romy and Hazel's; the two girls had fun marking things they'd like in catalogues....would have been easier to just say "one of everything please," lol.

It must have been about this time last year, after much soul searching and at times heated debate, that we finally decided NOT to send Emily back to school in the September and to home educate instead. What a year it's been. I'd be lying if I said there hadn't been downs as well as ups. It hasn't always been easy, and there have been plenty of moments of doubt and even a few of despair. It hasn't necessarily been the walk in the park I confidently expected it to be. That in itself has been humbling. There have been some bad days - and some truly awful days. But there have also been many, many spectactularly good days, many moments of pride, many episodes of sheer joy and freedom. We've sometimes questioned whether we're doing the right thing or not, but I think such questioning is healthy. In fact, I'd be worried if we were so blinkered that we were not questioning.

We've tried countless different "ways" of home educating, trying to find the "perfect fit" for our family...only to discover that there doesn't seem to be one, but that that's OK, and that we can actually enjoy swapping and changing methods and ideas as it suits us. We've made the long and difficult journey - for a family used to school - of understanding that there doesn't always have to be something "to show" for all of Emily's hard work. That she doesn't need to complete worksheets unless she and we are in the mood. That we don't care whether she's written down what she's learnt, but that we do care exceedingly much that she's learnt it because she wants to, and that she's had fun learning and understanding it. That it matters not one jot whether she has a neatly filled handwriting copy exercise book, so long as she writes happily, fluently and legibly about things that interest and excite her. That nobody cares whether she can name all kinds of obscure geometric shapes, but that it does matter that she finds numbers interesting and can see the point of the maths we do. That it's not the sheer number of children Emily "knows" that counts, rather her increasing ability to form meaningful, kind, mutually respectful and joyful relationships with the ones she really cares for.

We've learnt a lot, Jon and I, this past year. And I don't just mean about ancient Egypt, either. We've learnt a lot about our own attitudes and expectations, and we've started to lose some of the false priorities that the school culture imposes. We've started to relax and enjoy the "ahhh, THIS is why we're doing it" moments, secure in the knowledge that we've searched our hearts and found this the most positive option for Emily. And we've learnt a lot about each other too. As a family, we've made some memories that will last forever. The doubts, the dramas, the tears (not always Emily's!) have been a necessary learning curve, which is sure to continue over the next couple of years too. But overall, we're getting there. Happily. And we wouldn't turn the clock back for the world. :-)

Suncatchers & Rainstorms

Well, it's certainly rained this last few days!

On Tuesday Emily and Daddy went out shopping on a present hunt - it's my birthday on Saturday :-)) so I hardly saw them, and yesterday they were out all day again, moseying around the Hemswell Antiques Centre, having lunch there and searching for cat related antiques and second hand books. They came back with a good haul and big grins, so I reckon a good time was had.

Meanwhile at home I was desperately trying to ignore the increasing manic behaviour of two small furry things, and attempting to get on with some work. Slightly easier said than done. Our brand new HP printer (arrived a week ago, but yesterday was the first chance to get it out of its packaging....such is life in this household) turned out to have a broken lid catch. This helpfully meant the printer thought its lid was open all the time, so it refused to go any further than turning on and flashing its lights moodily. Hrrrrmppph. I was less than impressed, having spent ages clearing space for it and faffing about with its cartridges and printheads. Still, it's gone back, replacement has arrived, perhaps we'll manage to get that one out of the box sometime before the end of September!

Romeo and Juliet seem to have grown enormously over the last couple of days. They've certainly increased in strength and agility. It's very noticeable that things they couldn't do a week ago when they arrived they suddenly can now - with frightening ease. They worked out how to jump up to the windowsill in the sitting room yesterday....they've climbed the curtains...they can get past our very best attempts at blocking off the most awkward places in the house...and I swear they move faster than motorbikes at top speed. They're also very vocal and let you know in no uncertain terms when they want attention. Oh yes, and they have a passion for playing underneath the desk swivel chair, whilst someone's sat on it trying to work. We're frightened to move now without checking underneath, lol, and we've all taken to walking around with strange shuffling movements so as to avoid squashing a small and indignant creature that's trying to chase your feet. This was Romeo this morning, obligingly looking cute in the mirror for me to take the photo:

This morning Emily and I went to the museum to look around their WW2 exhibtion, and to make some butterfly windchimes and a tissue paper stained glass window shape. By an odd coincidence we were also making stained glass window shapes (but with those coloured transparent sweet wrappers instead of tissue paper) at home a year ago today, or so it says in our home ed diary which I found this afternoon (it's been missing in action since April, lol). Here are the results of Emily's museum visit:


The WW2 exhibition was very interesting. Emily liked looking at the children's gas masks and the anderson shelter. She's seen photos of my Mum as a schoolgirl carrying her gas mask, and has been intruiged by them. And we have an old anderson shelter in our back garden, albeit now filled in and planted over. All three of Emily's surviving grandparents have memories of WW2: my Mum was a schoolgirl in London and stayed there throughout, as her parents opted not to evacuate her - her father was in charge of finding shelter and provisions for people who had been bombed out of their homes and she remembers many of them temporarily staying at their home, as well as the nightly air raids, seeing the ruins, being carried on a soldier's shoulders outside Buckingham Palace on VE day, and lots of other stuff too; my Dad was a schoolboy in Yorkshire, and Jon's Dad, slightly older, was working on a farm in the rural south, so they all have very different sides of the story to tell.

On the way back from the museum we stopped to pick up more cat litter (I've never known cats go to the loo so much!!!) and oohed and aahhed over some very posh cat play centres. The one we really, really liked was £99.99 (!) though, and we'd probably have needed an extension to put it in, so there it stayed. Shame - it was rather impressive.

It's my Dad's birthday today, so before we went out to the museum Emily spent ages making a card for him with a quilled dragonfly on it. She adores quilling, and she's got really quite talented at it, in my not so humble opinion! We use this Klutz book for ideas and inspiration. The dragonfly on the card she made is similar to the one on the cover of the book. Gramps was very chuffed, and we've just come back from having a pressie opening and chocolate cake session. Yum!

Meanwhile...While I Was Blogging

Whilst I was writing the post below, I thought it had gone quiet. Discovered Jon and Emily in the garden busily making boats out of bits of old junk and floating them in the paddling pool!

Getting Back on Track

Emily's feeling much better now. She was still very poorly all day Saturday, but much improved yesterday and today is nearly back to her old self again, save for a sore throat. Took the kittens to the vets (again) on Saturday morning; the vet thinks it was colitis. The recommendation was to starve them for the rest of Saturday (oh, the anguish!) and to start a course of what appears to be the
animal equivalent of kaolin & morphine, to line the intestines and hopefully give everything a chance to settle and heal.
We're six doses down the line now, and they seem absolutely fine. Three doses each to go. I've only just today perfected the art of getting the stuff out of the syringe/plunger thingy and down their mouths, mind you. Most of the other doses I'm sure have ended up more over me than in the kitties' tummies! Although Juliet, bless her, will lick hers off the syringe. More than can be said for Romeo who hisses, spits and generally goes rather psycho. Fortunately he seems to forgive us seconds later!

So, Saturday was spent with Emily and Daddy doing jigsaws, and snuggled up watching the telly, whilst I tried to crack on with the Press Association and BBC deadlines. Sunday Emily spent some time on ebay bidding for collars for the kittens for when they eventually go out, and a clicker. Found this book: Clicker Training Your Cat which looks very interesting.
They're too teeny for it at the moment, but we'll give it a go in a few months time, I reckon. It was nice and hot yesterday afternoon, so we also spent some time in the garden and Emily was back in her paddling pool - it's amazing how that always helps with a miraculous recovery, lol.
Emily's Jackie Chan fascination continues. She and Jon have been watching a documentary DVD about how he works, which has been fascinating. She's getting very knowledgeable about the various martial arts, the history of them, and filmaking stunts - even though she expresses that "no way!!!!!!!" does she want to actually learn any of them, lol.

Oooh yes, Emily just reminded me that I must say about the suckling, rofl. Both kittens keep following Emily about purring like mad and wanting to suckle. It's soooo sweet! When they're in that mood they just burrow down, down, down into your clothes and knead with their paws and schnuffle, lick and mouth like mad. Little sweeties were too young to have left their Mummy really, I think, but I hope we're being reasonable substitutes - they're certainly getting masses of love and attention!
This morning I took Grandad to the GP whilst Jon got absolutely soaked to the skin in several trips to the post office, and Emily made some more Tudor bitty dolls and created some lovely designs on her Hama Bead design software. Must. Get. Work. Back. On. Track. And. "Education". Too.

Photos from top to bottom: kittens asleep in their now-favourite sleepy place, the arm of the settee; Emily sharing a moment with Juliet up on her bed over the weekend; Romeo asks "How am I supposed to get that??"; But it didn't take them long to figure out that the "Toy Tree" was a fun place to be; Juliet asks "But WHY can't I sleep in the litter tray somtimes?"

Anyone NOT Poorly?

We are not a well household this morning. Emily has an extremely high temperature, has been semi-delirious throughout the night, and also has a very hurty tummy :-( meanwhile both kittens, as of late yesterday afternoon, have lumps of blood in their poo :-(

It was not a good night.

Yesterday Romy and Hazel came to play and to meet the kittens, which was fun, although Emily's tummy ache was coming and going even then. As of this morning, Emily's temperature is down ever so slightly but she's still very poorly. Kittens are lively and happy, but I've got a vets appointment this morning to have it checked out. It sounds like some kind of worm problem, although I treated them for worms a couple of days ago. Just in case it's something more sinister, we don't want to wait until Monday to have them seen. Just like tiny babies, I guess, tiny kittens can go downhill very rapidly, so off to the vets we go, before settling in for a day of snuggles and telly with our small poorly person.

Kitty Chaos!

Well, our new arrivals have certainly turned life upside down, that's for sure. I've never seen such wonderful, irresistible time wasters! Getting things done has definitely taken a turn for the worst!

Yesterday morning when I looked at the weather forecast, the headline was "Last Heat of the Summer", and the month ahead forecast suggested that yesterday was our last chance for sunshine before Autumn sets in. Now, I'm a big fan of Autumn, it's probably my favourite season - but we couldn't miss the last chance for a paddling pool day now could we? So, Jon dropped everything to rush out and get the paddling pool set up and filling....only to come back in and discover he had to drop everything again for a trip to Casualty for his Dad, who reckoned he had something in his eye. Well, actually Grandad wanted to go to his GP, and elderly person type tantrums ensued when we pointed out that we already knew (due to other appointments this week) that two of the GPS were away, they were struggling with locums, and very unlikely to fit him in, and that casualty was a better bet. Still. GP was dutifully phoned. Told to go to casualty - where we could have gone half an hour earlier if it wasn't for the fuss. Never mind.

With Jon therefore looking likely to be out for several hours, Emily and I left my Mum and Dad kitten sitting while we went out to make the most of this last minute heatwave. Hmmmppph. Wasn't all that warm at all, actually. Emily, though, has the hide of a rhinoceros when it comes to water, so she didn't feel the chill and spent a merry afternoon getting exceptionally wet, followed by well over an hour lying on her trampoline with her legs in the pool reading the latest DK Find Out magazine from cover to cover and doing all the puzzles. Whilst I kept falling asleep, until Jon came back. There was nothing wrong with Grandad's eye.

Rest of the day was spent cooing over our Romeo & Juliet, who are becoming more adorable every day. Panicky few minutes yesterday afternoon when we'd left them sleeping, only to come back 20 minutes later to find Romeo missing. Eventually we found him asleep behind the settee - it's the tiniest of spaces, he barely fits in it. Tried blocking up his access to it, for our own peace of mind...only to find him there again this morning. He's a Houdini, that one. When I found him this morning, he looked up at me with the biggest purr yet! Problem is we have to pull the whole corner of the room apart to get him out. Grrr. Their separate personalities are starting to emerge, and they're starting to nuzzle and be very affectionate too. Emily's in sole charge of feeding them, which she enjoys, and the kitten diary is going well. Now, if only we could walk past a room, headed somewhere, and actually make it to the destination without half an hour of kitten cooing inbetween.....then we might be back on track, business wise!

Juliet in mid miaow! 

Jonathan cuddling a very sleepy Romeo 

Miaows & The V.E.T.

We've been on kitten-moon all day, naturally. Romeo & Juliet have well and truly settled in now, and have been bright as buttons all day, and extremely playful, much to Emily's delight. They've found their purrs too!

We took them to the V.E.T. this afternoon for a checkup. The good news was that Romeo's ear mites were of course easily treatable. The bad news, totally unexpected, was that Juliet has a heart murmur :-((( The poor vet was trying to explain this to me but bless him, being very careful what he said in front of Emily. The upshot is that she *may* grow out of it over the next few weeks. If it's still present when she has her second lot of vaccinations in about six weeks time, it'll need urgent investigation to find out how serious it is, what's causing it, and what can be done. That means referral to a specialist animal cardiologist for ecgs, ultrasound and stuff, potentially even for heart surgery on our tiny bundle of purrs :-((

They won't spay Juliet without that investigation first, because anaesthetic could potentially be fatal, depending how bad it is/what's causing it. Apparently the cost could run into thousands, he pointed out gently, whilst tactfully enquiring if we had them insured. I insured both kittens on the phone this morning. Of course, they're not covered for anything that's "diagnosed" within the first 14 days, but when I told the vet we only had them yesterday and only insured them this morning, he didn't seem worried and didn't seem to think that would be a problem. I assume that because it may yet go away it hasn't officially been "diagnosed" yet, or at least not for treatment purposes.

Anyway. She's seems very fit and healthy at the moment, full of life. I did a fair bit of research on the net when we got home, and found all kinds of inconclusive evidence, some pointing out that congential heart murmurs often cause no problems at all, and that far more serious is when an adult cat suddenly develops one...and other evidence to say that congential heart defects are the major cause of kitten death under a year. Gulp. Guess we'll just have to hope, and to see. Although the vet was careful with his words, Emily was obviously worried :-( As are we all.

Pictures above (or will it turn out to be below?) in separate post, since blogger doesn't seem to want to upload them this evening.

Welcome Home Kittens!

Delighted to announce two new family members: 6 week old tabby kittens Romeo & Juliet!

We drove all the way to East Hull this morning to collect these two, and fell instantly in love :-)))

Needless to say, our day has been somewhat kitten dominated. Emily's thrilled to bits. Romeo & Juliet were a little shy for the first few hours, but have settled nicely now, eaten loads, used their litter tray and started to take an interest in their toys. They've "met" Merlin, who was on Emily's bed when she was showing them round upstairs (their territory will be upstairs for the moment, whereas the big cats live mostly downstairs). Much interested staring to and from kittens and Merlin, before he legged it!

Some pictures: Romeo (left) and Juliet falling asleep on the settee.



Emily dishing out cuddles:



Getting to know Juliet:



Romeo making himself at home in the cushions:



Sorry if the photos are blurry; it's not easy capturing an excited child and active kittens at the same time!

Had a fab day yesterday; went to Julian's Bower turf maze with Romy and Hazel. Beautiful views, and so peaceful. The girls played for hours! We went to Normanby Hall afterwards for a bit, and they enjoyed playing in the branches of the old "tree that sat down" and collecting bits and bobs of nature. Hazel and Romy have some photos on their blog of our afternoon :)

Off to kitten watch now.

Jackie Chan, Sogginess, Jigsaws & VAT

Such have been the interests (or preoccupations, in the case of the VAT) of the day.

Emily spent all morning playing a long and involved Barbie game in her bedroom. I've no idea what on earth was going on, except that it involved the dolls having lots of baths, swimming, showering, washing clothes and, um, other water-dependent things. She had a ball. The floor is soaked. Not, however, as soaked as her windowsill was this morning - she'd left a loo roll tube (as you do) and a duster (also as you do) on it overnight. This morning, the loo roll tube had disintegrated into a soggy mess and the duster was as wet as if it had been left to soak in the sink overnight :-( Guess we have a condensation problem, then. Well, we've known that for a loooonnng time, but this morning was particularly bad. I'd also left a library book there overnight - thank goodness it was a hardback and escaped fairly unscathed.

This afternoon Emily and Daddy baked some gorgeously scrummy blueberry muffins, and spent ages on this rather cute 350 piece cat jigsaw:



Meanwhile, there's been lots of watching of Jackie Chan films over the last couple of days. Emily seems to be a fan. Started with her watching him in Around the World in 80 Days and seems to have progressed from there.

Finally remembered to fill in our VAT return today, and was less than impressed to discover that yet again we "owe" them nearly a thousand quid. OK, I could rant for hours about the VAT system and how unfair it is on small businesses like ourselves, but I don't have time just now. :-) Suffice it to say that that's 4 grand a year that would otherwise have been in our pockets. Colour me not a happy bunny.

We're still on kitten alert, although when I spoke to the RSPCA woman on Thursday last week I got the impression that we could be waiting weeks yet. Nothing firm, mind you. I don't think she "does" facts. Despite having originally been told that these kittens would be "ready" about three days after my first phone call, here we are a couple of weeks later and apparently they have "no idea" when they will be ready. Or even how old they are. Or what colour they are. Yet still she promises that we'll be the first to hear when they're ready to leave. I'm beginning to wonder whether I'm dreaming the whole darn thing. The lack of information is rather bizarre. Anyway, Jon came back from Tesco this morning with an extremely cute kitten notebook for Emily, so she can use it for all things kitten related when they finally arrive. She wants to keep a record of their weight and things, write some kitten stories, do a daily diary for them, and so on.

Emily did actually complete the Cats Protection League Kitten Badge back in January when she was doing her cats project. Hmmm; the Cool Cats kids club seems to have disappeared off their website... Anyway, the Cat Badge involves keeping a cat care diary for 20 days, so she's going to do that when the littlies arrive too.

Catching Up

Forgot to blog the last few days. It's been very busy, and still is.

Thursday: went to the museum with Hazel and Romy, to make masks and fans. Emily was a bit disappointed to find it was just plastic masks with felt tips and sequins....it had been billed as 'Venetian Masks' so she was all set for designing fancy shapes over the eyes only, complete with wings, feathers and heaven knows what. Instead of which it was absolutely packed out and there was hardly anything left to put on the masks by the time we got a place. Those horrible plastic full face ones always remind me of Hannibal Lecter. But anyway. She made a goldy Hannibal one and we had an interesting discussion that evening about why full face masks always look rather sinister, because you can't see the expression behind it, so it's hard to tell whether someone is friend or foe. Tied in nicely with some discussions we've been having about emotions in famous paintings.

We also got a proper look round the Medieval Machines exhibition, this time with no TV cameras present. Bits of it seemed to be missing, but Emily enjoyed having a go on things, and loved having Romy there too. After which we went to a newly opened park for a play, and a bit of a meltdown from Emily when she stubbed her toe and saw blood. Bless her. I can't see her going into the medical profession, somehow. Park had a lovely cycle lane section. Must go back once the kids are back at school and get past the stabiliser stage on Emily's bike.

Yesterday: lots of maths and English in the morning, and Emily and I played for hours on the Zoombinis pc game in the afternoon. I LOVE Zoombinis. I think it's a really clever concept. Parts of it are challenging for me, lol, so I'm sure it must do kids the world of good in stretching their logic and mathematical concept skills. After which we made some fairy cakes with strawberry butter cream filling. Yummy!

Today: this morning Emily's spent ages tracing things from a costumes through history book, and designing her own extensions to those costumes. Since it's weekend again, I'm stuck at the PC trying to work to deadlines, but she and Jon have just gone out for a long ramble in the woods, in the pouring rain, lol.

We've been spending a lot of time thinking about how to approach "education" in the year to come. Need to spark Emily's interest in things that aren't history related (in the interests of a "balanced" education!) but that's proving tough at the moment. Also, the whole workbooks issue.....increasingly coming to the conclusion that they're pretty pointless. We have tons, and Emily will work through them, if asked to (which is far from every day), with more or less resistance depending on her mood...but recently she's coined a catchprhase which just about sums it up, I reckon. Once she's finished whatever I've asked her to do in the workbooks she says with a long suffering sigh "NOW can I get on with my life?" She had me in fits the first time she said it, it was really funny, especially with the tone and facial expressions to go with it. But she certainly has a point!

She's not learning anything new from maths or English workbooks. OK, she's practising what she knows...but once she knows it, she knows it, and I don't think kids need endless practice once they've got the idea. The workbooks are boring for me, boring for her, and achieving....I don't know what. They are handy, though, for giving you an idea of roughly what she "should" be able to do at any given time. We would like Emily to be roughly at the same stage as her schooled peers, simply because we personally would feel irresponsible if she was not. That's not a slight on any families who do things a different way, it's just our personal feelings about our own daughter. So, we'll have to find a way of making sure we're progressing with basic skills but without the workbooks. Dunno what that way is, at the moment, but I'm sure it'll come to us eventually.

The Waiting Game

Well, here we are mid-week, and still kitten-less. I don't do patience! Well, it's not so much the waiting I mind, it's the total lack of information that's been forthcoming from the RSPCA. To be honest, I'm starting to get rather annoyed. Their refusal to give ANY kind of timescale indication seems rather, well, unnecessary. Surely they must be able to hazard a guess as to whether these kittens will be "ready" in a the-day-after-tomorrow type window or a the-week-after-next type window?? Nope, all we get is "we'll phone you when they're ready". I don't even know how old the kittens are. Could be fully grown by the time we get them, hmppphhh. I'm sure they have their reasons for being so, um, cautious....but it does make life rather difficult when you need to make plans for the day ahead, and tell a six year old for the 7th morning running that "I don't know if it will be today, we'll have to wait and see if the phone rings".

So. What have we been up to whilst awaiting the imminent (or not) pitter patter of eight small paws? Yesterday we had a tidy up blitz in our living room to make room for the kitten basket, scratching post etc. We can actually see the floor now. Trust me, in our home, that's an achievement. It was fairly pleasant as tidy-ups go, since it also involved clearing out the tall unit we keep all our photo albums on, so Emily spent several hours poring over our wedding photos, her baby photos, photos of us as kids, etc. She's seen them before, but they've been "inaccessible" for a while, so it was fun all over again.

In between helping clear up, Emily's been amusing herself with her Princess and the Pauper PC game, writing an Anne Boleyn diary (very, very funny!) and generally being a little superstar. This morning we did some maths and English worksheets whilst waiting to see if the phone would ring....sigh....and having established that it wasn't going to (at least not with the right people on the line) we decided to do some baking instead. Made these Apricot Oatmeal Squares 'cos we needed to use up some over-ripe fresh apricots. I must admit I thought they were supposed to turn out flapjack like. They've actually turned out very much more cake-like, but they're tasty. Extremely high in fat, mind you, but well, it would have been a shame to let the fruit go to waste :-)

Colours of the Rainbow & "The Socialisation Thing"

Yesterday was extremely hectic on the work front. Started packing orders at about 2pm and was still going at 11.30pm. Ummm. Mind you, Emily kept me company for hours whilst I was packing, having rediscovered her love of Civilization II on the PC. Last time she was enthralled by this, she always played as Cleopatra. Yesterday, it may come as no suprise that she was playing either as Elizabeth I or as Anne Boleyn....

Today; well - no kittens yet. Got an update this morning from the RSPCA, who say that the kittens are still not entirely happy eating solids, and they need to keep them in until they're sure there won't be any problems. But they're much improved, and we're still promised to be the first to know when they're ready to go. Guess it's looking like the end of this week or even the beginning of next at this rate. Ho hum. They say patience is a virtue, don't they?

This morning Emily impressed us both by making a big cat mask completely unaided, right from the finding the instructions in a craft book through gathering the materials, all they way through. The only thing she needed help with was tying the elastic right at the end. It's a lovely ginger cat, complete with tissue paper stripes of shades or orange, yellow and brown.

Things had been a bit up in the air whilst we waited to hear whether today was K-Day or not, and I think Emily was rather disappointed that today wasn't the day (although probably not as disappointed as I was, lol). She cheered up this afternoon though getting very messy in the garden doing this: Kitchen Roll Dyeing. We forgot the "wear rubber gloves" bit, so hands are an interesting colour even as I type! The one thing they don't mention, though, is that it uses a LOT of food colouring. Guess who's all out of every colour now?

Some pics:





This rather handsome cardinal beetle kept us company out there while Jon was up to his neck in more orders and booking tickets for Emily for Thursday for a Charlie & Choc Factory event at our local library, as well as sorting out a digital camera for Grandad.



Although Emily's been having a lot of fun recently, it's been a worrying couple of days with regard to her self-esteem :-(( Last night out of the blue she was in tears wondering whether her best friend still likes her - no particular reason, as far as I could see, except that Emily apparently felt she wasn't "interesting" enough and that her friend must be bored of her. Okkkaay. A pep talk about how friends love you for just how you are and are always keen to enjoy your company seemed to put that to rest for the moment, but we can't really tell whether that fear has gone or just temporarily been banished. That probably has a lot to do with the fact that both of the close friends she had pre-HE moved away, both times leaving Emily very insecure and isolated. It took a lot of explaining at the time that it was the parents' circumstances that meant they had to move, not anything she had done wrong. She does tend to form very deep attachments; I think she's frightened that she may lose this friend too :-((

Concerned that Emily doesn't know all that many other children at the moment, we'd been talking about a range of clubs, groups etc she could join. The other day, though, she had a bit of a meltdown about starting a new club. More tears, with Emily explaining that she didn't want to go because she didn't know if anyone would like her and that besides she's "got enough friends". Breaks your heart. She's such a loving, giving child, but that 12 months of school totally destroyed her confidence. I thought we'd made big steps in getting it back during this year of HE, but clearly there's still a way to go. The "socialisation" she endured at school seems to have given her a deep mistrust of most other children.

Mind you, it's made us question why we wanted her to attend these acitivities in the first place - supposedly for socialisation, since she's not desperate to actually DO any of the activities. If Emily's personality is going to be a bit like mine - I went from being a very quiet and shy child to a very quiet adult - is that necessarily a problem? I'm happy the way I am. I've never wished I was more sociable - in fact, I find most social events a chore, and am far happiest with family or one or two friends. I never understood why people used to tell me I should have more of a social life. Why? Why does society place such importance on being "popular"? If Emily seemed lonely, that would be a different matter, but she seems perfectly happy with the couple of friends she has, and us.

We're inclined to just leave well alone for the moment, and give her more time for her confidence to grow and her self-esteem to mend in safe environments she's happy with. Of course it's too early to tell whether she's going to be a happy loner, lol, or whether as she grows more confident she will want to branch out more. So long as we keep offering social opportunities, I think it's right and proper to follow her lead in accepting or rejecting those opportunities. I think we can tell the difference between when Emily's genuinely happy as she is and doesn't WANT to join in with something, as opposed to when she would LIKE to join in but daren't. The first is fine, and I feel quite strongly that we'd be wrong to push her into something she really doesn't want. We'll learn to get better at handling the second situation on the rare occasions it seems to arise. Guess we're all still learning this stuff as a family.

Thoroughly Nice Day

Well, so far, anyway.

Got all the stock cleared out of Emily's "work" room this morning bright and early. It's actually a large square landing type area at the top of the front stairs, but for years it's doubled as both a playroom and a stock room. Means that when we're in "work" mode HE-wise we have to shift a load of boxes out every morning and back in every evening, but hey, it's exercise.

Emily settled down to some more Tudor work, and looked at the reasons behind Elizabeth I's execution of Mary Queen of Scots. Then she completed little cards for each of Henry's wives, with a portait of each and facts about them. Think that definitely wraps up the work part of this Tudor project now. It's been going on for months!! The problem with the project approach to HE, for us at least, is that once something captures Emily's interest, there seems no end to it. So far this year we've done three projects - Cats, Ancient Egypt and now Tudors. And sort-of Sea Life in Autumn last year when we first started, but not the extent of the other three. We do a lot of other non-project related bits and bobs, but we're never organised enough to go for the sort of 'one week mini project' idea. Personally I'd love to, but it takes us that long to get a handle on what we're doing, lol. If it bores Emily she'd never stand for a week of it anyway, and if it interests her a week is never long enough. Think we'll definitely try and make the next one slightly shorter than 3 months, though....!

Mind you, she has kind of been doing a mini cakes project all on her own this last couple of days, as she's been busy writing fact cards about different types of cakes (fruit, chocolate, wedding, fairy etc) and drawing them. Emily and Jon were going to have a mammoth baking session this afternoon, except that we're woefully short of ingredients! Instead they've spent ages playing in the garden, doing charcoal pictures with charcoal left over from the barbecue, and filling the bubble machine with food colouring to make red bubbles. Emily's also rediscovered her bike, and has spent a long time cycling round stopping to pick herbs, flowers and bits for yet more grinding and potion-making. Her bike's actually much too small for her now. Wonder if we can bribe her to get the stabilisers off if we promise a brand new shiny one for when she learns?

Major PC Meltdown!

Woke this morning to find that our internet connection had packed up. No web, no email, no network, no nothing. Out of the blue. After half an hour of panic and another half an hour of swearing, to-no-avail-tinkering and cold sweats, we figured out we'd better bite the bullet and get help. Without the broadband connection our business crumbles to a standstill. To say nothing of the indignation of a 6 year old internet wiz when she discovers she can't get to google.

So, after many calls to many different helplines, each of which helpfully pointed out that it wasn't their problem guv but give these people a try, we finally found one who was willing to own the problem. Unfortunately, it was a premium rate number. How on earth BT can justify premium rate helplines for their own broadband service is beyond me, but there you go. After a full and expensive 20 minutes on the phone, it transpired that a third party firewall was faffing about with the IP (can you tell I'm a technical person??). The reason it took so long to work that out is that we were adamant nothing had changed in our carefully honed settings, held dear to our hearts after many previous hours of stress, and about which we had got used to gingerly stepping, frightened to touch anything in case it upset the delicate balance. Turns out that when we renewed our Panda antivirus subscription yesterday, it took it upon itself to download, unbeknown to us, an entirely new update which had reset lots of stuff and jigged around its firewall. Thanks for nothing, Panda. You cost us a fortune in phone bills and even more in stress.

Anyway. Whilst Jon and I took turns pretending to understand the instructions we were being given down the phone, Emily was busy making perfume in the garden. I must admit it does smell quite nice....it's just the brown muddy colour that puts you off! Once the network was finally fixed, we needed some therapy, so Emily and I headed out to Pets At Home and rather overspent on a load of kitten related items. We're now the proud owners of a beautifully comfy kitten bed, a very fancy play centre, treats, toys and a posh pink litter tray. All we need now is the kittens! RSPCA are looking hopeful for Monday, so fingers crossed.

Back home Jon discovered this monster of a caterpillar in the garden. It really was enormous.

We've identified it as an Elephant Hawk Moth caterpillar, so this large beauty is what it'll turn into after burying itself in the soil until next May. Looks rather pretty, although with a 7cm wing span I'd probably not be saying that if it was in the bedroom....

Inspired by this, Emily's decided she wants to do an insects project next. They "did" minibeasts in her reception year at school, but apparently they didn't actually learn anything interesting. Figures. She also wants to do a cakes project...????....now that sounds like my kind of thing! In fact, Emily's keen to get "back to work" in general. She's had the last couple of weeks pretty much to do as she pleases, and I think she's enjoyed just playing, but she says she wants to start working again now, so who are we to disagree?

Pottering Along Nicely

Had a fun, fairy relaxed day yesterday. We all went off to the garden centre to get more bird food, and investigated signing Emily up to a weekly art club held in the next village along. Followed by a long wander through Twigmoor Woods - Emily loved showing Daddy all the fairy dens and hiding places, and the lake where she paddles. Back at home we pottered about, thinking up names for the hopefully-soon-to-be kittens - the lady at the RSPCA apparently remembers us from when we rescued some orphan hedgehogs last autumn, and has promised that we'll be first to know when the kittens they're currently looking after are ready to go, which will probably not be until after the weekend. We've decided to have two so they're company for each other (and so if necessary they can defend themselves better against our existing two, lol!)

Today we've hardly seen Emily at all, as she's transformed her bedroom into a large tent and has been happily playing with barbies, ponies, angelina clothes and goodness knows what else. Which has given us a chance to press on with some work. It was our financial year end on 31st July, and we've got lots of ideas for refining the business over the coming months. Just need time to put them into practice now! The Press Assocation have now taken us on for a 12 month contract for the foreign magazine. She sent me a copy of what they said about the copy we provided, which was very complimentary. It's a big thing to have a foot in the door with the PA, so hopefully this will lead to more writing work to complement the retail side of the business.

Off to browse for a kitten basket and toys now!

Beaming From Ear to Ear

This evening Emily mastered her beam, well and truly. My Dad made it for her about a year ago, about adult hip height, but until today she's never wanted to go on it without holding onto someone's hands. This evening though, she was off! Not only walking across unaided but doing half and full turns, that fancy toe-dipping beam walk (no idea what that's called, but I remember being taught it as a child doing gymnastics!), posh star jump dismounts and gymnast style mount from sitting astride it. She was very chuffed with herself, and rightly so I reckon! Emily's not the most physically confident of children, but she's getting more and more confident as time passes, now she's away from the dreaded ritual humiliation known as school PE lessons.

Earlier on today Romy and Hazel came to play, and the girls had fun concocting play food for us "posh ladies". I have no idea what went in it, but it seemed to have been an appetising and somewhat mischevious mixture of toothpaste, handwash, shredded newspaper, loo roll and bucketloads of water. Having misheard my instructions to not put the resulting gooey stuff down the loo.....down the loo it went. Fortunately, Daddy was on hand to save us from flooding and overflow!

Hazel did some Reiki on my back, and it really does feel a lot more settled now. Jon fell asleep on the Reiki table as usual!

On the kitten front there is good news. Possibly. The local RSPCA apparently do have some kittens, but they're not ready to leave yet. I have to phone back at the end of the week. Which of course I shall. And I shall be muttering blue murder if someone's turned up in person and adopted all the little cuties before then, too.

Kitty Gone Home :(

Oh well, it wasn't to be. The kitten has gone back to its rightful home, finally found after much door-knocking effort. We were right, it wasn't old enough to be out, it had escaped through an open window (and apparently is always escaping, so we may see it again soon). It had made itself completely at home here, sleeping on Emily's bed, wolfing down food and playing with absolutely everything, so Emily was very upset to see it go, and I must admit I was quite sad too - but I guess it's been an object lesson in how it's important to "do the right thing" even if it hurts sometimes :-(

We're definitely on the lookout for someone nearby that sells/homes kittens now. Trouble is we searched back at Easter time and drew a complete blank. Plenty of places rehoming older cats, yes, but with our two existing quite elderly cats I'm not sure an older cat would be fair on them or it. We thought a kitten would be more readily accepted (and they were very accepting of this little one today) and besides, Emily wants a kitten that's small enough for her to handle - our two are quite "long" and heavy, she struggles with picking them up.

So. Kittenless, we are. But hopefully only temporarily!

Miaow!

Well, we seem to have acquired a kitten. It arrived in our kitchen this morning, in a bit of a state, and was reluctant to leave. Since we'd seen it earlier playing in the road, we decided to keep it in the house for the moment and knock on doors around here to see who it belongs to. Nobody answered in any of the houses I went to, but I did leave notes in them all. Mind you, it looks as if it's been out in the rough for at least a couple of nights, so I think it must have come from further afield. Jon's checked the post office noticeboards and stuff - nothing. If nobody comes to claim it, we've promised Emily we can keep it.

"It" - henceforth to be known as either a) Chocolate, b) Scruffles or c)Panther (tbc) is a bit on the wild side - keeps flinging itself at people and clinging to their legs (ouch) and goes a bit manic every 20 minutes or so, but the rest of the time it's gorgeous. Very sweet and soft, very purry. Personally I more than half hope it stays. We had been wanting a kitten, after all.

Before the kitten arrived and threw the day into chaos, we had been going to have a T-shirt crafts day. Emily made a Tudor montage of pictures in Word this morning, and we printed it out onto transfer paper and it's made a lovely t-shirt. Then we boiled up some grated beetroot from the garden and tried tie-dying another one. It's gone a lovely deep pink colour.....all over. Despite knotting and scrunching and tying and whatever, there's no pattern, just all over colour. Ahem. Obviously we didn't do that quite right!! We were going to do another dye from tea leaves too, but that boiled dry whilst we were being enchanted by "it", so....

I have absolutely no idea what Jon and Emily got up to yesterday, as I spent the entire day in absolute agony with lower back pain. I'd had niggling pain for about a week, but suddenly yesterday it was absolute paralysis - even got stuck on the toilet, to my embarrassement!! Getting into or out of a chair was impossible, let alone walking up and down stairs. Anyway. Emily was extremely patient with her invalid mother, and she and Jon seemed to have fun pottering away all day. My back's a fair bit better now, much to my relief - I had thought at one point I was going to be damaged for life!