Phew! · Monday July 30, 2007 by Ann

Have had a busy few days.
Whilst the girls were away Tom and I took the opportunity to go off to see DieHard4 at the cinema. We really enjoyed it and as we went on an Orange Wednesday we got two of us in for £6! A real bargain! The children and their HE friends often take advantage of this deal too-especially in term time. We saw the new Harry Potter film for the same price and the cinema was practically empty as went in the day before the schools broke up!
When we first started to home educate, nearly seven years ago, it seemed we would have little time alone together as a couple. It didn’t really matter, as the sacrifices to ensure the children are happy again, were worth it. We didn’t really think we would have much time to ourselves until we had finished home educating our youngest. The reality has been quite different though. As our children have mixed more and more with others in the HE community, they have spent time with their friends, at activities and at their friends houses. Then at other times, their friends come and spend time with us (more on this later). We find as they get older this is happening even more and we often find we have time alone together nowadays. Nowadays we seem to value the times when our family are actually all in one place as that is what is increasingly rare!

The girls came back from Manchester, the band did really well at their gig and were offered another-but can’t do it as they are all going to the Big Green Gathering later this week. Still they do have other dates coming up.

The girls are going to the gathering with another home educating family that we know and will meet with other friends there too.
Everything has to be carried in from the main entrance, there is no vehicular access, so we are busy cutting down on weight of their camping gear as much as possible. We managed to get a reasonably light 4 man tent off Ebay and they tried it out at the home ed camps. Today I managed to get a small ‘Billy Can” for them to cook with. They will be taking my single burner stove, spare gas cylinders and some dried food, so that I am sure that they can have a hot cooked vegan meal each day. There will apparently be a Farmers Market at the gathering, so they will be able to supplement their diet with plenty of fresh fruit, which they love.

We were rather concerned about spending money for this camp-as we seem to have been going through money like water lately. Then my lovely Granny died at the ripe old age of 98. She had been a very active independent woman for almost the whole of her life and she was very much loved by our children and involved in their lives. She didn’t have a lot to leave but there was a bequest of £200 each for each of her great grandchildren and the request that they should spend it having fun, in memory of her. Alice and Lucy are taking some of it to the gathering as spending money and saving the rest towards a trip abroad next year with friends. I am certain they will have enormous fun with it and think of Madge often.

Lucy’s friend Laura had come back with us from the Leicester EO camp, so that she could go up to the gig, as did Alice’s friend Fiona. Laura and Fiona stayed over another night and then returned home via train on Friday. The house has been very crowded again as one of David’s friends stayed over and Tom’s brother Richard is back on holiday from the Philippines and staying with us for a holiday!
I bet you all imagining that we have a huge house, but it isn’t like that at all- we live in a very modest sized semi! Fortunately since we rearranged the rooms a few months back, all the children have room for a friend to stay in their rooms. The queue for the bathroom does get a little long at times though!

On Saturday Lucy and I went over to my mothers and helped her paint her living room. Once again we discussed the surface area of the walls to be painted and worked out approximately how much paint to be used. Maths in real life seems to make so much more sense to Lucy, than problems written on a page. Needless to say we were covered in paint by the time we were finished, but we did feel we had done a good job.

Mom had sorted out a lot of my dad’s musical tapes and offered them to us to play in our car. Alice and Lucy have got a very eclectic taste in music and so Lucy kept some Country music, Sixties compilations, Beach Boys, Elvis Presley, Jazz, some classical music and some Johnnie Cash!! The rest we have taken to the local Oxfam music and book shop. We get a lot of books and music from that shop-it was nice to donate some back!

Alice went out on Saturday night to a party with her half sister Louise, but Lucy was glad to stay at home with us and recover from our hard work-and played a lot of the tapes!
David was off out at work and then he went on to a friends birthday party.
On Sunday i began work on our local home ed group’s response to the guidelines Consultation. Taking the views of other members of the group it took me a good few hours to compile, whilst cooking a Sunday lunch and advising the girls on organising the tent for the camp (we have only just got the mud washed off and dried it from the last camp!)
I was also on hand to help Lucy as she was playing on a maths website, after deciding she has to focus more on her maths. She was playing lots of geometrical games.

Then my brother in law Richard was taken ill and an he was advised by NHS direct to call an ambulance! Richard has the same blood clotting condition as Tom and the girls and has suffered a heart attack before. We had a initial response car arrive first and then an ambulance arrived and took Richard to hospital.
Apparently he has accumulated water on his lungs again-but after some treatment IV was discharged home-at nearly midnight!!

We had an impromptu Human Biology lesson again-all about circulation and the functions of the heart and lungs. The girls are always interested in human biology and that relates to blood clotting is very relevant to them.

My step granddaughter Nancy has been here all day today. We have been playing on the PC, on the Cbeebies site. Then Lucy and Nancy made some little sponge cakes and made a chocolate icing for them. We went off to our local town later on, to do a bit of shopping and to go to the bank to pay in some money before the end of the month. Lucy went all around the banks in our local town asking about interest rates and benefits of opening a children’s account. She finally chose a different bank to the one we use and opened an account (and put in the rest of the money from Great Granny Madge). Lucy actually wants to have a Co-op bank account as he main bank account, as she judges them to be more ethical in their investments-something that is very important to her. Unfortunately the nearest Co-op bank is in Birmingham and so not easily accessed. As she has begun to travel more, we need to be able to get to her bank easily and put money in-if she were to need more when she is away. We did this on a weekly basis for her sister Alice when she was away sailing for the whole summer, a couple of years ago. As the band Lucy sings with a ll live about 70 miles away, we know she will be away with them more often, as well as staying with home ed friends. There have been occasions in the past when she has needed money unexpectedly and has had to borrow some. Having a bank account will mean we can send money to her if necessary.

David has been home developing his Fantasy Role Playing Game where he is Games Master and tonight he has gone over to play through the night with some of his home educated and college mates. He’ll come back in time for work tomorrow.

Step daughter Louise has joined us overnight and she and Alice and Lucy are in the process of making some more cakes as they all have an urge to eat something very sweet!

I finally got the local group’s response to that Consultation completed and submitted, late this evening and we got a response number 641! We are getting there. If you still have not responded, please consider doing so before it ends tomorrow. Every response will count! I’ll be so pleased to see the back of this consultation, but do hope we have done enough as a community to make a difference!

Musical gig.......and THE Consultation all quiet at the moment....