Author Archives: HHaricot

today we were supposed to join with friends and go to the zoo. unfortunately i was so migrainous that i couldnt get out of bed till lunchtime, and clearly couldnt drive either. I was lucky my lovely friend came to us, picked up myself and BB and took us out to a very much closer raptor centre with birds of prey and in an unlikely combo, meerkats and reptiles. we had a fab time.

We first visited the reptile house, where the chap in it was modelling on croc dundee and did a rather scary demonstration of how strong pythons are and clearly keen to kill and eat you! it wa a rescue snake that hadn’t been handled. scary! he was v v knowledgeable with a clear passion and enthusiasm for reptiles, particularly snakes that the children were spellbound and instnatly keen to own an corn snake – as if bb needed more encouragement. I liked ‘the boy’ asking if the meerkats were there to feed the larger snakes…

we then went to the flight which was running late for a variety of reasons, so didn’t look much at the aviaries. The flight section lasted over an hour tho, it was pretty informative, tho not all the birds were complying cos there was a blumming big raptor in the field so the littler owls were just running away! It was also v cold! All the kids got to ‘fly’ a very tamw owl tho – so were v happy with that. unfortunately my phone ran out of charge, so didn’t get R catch the bird, and none of B, but both did.

coming back we either played minecraft or drank tea and chatted . our day finished with a successful judo grading for BB.

this weekend was BB’s first time to take part in the remembrance parade. This means different things to different folks, with some thought of it being subverted to glorify war. it doesn’t mean this to me, for me it is a personal memory of little nanny and her generation. I miss them, they had a certain something of spirit and style. I also hope that such a war will not happen in my lifetime. No more lives cut short. I hope that we learn to look for peaceful solutions, to embrace each other rather than looking for conflict. There are many wars being fought around the globe all the time. World peace seems a far off dream, but that is what remembrance day means for me, a hope of peace.

the rest of the weekend was fairly chilled. BB and i played some games, read some books, did some baking and a fair bit of snuggling.

11 whole weeks. I feel a bit like the witches in the golden compass stretched from my daemon. Deep breath and onwards! We have had a happy phone call with SB. she is in a 3 schools singing concert at the end of november – so excited about that. She plays in an orchestra with FrB and then again with the whole family at the weekend, so is happy to keep her clarinet going. Her french ‘big sis’ is back from her en famille exchange to canada, so looking forward to getting to know her too. This week they had an overnight camp in the scout hut – and that was fun. All very positive [except perhaps she should try and bit harder at school!]

SB has also put some more photos on flickr – edited highlights on my stream. this is mostly from her half term holiday where she has done rock climbing and got pretty good – apparently. I miss her loads and loads, but def made more bearable by knowing how well looked after she is by her french family as well as the great experience she is gaining. It is a great adventure.

I am sure i must have used that blog title before as well. Life is settling into a bit of a pattern sans SB. We miss her, but have made adaptions to missing her. SO I don’t look to share with her this or that, but put it in a letter. we-ell, as we aren’t so much supposed to put home things in the letter, I write about her, what she has been doing, what i look forward to hearing, but it is all suffused with love . It is all made easier by knowing SB is with a lovely family. BB has settled into a pattern. this does seem to involve coming into our bedroom most nights sometime between midnight and 2am, and a lot more minecraft. She is also reaching out to friends on an internet closed friends group. Which is lovely even if the conversations are slightly off the wall .

so this week has been a good bookish week. As going out things, BB has had art on tuesday, whwere they were drawing without looking at their paper. BB has done this a bit, and so says she is good at it I did like her drawings tho. Kfish took her as DH was waiting in for bathroom things that didn’t all come :(. Thankyou kfish . the waiting for bathroom things tho did mean that BB missed swimming – and for nothing

Weds was wed4ed, which has had a blog post f its own. BB went to judo afterwards v happily. SHe goes in and out of wanting to do judo, but i think it is good for especially a girl to be able to throw an assailant and then run away. SHe is happy tho, and that is the main thing I think it is grading next week or on her birthday.

Thurs was a going out shopping day and friday she elected not to go bowling with the local home ed group. DH was a bit sad as I think he had looked forward to it, but BB tought it would be too many people and too noisy. She went to cubs on the thursday, which she also loves [and I am sure that is noisy!] and they made sock puppets.

There has been a lot of home ed. since she had had a previous slack week, she is seeing if she can do 5 things a day for the next two weeks. as rather a relief to us parents, she has decided that mst of what she is currently doing is quite easy . This does mean that at some point we will need to bite the bullet and make it harder – eek! – but currently she is feeling v happy with what she is doing, so will stay as we are for now.

so – french – amazingly we are doing this, a book a week. This week’s book was the weather. We go through the weather in silly and exaggerated voices several times together, and she looks at it again in the week herself going through the book, and then at the end of the week, I try and remember to do it again. Conquer maths is going v smoothly [on year 3] , explode the code is too easy really, since she can read, but I am using it for surreptitious spelling and writing practice . She is getting confident again with reading music for the piano and our latest ‘new’ piece she was happy to sight read without fuss [she has played it before mind you] . For reading to us, I bought some ORT first chapter books for her for stage 10+ Oxford Reading Tree: Stage 10+: TreeTops Time Chronicles: Pack of 6 and she has been devouring them. I knew she could read – her beside reading book is the amber spyglass – but we like to do some reading aloud to check. So all happy and good really

We had a lovely weds with our flexible Wednesday group. I always miss those that couldn’t come but enjoy the company of those that can

We started the day with kfish talking about Picasso, a bit Bout his life and then a bit about how his art developed. There was a chance to choose which of a variety of styles each child wanted to use to create something with a Picasso like appeal. The resulting pictures were well thought out and a unique spin on the Picasso-esque genre.

As some of the children finished I took them into the kitchen to help me use up some very dry baguette. We made bread and butter pudding and cheese farts for snack in the afternoon

After the obligatory pasta lunch e did animation with everyone . The story is coming along nicely and bob, small, lfish have now completed their parts I think. They have really loved doing this and not only the art and practical side of animation but also enthusiastically working out the ideas as a group, as this is a group project.

When people were at a pause in animation, either waiting for the computer or having finished, I took them in 2′s for science. We have finished the first stage of the young engineers, and it being mostly about rockets and propulsion, I thought I would go back to basics and do some this is a gas, what a gas is, how we can make some of the common gases and then how we can test for them. i have to say, although I got across all the equations, chemical formulae, key words etc, I think they will mostly remember the black volcano! here’s hoping to some of the chemistry staying in too!

the destruction phase is nearly complete! BB and DH enjoyed using the sledgehammer to break up the old bath since there was no interest on freecycle. glad they wore their safety specs!
the destruction phase is nearly complete! BB and DH enjoyed using the sledgehammer to break up the old bath since there was no interest on freecycle. glad they wore their safety specs!

since then, DH has been planning the position of various pipes and getting them in place for the bath and shower. SInce the wall where the shower is going has got to have a stud wall made over it as it is so bendy backwards being a chimney breast, he was happy to draw his plans on it. BB got very enthusiastic about drawing on walls too!

And we have decided on the tiles too