More catch up....

This morning everyone headed off to the Tess Valley Home Ed meeting leaving Miles and I at home. The house has been so quiet and even more so now that he is asleep! They will be back about 1.00 ish but by 3.30 they will be heading back out to Rainbows. Wednesdays can be really busy. I think the girls enjoy it though. The Tees Valley meetings are reducing to monthly over the summer period as I think attendance has dropped. I think that's a shame. Personally I feel it would still be nice to see folks regularly.

I've been pondering how much things have changed since we moved here in November. We only moved about eighteen miles but life seems so different. Much slower and quieter. I feel like I'm forever space clearing in my head these days which can be a good and a bad thing. I'm spending quite a lot of time thinking about the children and home ed - the social aspect in particular. It worries me. I'm also spending quite a bit of time thinking about my career, or perhaps I should say lack of career. I'll send off my form and cheque within the next few days to retain my name on the roll of solicitors but I think the likelihood of me ever returning to practice are so remote as to not be worth thinking of. I've contemplated completing my professional training in homeopathy but this just doesn't have the same appeal as it did a couple of years ago, no doubt at least in part due to Miles failure to respond to most remedies he has ever had. Despite all this I do like to envisage myself doing something career wise within the next few years. Preferably something I can do from home for just a few hours a week - I know, I don't ask for much do I?

Miles has changed so much of late too. He's certainly making the transition from baby to young child now. Although his speech is quite slow his understanding is excellent. I feel that he is becoming very conversational on our own special wavelength. His love of books is growing daily. Like Hermione at that age he is a big fan of Rod Campbell books and Spot. He's also of an age now where he's capable of having bad hair days - and does most days :-)

We wandered along the street to see the horses and foals the other day. They were in the stable. We took a picture of the view anyway. It's special to me.

On Monday we started our study of The Rag Coat by Lauren Mills. I really like this book. It has strong messages and wonderful illustrations. We talked about how kind and generous the Quilting Mothers were. They put someone elses needs before their own. We talked about how the school children mocked the girl about her coat. We tried to empathise with the characters on the book.

On Tuesday we talked about how the girl's father died from 'black lung' which he had developed as a result of working in the coal mines. We talked about how coal came about, the compressed remains of huge swampy forests which thrived millions of years ago. We talked in simple terms about renewable and non renewable forms of energy. We looked at pictures of renewable forms of energy such as windmills , wind turbines and solar panels. We hope to have a wind turbine in time. We have installed a particular type of heating system in anticipation and apparently we are just waiting for some imminent changes in planning regulations and suck like which will enable us to have a slightly larger turbine than we could have at present. I'm quite excited about it. Particularly in light of how much wind we get here on top of the hill I suspect we could be charging back to the National Grid!

We went on to think of other things which are mined from the ground. We thought of crystals, chalk, gold, diamonds, oil and metal.

I had some strange urge to recreate my childhood and suggested we all go in the garden and jump rope like the girl in the story. We headed off out and gave it our best shot, singing the 'Twenty Four Robbers' rhyme as we jumped (or should I say tried to jump) over the rope.

We are more than half way through our Five In a Row texts now. I decided to ask Hermione what she would like to do about this. I do find it odd how I could start out with such an unschooling style philosophy and yet end up following curriculum's of sorts. I suppose the main thing is to remain child lead. Hopefully that way I won't go too far wrong. Hermione said she would like to continue with our story lessons. I guess it's time to start looking at the catalogue again.

On the aftrenoon I headed into Durham with Hermione and Miles to see the Mind Mapping Exhibition which she helped to create. I'm not cretain if photography in the library is allowed but here it is -

In the course of writing this post there was a knock on the door. It was two men who asked if they could take any scrap metal out of our skip. I told them that they were welcome to take anything they wanted out of the skip but to leave everything else. They rummaged through the skip and took nothing but as they were wandering down the drive one of them picked up the horse shoe which I had dug out of the border and placed at the side. He pocketed it. I don't know why but I feel quite emotional about this. What is it with people?