Author Archives: HHaricot

Oh my goodness, it seems forever since I gave SB a hug, and I really do miss her. 15 weeks till she comes home. Trying to tell myself we are nearly half way through. SB has returned from a holiday to the cote d’azur, staying with a friend of V. [it is clear SB has decided to call them V and E rather than maman and papa] The weather was good, they swam in an outdoor pool and also the sea – voice of shock that the french sea [the med] is warmer than the english sea [the north] -well duh! but she is happy that she is climbing, as really enjoys that. They seem to have had a lovely time, and she has had lots of fun in the 2 weeks holiday. Lucky her to have had the opportunity for 2 holidays so close together WHilst away in paris she did apparently close her hand in the train door but luckilly nothing broken

She is a bit sad that she doesn’t get to bike ride or play board games after all [so I have taken the game out of the christmas parcel] and of course she doesn’t get to read, so 3 things she loves she is missing currently. However, hoping she will get more enjoyment out of them when she returns [being bracing ] Tho taking out and bringing back the bike is a bit of an effort for the lack of use! We discussed xmas pressies, as she doesn’t think she can send any from france, so i will be sorting them out for her this end. [bit of craziness with phones so we couldn't overhear plans for other people!]

She is actually looking forward to going back to school. She is friends with the whispering, giggling, interesting people, rather than the clever ones [which are FrB friends]. She says they are fun and helpful. SHe was given a detention for collecting 7 red lines – talking, jiggling her desk, not doing the work, not getting her homework book signed etc – but the principal cancelled it as couldn’t believe she would have 7 red lines in only 2 months [ I hadn't predicted her to be one of the naughty girls] , but she did do better in the last english control [18.5/20] and civics [5/5] and is hoping to do well in maths. School is clearly not so terrible now as it was at the start, she has got into the flow of how it works, has some friends there, and understands more now she has better french

I do hope that when she looks back on this she will be glad that she has done it. I do worry a bit about whether she really feels part of her french family [I haven't asked her, so I could be wrong and be an overthinking parent left at home symdrome!]. Maybe that comes later, or maybe it is because she is older going out than our friends were? But she does now seem happy there. This phone call is the first one she started a sentence in french to us so i guess french is becoming more instinctive now.

When we get some photos of her coastal break I will add them. But good luck SB, and seize the day

edited to add that V has added some pics on SB’s flickr account – thankyou – so here they are

every so often, one of my friends gets political, so i relook up the basic working of the education otherwise stuff. this time i used hull city council’s site. i rather liked this bit

Tips for successful home education
Make the learning process active, practical, participative and hopefully fun
Make systematic plans for your child’s learning
Take full advantage of all available resources, such as museums, libraries, parks, computer, a range of adults, educational video and audio tapes, clubs
Encourage your child to read widely
Plan a programme of educational visits and broadcasts
Provide opportunities for physical development
Encourage your child to develop socially with other children and adults
Make learning enjoyable by using a variety of approaches
Give your child opportunities for independent learning
Make sure your child has a quiet area for studying
Have a coherent philosophy of education

It’s quite sensible, isn’t it! Might not have gone with the entirety of the webpage, but do like this bit.

we never celebrated halloween when I was a child, and as it gradually crept across the pond into a bigger and bigger thing, it was disdainfully referred to as an americanism. However, since SB did her first halloween proper with Merry – where she wanted to dress in the angelina ballerina choice of firefly, so i had to adapt a dress and a headress [and isn't she just gorgeous] – we have built it into our lives. Our village, it turns out, does halloween rather beautifully. If a pumpkin or significant other halloween dressing is outside the house, you can knock and you’ll get a treat. if there are no decs, you just move on. no one is bothered, it is all v friendly, starts about 5.30 and is finished by 7.30. Groups of children and their parents go round, jolly, admiring each others costumes, having friendly villageness. Since we took my nephew and niece one year, it is on their calendar too, so very lucky that it fell in half term when they were with us

my mum and dad had arrived, I have no idea what they did in the day as I was back to work. But I know that on friday my dad took them all out for lunch at the golf club and bowling, and they loved that. He then did some gold pratice with bb in the garden, and she really loved that. So he took them all out to the golf club on saturday to practice golf, and bb would like to go ahead with golf lessons . there was some wii playing and some crafting. On the saturday a fair amount of crafts got finished, including M’s rocket dog for school. I was still pretty migrainous so a grumpy way to end the week!

We had firework night on the sat, an early start, as i don’t like leaving it too late, and it was pretty gusty windy! our fireworks are minimal bang with suitable for small gardens, but we enjoy them . This was followed by fondue – chees first and then chocolate. i loved the cheese, the kids loved the chocolate . mum brought her 70s recipe book and set – fab we had fondue every bonfire night i think as we grew up, so it has special memories for me of happiness.

we played 7 wonders game with my parents in the evening. I loved having family over the half term holiday. we had a lovely time, and the kids had a lovely time with lots of loving, laughter and crafting. perfect

It was a week 5. we don’t get many of those! – 4 – and so it also being half term and my nephew and niece here, they like meeting up with our home educated friends, and have done so periodically through the years. It was a bit of a late start of a day, but once got going I thought it worked really well. We did the graffiti art, and I thought my nephew did a particularly good job

Then Big from liveotherwise brought a fab craft, whcih was decorating t shirts with acrylic paints and a template. these are then ironed on when dry. apparently if you use textile medium it makes the t shirts more flexible. also we should have washed the new ones [bought this morning for the purpose] oh well! sure it will be fine . everyone did a fab job and this was felt to be the fav activity.

there was a choice of either minecraft nets or baking [the group split predictably! E and afish got on very well] . E, afish and smallest moulded pumpkins out of marzipan and then offered the treats around [v much liked ] and BB, M, small and kfish made minecraft nets and then went on to observe/play/argue minecraft. we clearly need R and B around to keep it fun rather than argumentative! kfish made the pumpkin pie as we had run out of enthusiastic children at that point. however we had quite a number of enthusiastic eaters

A lovely day. Thankyou to all who came my nephew and niece loved seeing you, and thought the t shirt idea fab.

I am hoping to do some modern art with the guys at weds4ed, so thought i would start with something fun like our own tag. we discussed movement, shapes, balance and colour. I had a few examples printed out. Google searching came up with this and so I used this for a basis.

Here are my workings – few initial designs were worked out on rough paper, and then the one I settled on was traced onto nicer paper. This was coloured with acrylics.

Seemed nice and simple and something to talk about as it was done. turned out to be surprisingly difficult to grasp.

yes, fairly lame title, but our blog has its 9th birthday in less than a month, and 9 years of blog titles [2706 published entries] has taken its toll! however, i did spend my annual leave in fairly typical fashion. LIke many working mums I have a fairly heavy anount of guilt about working and not being at home. I also love being at home with the girls, so do sometimes/often resent having to go to work. I am sure i am not alone in that either! Luckilly work is rewarding, if stressful, so i feel that it is making an impact. Clearly tho this is a piece of pander nonsense as most jobs people do are making a difference/needed. giggle, coming back after doing some more living, wonder whayt got me on that rant box. love the girls x x .

Anyway, back to the last 2 days! for us ‘the storm’ was more teacup, and monday dawned bright and beautiful with no roof tiles missing and power and water present – phew! So the kids went out and played loads and loads outside with an intricate made up game on the trampoline. I was ‘best auntie’ as i made pancakes for ‘second breakfast’ . some more outdoor playing later and we then made some halloween cookies.

we did lots of crafting in the conservatory. M is making something or other for the school art challenge – well, he is repurposing a glass diet coke bottle as a dog. I am hoping this fits the brief! E did some fimo, and bB some scratch craft. unfortunately the photos contained what i was doing, a present – which i hope noone can see on flickr! Anyway, a scratch one from the prev day and one of M

After showers and baths we finished with snuggle up film night another great day.

Tues was pretty much the same, except with added pumpkin carving. there was lots of outdoor play on the trampoline, lots of giggling and raring about added in.

Pumpkin carving went well – no injuries and now 4 pumkins to proudly light on thurs. Have some flesh to make pumpkin pie with tomorrow as well . I love how e’s looks like it is shrieking we had them in the centre of the table for our pop up burger bar lunch venue

after lunch was mostly wii-tastic – playinng lots of wii sports resort and mariokart. loads and loads of giggles and merriment [tho i mostly was tidying the conservatory up a bit. 3 crafters for 4 days = chaos ] BB went out for her swimming lesson and did some perfect dives. more wii when we got home then some comptering with E before films night. [we are having films night every night i think, as a treat all together . BB has been reading the amber spyglass, and was most indignant when i asked her whether she was reading it all!

I loved my sister very much, and miss her every day. I also love her children, and love them coming to stay, which they are doing this half term – yippee!! so friday they were very eagerly awaited and finally arrived at 9! their presence tends to mean lots of shriekage, happy giggles and noise, cooking, baking, crafting and minecraft. i have strict screen rules – not after i have got up and not till 6, so that they do a mixture of things together . They usually don’t want to go anywhere. the just like to do stuff together here. my BIL and SILIL went into cambs for most of the sat and left sun morning, but we had some good games evenings playing. mum and dad will come towards the end of the week to take them all home, as BIL and SILIL are off to china on tuesday. I have to say, that although i miss my sister hugely, and wouldn’t choose this to be the status quo, I am very happy to see BIL so happy with SILIL, it is good for him to have a new beginning.

so, so far we have baked apple pie, with all the kids having a go on my apple peeler

we have used some djeco craft kits and done some mosaics and some paper craft. We have enjoyed some wooden kits and also done some fimo and repurposing of coke glass bottles [in progress]

it’s not all indoors tho. there has been a lot of bouncing and playing on the trampoline, and also we did go to the park [and yes, i did offer nat trust, english heritage etc etc including a bird demonstration, but no, home is best] so there has been plenty of ‘fresh air’

hmm, typing this whilst they were out in the garden, but giggles have turned to slamming doors, so best go ahead with ‘next thing’

yay we had a phone call. has been 2 weeks – too long! and SB is grumpy we didn’t ring earlier in the week, but didn’t knw she was back at home, and we have to ring really when agreed with V and E. she sounded happy and confident. she didn’t seem teary at all – which is good, even if due to bravery and we had a lovely call. She has had her ‘language test’ with en famille, and no doubt we will hear how that went. SB seems more confortable with her spoken french and understanding, but not with read yet – early days tho. She loved visiting paris tho and enjoyed the museums. She is looking forward to the cote d’azur next week too. She and her french sister FrB clearly get on well. She is also looking forward to the middle sister C coming back from her en famille trip to canada – partly because she will play cluedo too, but also because she quite likes the idea of a big sis. And yes, i miss her x x x . love you SB, have fun and make the most of every day x x x

this week was a bit of a get house presentable rather than diy SOS central. so not so much to update there, but at least ok for guests BB was amazing, she actually tidied her bedroom and the playroom. She did the playroom with no fuss!! exceptional! tues was art again – and no, no photos yet, but should i get some i will add them. fri was conservation group and weds was film ed day. so i am going to skip over the whole week and go straight to the weds film

we saw monsters university. it was a great film, made me laugh and alyhough not as good as the original it did have some nice touches. here we are with friends in the cinema

ok, it is tood ark to see much but there are 9 excited kids there, aand then 4 parents sat a bit away. the row behind was all home educated kids too. we all enjoyed it and then came back to eat and play at mine. i had thought we might do ‘something’ but instead the kids played games – board and minecraft – and the adults chatted, played piano, planned.

oh, and i nearly forgot, we celebrated a birthday with cake and song, as you should

here is my fav