Author Archives: HHaricot

Last Easter we had a family celebration to celebrate my cousin Martin and his pregnant with O wife J before they left to start a new life in the states. J brought with her a simple egg decorating kit v common in the states, but I haven’t seen one here. Her mother then sent aunty m another one and it wended its way here. All 4 kids really enjoyed it, even initially reluctant preteen nephew!! Here are our results

We have a full house here! My bil has brought his new wife for the first time and we have all the usual regulars! I am at work for the peace and quiet

well, sunny in temperament if not in temperature! [still snow!] We went to Kingsdown near Deal in a little wooden chalet for our hols. HOnestly it was freezing! we put lots of pound coins in the leccy meter and it warmed up! Nice chalet, nice and quiet out of season, swimming pool nice and warm and entirely to ourselves [changing room a bit small] Anyway, an excellent base. it is a shame we hadn’t realised that english heritage have really cut back on their out of season opening, and that canterbury cathedral was closed till friday due to a new archbishop… However we filled our week quite happily.

Things we enjoyed:

Dover castle – although it was absolutely freezing! The Operation dynamo in the tunnels is really well done and really moving [no photos] and WW2 is an area of history we haven’t really covered much, and it is clear that we need to, as both girls were v struck by it. [it cropped up in dover museum later as well]. The mediaeval castle is also excellent – and loved the display on Henri 2nd. The cafe serving vegetarian roast dinner was superb

Beach by the site – tho stoney/shingle rather than sand. SB went in the sea for a very short and crazy moment, we collected some of the very many cuttlefish bones about. ALso a lot of mermaids purses. We brought a couple back and must do this helpfully found my M for us. They are def rays, but we need to soak to see the size to complete the id – and we def have 2 different types.

Dover Museum and the Bronze age Boat. This bronze age boat is most definately worth a visit from anyone in the area. pretty central in dover in a bijou museum, what a find! top floor. We spent ages in that part of the museum. we also did a geocache that day.

Morellis at broadstairs – actually the girls really enjoyed broadstairs beach, and if the temp hadn’t felt approx absolute zero, it may have had more enthusiasm from adults! would want to visit some dickens stuff another time, but BB desperately wanted to go to a sandy beach – so we did. However, Morellis, is utterly 100% fab and delish . We still had a fab day, but i just don;t think those photos encompass just how cold it was [wearing a long sleeved t, a jumper, a zip up thick fleece and a fleece lined coat, double gloves and a hat! - actually i wore this many layers every day i think!]

Fort Lympne – actually i was a bit disappointed, it was really expensive and most animals were hiding due to the cold and it was so very ‘out of season’ that I think it should either have been shut or offered a reduction TBH. I am quite happy that it is a sanctuary, that the animals have a lot of roaming space etc, but if there is a temp where the majority will be in house and you can’t see in [bearing in mind that in some places - africa alive, monkey world etc there are peering in places so you might think this is an option here] the signage is poor etc, that approaching £100 is way too much – even if it can be a year long passport, if you live a way away you can’t take advantage of this. i think there should be an out of season half price [which can't be converted into passport] that you can buy. the shop even closed 30 mins before the site, so we had to do shop before we got round. however, the safari ended up being better than expected, and utterly redeemed the day by BB getting a fab pic of zebra and us being so close to them. DH spilling coffee all over our camera such that it no longer works was not such a high point. but it was freezing. oh, and we were 20 mins late out.

canterbury – a bit of a redeemed disaster tbh, we swam in the morning due to applied pressure from kids before we set out, and unfortunately once we got there dh realised left wallet and all money behind. between us i had £20, SB £17 and BB £5 and we needed lunch and admission to canterbury cathedral and park and ride. Actually impressed girls were ok with pooling in their money but we couldn’t get into the cathedral and lunch, so had lunch and then went to the museum. this was supposed to be a twin ticket with the roman museum, but that is shut. felt a bit doomed! However, since obviously crestfallen, the curator gave us reduced price admission tickets, so we needn’t spend BB’s money, and only a small bit of SB’s . the museum, tho not canterbury cathedral which is the thing i had set my heart on visiting, was actually quite excellent, particularly the modern penned not-bayeux which was the life of thomas beckett. girls loved me reading the whole thing aloud, looking for the witty drawings. the rest also good with interactive areas for the kids and lots of inormation for adults, but this best. the rupert bear bit on the end slightly surreal… so day redeemed again . Particularly as the girls got to spend some money in an old fashiponed sweet shop and a fudge kitchen!

The holiday came to an end too soon, we also played games, watched cooking programmes on tv, factored in a few more swims and the girls were a bit scary scootering down the paths! After a last swim in definately arctic conditions we went to the cafe at the end of deal pier – v nice – and then drove home in a blizzard!

well, not THE big bang, but the kids science fair in London. TBH, before I write any more of this post, i wonder if we could get a few science experiments/ projects and consider a longer term entry plan?

ANyway, this is the third year we have been to the big bang. there were less breakout rooms to go to – which was a shame – but we did enjoy gastronauts, and the girls enjoyed the science guiness book of records [tho i was reliving record breakers in my head ] However, I thought that the stands were much better thought out on the whole in the main arena [tho perhaps less?] and most people where pretty knowledgeable about what they were demonstrating or by. BB was grasped much more by it this year, but both girls had a great time talking to people and doing things. I liked the epidemics, even if SB decided to infect not vaccinate and DH managed to kill the population of england very quickly with a vampire infection of significant virulence! the bubble guys were v v enthusiastic and many other stands [realising how long it would take to list!] Most exciting for BB was… she got to meet an astronaut!! [see pic post below] and get a signed photo. She loved all the space bits and talked to the variety of astronomers and space tech related places. Both girls enjoyed doing the medical bits – which we haven’t done at all in prev years. BB proved v adept at laparoscopic surgery – all that wii playing! Also lovely to meet some other home educators there [for v short periods of either lunch break or tea revival! We went both days as this means not pushed to ‘see everything’ on a day and BB get in a tizzy about it. we were staying at the travelodge in india docks, which has seen better days, but v convienient for the DLR

I have got a bit behind as i have been away for nearly 2 weeks [yay!]. This started with a trip to the smoke. Having loved meeting up with my mum, we decided to meet up at the london eye for a trip around, lunch and the wander to houses of parliament. It did happen like that. However, we had forgotten the impact weather can make! It was sometimes blizzard and sometimes blue sky. Crazy! Made it very difficult to time things!

Anyway, although it blizzarded as with queued for our ‘flight’ it then improved whilst we were up there

There was a great bubble maker at the base which SB was intrigued by. BB was just hungry, so we went past lots of venues that she wailed at menu until we got to giraffe. thank goodness for giraffe! [even if she only ate the chips!] We enjoyed our food too.

When we got out, full blizzard in process, so we hid in mini-foyles until the worst over and then crossed the bridge to the other side to walk to the houses of parliament, and then snow held off and the sun came out and everyone was happy

There was a flurry of activity around westminster and we peered in and around. Then went to the Abbey [fairly pricy] but the activity sheet for once enthralled BB and we got to have a good meander around [well, the bits which the activity sheet mentioned...] Too late for their cafe tho but did get a big choc coin from the shop. I think it was v interesting for all, and we did lots of talking around people, importance and anne neville and whether she would want richard buried beside her.

When we got out, back in total blizzard so raced towards the tube, but noticed an italian cafe so ran inside and had a fab big mug of tea and a cake smiles all round

Lovely day with my mum must do this more often [in better weather!]

Merry /Mrs Muddlepuddle, queen of hama, friend and blogger has been blogging for 10 years! That is a seriously long time I have only managed 8-and-a-half. I haven’t known Merry for all 10 of them, just 8-and-a-half, but they have been a great 8-and-half years with highs and lows [on both sides]. As her Mrs Muddlepuddle incarnation, she set up the yahoo group that gave us the early encouragement to be home educators, and also the muddlepuddle camps, which got us to meet lots of other home educators. Always welcoming, friendly, sometime bracing with a bit of eyerolling thrown in . Not being entirely sure of what to put in a post celebrating this, I thought I would say something about our shared blog moments, and how sharing our lives, education and ups and downs [not always on blog] has enriched us. Online friendships becoming real life friendships, the early [prefacebook and other groups] years when in the evenings we eagerly whizzed around the muddlepuddle blogring to see what each other had posted, and then had comment conversations. The silly quizilla quizzes and other memes that swept around us. These were our younger carefree years! Less thought about audience, CEO, tags etc and possibly less thought all round! Our older years have seen us change blog styles, Merry has integrated business with pleasure [I think fairly successfully] and talked more about issues, passions. However, throughout is running a sense of family strength and firm friendships. So I have trawled through Patch of Puddles for links and added my own photos tho make a thread of laughter, tears and friendship [with some education alongside]

So here are some of our shared moments, starting with the first muddlepuddle camp in Melrose [we make an appearance in the last pic], which i was a bit nervous about as she and other home ed friends i had yet to meet had been on a centerparcs holiday together and sounded like a group of swingers…

And what struck me was the friendliness and warmth of the group we were joining, and that yes, it was possible to do this home-ed scary thing! Sadly Melrose is being sold, but we went out with a large snowy hurrah!

Kessingland, come rain or, well, rain! also great moments – particularly the one sunny year . Memories of you despairing over the shopping/food max had left you with. the children all having a great time together. Actually we did have some sun…

It hasn’t always been holidays and sunshine [or lack of] we have been through our bad years. I was priviledged to meet Freddie within hours of his birth and hope desperately with you for a good outcome. I was fairly poor at sharing the grief with you when Freddie died, as I was mired in my own grief of losing my sister, and it has taken us some time to come back to equilibrium. But i did care deeply that you lost Freddie, but had only the slimmest thread keeping me going and no way to communicate without that breaking. I am sorry for that. I gave all that I could.

but we carried on. Our children loved and played, we continued meeting at groups, more groups, still more groups

at party’s , many parties in fact

and loads of just meeting up to hang together. Our families have become friends, we have shared camping trips, holidays, new years eves, and just the day to day. We were all very happy to welcome in the littlest puddle too. All this shared history started by a woman on a mission, with a blog and a yahoo group.

All this and more blogged on Merry’s 10 year old blog, and my 8-and-a-half year old blog. Blogs are funny things, ostensibly about one thing, but usually about everything. These blogs were home education blogs, life blogs, but contain who we are, what we care about and how we think. Maintaining a blog for any length is hard, it is a labour of love. A bit like life.

Congratulations to Patch of Puddles for its 10 year blogiversary, and for Merry who really is a star.

PS:And the merrymobile, now sadly defunct, but very iconic in it’s day

She was v v v v happy

i blame merry for that word actually, and i don’t think i have ever squeeeeeee-ed before, but…

We are so very very lucky, as suggested to kentwellies that SB keen to learn the lute to go with her ladyshipness when there. I would also like to learn and so, one of the fab and friendly music experts has lent us a lute to try out before we look to buy one!!!

SB has played for an hour…

every year I sent mother’s day cards and flowers to my mum, my nan and also my sister [once a mother] . Only my mum is still here for me to love, and i send flowers and cards knowing that mothers day now for her is a day of sadness, having lost her mum and her daughter. my girls made cards for all the nannies as well as me. i love them every day, and am very lucky to have a great mum and great girls.