Gosh is it really that long since I last posted?! Over 3 1/2 years..
Life took on lots of unexpected turns in 2010, including the need for our family to retire a little bit from "public" life and just spend time being family for our own sakes.
I also ended up in quite a different direction personally, on the business front, and decided I wanted to keep my family life well away from my new notoriety in my business life.
I miss blogging though.
Brief update then: We are still home educating, still in Kent, but now in NE Kent instead of NW Kent/border of London. We are enjoying beach life now, living in a seaside town, and very pleased to be adapting to the slower pace of life.
The "kids" are now 18, 16, 11 and 6 which is a bit of a shock to write down.. The younger two have never tried school and I shall be quite happy if it remains that way.
It does look, by the way, as if our youngest is also somewhere on the autistic spectrum. I guess at least as he is no3 to be wired that way, I should make fewer parenting mistakes this time *crosses fingers*
Josh is looking for work, Samuel is volunteering in a local charity shop, William is building a social media empire, and Jonathan is trying to do what everyone else is doing.
We only moved at the new year so we haven't yet got involved in the local home ed scene here but there is a big, active network which I'm hoping we will get to grips with in the coming months. Meantime we are learning to love the area during winter - whilst of course looking ahead with anticipation to warmer days!
Showing posts with label moving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label moving. Show all posts
Thursday, February 06, 2014
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Filming, Acting, Enjoying
Scarily, without being on broadband and therefore not as involved in my online world, I've still managed to fill my days and end up with stuff undone by the end of each one.
It has been lovely though to be in our own place, and the sunny weather has added to the general holiday, freedom, new phase feeling permeating the family.
We had a family come around at the start of the week who are taking their daughter out of school at the end of July. It was their second visit to us, but this time their son came too (Aspergers) and we were all relieved to see that they got on grand with the boys (the trampoline helped!).
Later in the week we had a film crew here. They were here from 9.40am till 3.40pm! It was to film a "taster" episode on home education for a series on education that one of the channels is intending to do. It gets shown to the commissioning editors etc who decide if they want to go ahead with it.
They did an interview with Josh, one with Samuel, filmed William hunting for snails and various other William-type activities, and interview Roarke with Samuel playing with Jonathan on the trampoline in the background.
My interview was a boring talking head style.
We had Grace and her boys over from the lunchtime, and they consented to being filmed too. Lots of laughter, chaos, children, testosterone, toddlers not eating lunch... lovely lovely snapshot of families sharing friendship through home education.
We took the crew up to Keston Ponds and they filmed us going through the woods, pointing out bugs and things (as you do!) and then the boys went to their favourite part of the River Ravensbourne where they like to dam it. The camera guy was quite sad that he had to watch and couldn't take part as he said it looked so much fun!
I couldn't help but be amused at the mental picture of us wandering around being followed by camera and sound boom, as it WAS after all half term and the ponds and woods were full! You could see everyone wondering who on earth we were and/or why we were being filmed, especially when Grace and I sat down in the middle of them all whilst Grace was interviewed! I'm also wondering what our new neighbours thought of the crew in the back garden...
Josh had sailing last Friday in the morning then in the evening he had the first performance of "What Use ANY Generation?" at the Charles Cryer Theatre. Roarke took William to see it, and they all came home happy.
On Saturday we went down to Sheila's for her birthday barbeque which was really lovely (I especially enjoyed Phil's home made beers... shame I was to be driving later!). We then piled in the car and left early to drive all the way back, then Roarke took Josh off for rehearsal, drove back, grabbed dinner, then I drove BACK to theatre with Samuel so that we could watch the performance!
The show was great. All the SAVVY kids were good, as were the older generation actors who took part. I loved Josh's parts that he did, both the ensemble pieces and the three or four where he was a main speaking character.
Samuel has been really unwell now for more than two days so we are taking him off to the doctors today (hopefully, if we can get an appointment). He's got an eye infection, raging headaches, and has been physically sick for 36 hours. As Samuel is a lad who is ill about once a year, if that, it always knocks us back to see him ill. Last night he slept downstairs as he has a temperature and even with the windows open his attic bedroom was too hot for him to be comfortable :0(
Jonathan's foot seems better and he is now walking without a limp and running around as normal so we didn't bother with the fracture clinic yesterday.
Josh is in post-show freefall, anti-climax mode, and counting the days till Thursday and SAVVY as they are to be rehearsing for parts of the show to go to GUILFEST in July. He'll find out if any of "his" pieces are going to be used which is scary/exciting at the same time.
Roarke has been up since 5am when Samuel was last ill, working away. He's been using his laptop outside early morning and late into the evening/night and enjoying the sun and warmth. Beats working in an office ;0)
I thought in the heat yesterday that I really truly pitied the kids (and the teachers) in school on a day like that. At least we all had the freedom to go into a cool room, lay down, flop, drink, chill and generally follow our bodies' prompting in the heat....
All the boys other than Josh had a hair cut yesterday, to crop them short because of the heat. Everyone says that William and Jonathan look alike, but with the hair cuts now its even more obvious. See for yourself:
It has been lovely though to be in our own place, and the sunny weather has added to the general holiday, freedom, new phase feeling permeating the family.
We had a family come around at the start of the week who are taking their daughter out of school at the end of July. It was their second visit to us, but this time their son came too (Aspergers) and we were all relieved to see that they got on grand with the boys (the trampoline helped!).
Later in the week we had a film crew here. They were here from 9.40am till 3.40pm! It was to film a "taster" episode on home education for a series on education that one of the channels is intending to do. It gets shown to the commissioning editors etc who decide if they want to go ahead with it.They did an interview with Josh, one with Samuel, filmed William hunting for snails and various other William-type activities, and interview Roarke with Samuel playing with Jonathan on the trampoline in the background.
My interview was a boring talking head style.
We had Grace and her boys over from the lunchtime, and they consented to being filmed too. Lots of laughter, chaos, children, testosterone, toddlers not eating lunch... lovely lovely snapshot of families sharing friendship through home education.
We took the crew up to Keston Ponds and they filmed us going through the woods, pointing out bugs and things (as you do!) and then the boys went to their favourite part of the River Ravensbourne where they like to dam it. The camera guy was quite sad that he had to watch and couldn't take part as he said it looked so much fun!
I couldn't help but be amused at the mental picture of us wandering around being followed by camera and sound boom, as it WAS after all half term and the ponds and woods were full! You could see everyone wondering who on earth we were and/or why we were being filmed, especially when Grace and I sat down in the middle of them all whilst Grace was interviewed! I'm also wondering what our new neighbours thought of the crew in the back garden...
Josh had sailing last Friday in the morning then in the evening he had the first performance of "What Use ANY Generation?" at the Charles Cryer Theatre. Roarke took William to see it, and they all came home happy.
On Saturday we went down to Sheila's for her birthday barbeque which was really lovely (I especially enjoyed Phil's home made beers... shame I was to be driving later!). We then piled in the car and left early to drive all the way back, then Roarke took Josh off for rehearsal, drove back, grabbed dinner, then I drove BACK to theatre with Samuel so that we could watch the performance!
The show was great. All the SAVVY kids were good, as were the older generation actors who took part. I loved Josh's parts that he did, both the ensemble pieces and the three or four where he was a main speaking character.
Samuel has been really unwell now for more than two days so we are taking him off to the doctors today (hopefully, if we can get an appointment). He's got an eye infection, raging headaches, and has been physically sick for 36 hours. As Samuel is a lad who is ill about once a year, if that, it always knocks us back to see him ill. Last night he slept downstairs as he has a temperature and even with the windows open his attic bedroom was too hot for him to be comfortable :0(
Jonathan's foot seems better and he is now walking without a limp and running around as normal so we didn't bother with the fracture clinic yesterday.
Josh is in post-show freefall, anti-climax mode, and counting the days till Thursday and SAVVY as they are to be rehearsing for parts of the show to go to GUILFEST in July. He'll find out if any of "his" pieces are going to be used which is scary/exciting at the same time.
Roarke has been up since 5am when Samuel was last ill, working away. He's been using his laptop outside early morning and late into the evening/night and enjoying the sun and warmth. Beats working in an office ;0)
I thought in the heat yesterday that I really truly pitied the kids (and the teachers) in school on a day like that. At least we all had the freedom to go into a cool room, lay down, flop, drink, chill and generally follow our bodies' prompting in the heat....
All the boys other than Josh had a hair cut yesterday, to crop them short because of the heat. Everyone says that William and Jonathan look alike, but with the hair cuts now its even more obvious. See for yourself:
Sunday, May 03, 2009
Grey states with a silver lining
The housing tale is not over - we are still pursuing the council for what we feel we should be given, but the basic update is that we are waiting for a 4 bed house in Keston to be finished being renovated and then we will be moving in. Its a private rental, and housing are only paying 3 bed rate of benefit...
My main priority though is to get the boys moved, and to get Samuel and William the space they both desperately have to have.
Being in this "grey" state of moving is awful. Naturally, for Samuel, William and Roarke it is a major issue but it is also getting to Josh and myself. I definately feel like I am at the bottom of an inverted pyramid of pressure trying to cope with everyone's stress levels.
Rays of sunshine though through these cloudy days:
We took the boys to Keston village to show them their new neighbourhood and God fixed it for us to meet - in the middle of the woods - our new next door neighbour! It enabled us to have a casual chat and size each other up. I *think* she went away with a favourable impression...!
Each of the families in the three houses (we are in one semi) have four kids, though the others are older, so at least they aren't shy of larger families.
I've been going through some of the local history with the boys, covering Wilberforce, Pitt, as well as the Romans, which is kind of cool. Seems our house is an addition to what is believed to have been a gate house for Holwood House.
Josh is happy to have started back to SAVVY after the easter break, and to know he has now been registered to start his Arts Award. He also has a casting this week. Would be good if he could finally get something. We've now got the copy of the Golden Door recording so at least he now has some showreel!
Which reminds me, I need to update his website..
The boys enjoyed a trip to see the Robotic Zoo exhibition at the Hornimans museum during the week and Josh enjoyed starting sailing again on Friday.
Sadly today the intermittent fault on our kia decided to become more of a fixture, so at the moment of writing both cars are off the road. I don't really need the expensive of getting it fixed now, as we have to buy new beds for Samuel and William (who currently have bunk beds), as well as things like washing machines, kettles, toasters, dustbins and other bits and pieces that we've gradually got rid of in the three years here.
Ho hum.
My main priority though is to get the boys moved, and to get Samuel and William the space they both desperately have to have.
Being in this "grey" state of moving is awful. Naturally, for Samuel, William and Roarke it is a major issue but it is also getting to Josh and myself. I definately feel like I am at the bottom of an inverted pyramid of pressure trying to cope with everyone's stress levels.
Rays of sunshine though through these cloudy days:
We took the boys to Keston village to show them their new neighbourhood and God fixed it for us to meet - in the middle of the woods - our new next door neighbour! It enabled us to have a casual chat and size each other up. I *think* she went away with a favourable impression...!
Each of the families in the three houses (we are in one semi) have four kids, though the others are older, so at least they aren't shy of larger families.
I've been going through some of the local history with the boys, covering Wilberforce, Pitt, as well as the Romans, which is kind of cool. Seems our house is an addition to what is believed to have been a gate house for Holwood House.
Josh is happy to have started back to SAVVY after the easter break, and to know he has now been registered to start his Arts Award. He also has a casting this week. Would be good if he could finally get something. We've now got the copy of the Golden Door recording so at least he now has some showreel!
Which reminds me, I need to update his website..
The boys enjoyed a trip to see the Robotic Zoo exhibition at the Hornimans museum during the week and Josh enjoyed starting sailing again on Friday.
Sadly today the intermittent fault on our kia decided to become more of a fixture, so at the moment of writing both cars are off the road. I don't really need the expensive of getting it fixed now, as we have to buy new beds for Samuel and William (who currently have bunk beds), as well as things like washing machines, kettles, toasters, dustbins and other bits and pieces that we've gradually got rid of in the three years here.
Ho hum.
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Autumn Watching
I'm not sure where the week has gone, but I've just realised that I've not blogged since the weekend.
Sunday, we put the shed up at the bottom of the garden. It was easy, actually, but certainly painful - the panels felt a lot heavier with already tired muscles!
Over the week we've gradually been picking things out of the garage and finding homes for them, but we don't seem to have made much of an impression on the pile..
Tuesday saw the first of the Science Workshops, using our SEA from SETNET, that I'd organised. As usual with me, whilst I'm happy to organise things, on the day I get serious cold feet and I spent the morning in a major panic. Liz came early to help me set up, and did a fabulous job of looking after the little ones that came, in a separate room. We had a total of 32 children turn up (discounting toddlers)! The SEA did two experiments, Ernest the balancing Bear (demonstrating gravity, centre of gravity, balance etc) and the Jump Rocket (showing air pressure, vacuum, etc). Most of the kids got the chance to participate in one or the other of the demos.
I'm now collating feedback, and we'll sort out how to run future ones. I think we will need to split down the ages and make sure that we get more "hands on" in the future. Still, at least we didn't seem to put off the guy, so that's good!
The boys have been heavily into all things to do with nature this week. Every evening we've watched Autumn Watch, and William has followed it up on the CBeebies site too. They have also all designed their own wildlife park (yes, even William!), on the CBBC Roar game.
The revamp of the BBC Schools section seems to be going ahead. I noticed that the games are now easier to find all from one place.
Today we continued our nature theme, with another walk in the Footscray Meadows. We saw loads of exciting things. We are positive we saw a red squirrel, even though they are not known there. It definately was not a grey one. We were all really excited as none of us have seen a red squirrel before - though our garden is full of grey ones. We used to have 3 cob nut trees in our garden so I grew up amongst the squirrels!
We printed out the Seed Collector envelopes from the BBC Breathing Places site, and had fun trying to find things to go into it. We found a weird seed, that we have no idea what it is. The tree looked like a sycamore, but the seeds - on the outside - looked like conker spikey cases. Inside they had a little soft nut. Any ideas?! We also found a cluster of chestnut trees, so we collected a few handfuls to try and roast for the boys to taste. If they like them, we'll go back for more.
Things we learnt this week, amongst all the nature, is an easy way to see if a tree is ancient - if it takes at leaste 3 of you to hug the tree, it is at least 300 years old! The tree we had our lunch under today would have taken 7 of us, we worked out, to hug! We also found out about coppicing.
We had fun amongst the ancient woodland on the site, looking for traces of the old eighteenth century Footscray Place estate buildings, which burned down in 1949. We also examined various trees, saw a hummingbird moth, lost count of the number of parakeets we saw and heard, amongst other birds.
All that was in Roarke's 3 1/2 hr break that he has had each day on this shift, which was very pleasant.
Afterwards I did some more gf baking, this time fish cakes for dinner which, even though I say so myself, turned out quite well, as well as another cheese loaf for the boys.
Sunday, we put the shed up at the bottom of the garden. It was easy, actually, but certainly painful - the panels felt a lot heavier with already tired muscles!
Over the week we've gradually been picking things out of the garage and finding homes for them, but we don't seem to have made much of an impression on the pile..
Tuesday saw the first of the Science Workshops, using our SEA from SETNET, that I'd organised. As usual with me, whilst I'm happy to organise things, on the day I get serious cold feet and I spent the morning in a major panic. Liz came early to help me set up, and did a fabulous job of looking after the little ones that came, in a separate room. We had a total of 32 children turn up (discounting toddlers)! The SEA did two experiments, Ernest the balancing Bear (demonstrating gravity, centre of gravity, balance etc) and the Jump Rocket (showing air pressure, vacuum, etc). Most of the kids got the chance to participate in one or the other of the demos.
I'm now collating feedback, and we'll sort out how to run future ones. I think we will need to split down the ages and make sure that we get more "hands on" in the future. Still, at least we didn't seem to put off the guy, so that's good!
The boys have been heavily into all things to do with nature this week. Every evening we've watched Autumn Watch, and William has followed it up on the CBeebies site too. They have also all designed their own wildlife park (yes, even William!), on the CBBC Roar game.
The revamp of the BBC Schools section seems to be going ahead. I noticed that the games are now easier to find all from one place.
Today we continued our nature theme, with another walk in the Footscray Meadows. We saw loads of exciting things. We are positive we saw a red squirrel, even though they are not known there. It definately was not a grey one. We were all really excited as none of us have seen a red squirrel before - though our garden is full of grey ones. We used to have 3 cob nut trees in our garden so I grew up amongst the squirrels!
We printed out the Seed Collector envelopes from the BBC Breathing Places site, and had fun trying to find things to go into it. We found a weird seed, that we have no idea what it is. The tree looked like a sycamore, but the seeds - on the outside - looked like conker spikey cases. Inside they had a little soft nut. Any ideas?! We also found a cluster of chestnut trees, so we collected a few handfuls to try and roast for the boys to taste. If they like them, we'll go back for more.
Things we learnt this week, amongst all the nature, is an easy way to see if a tree is ancient - if it takes at leaste 3 of you to hug the tree, it is at least 300 years old! The tree we had our lunch under today would have taken 7 of us, we worked out, to hug! We also found out about coppicing.
We had fun amongst the ancient woodland on the site, looking for traces of the old eighteenth century Footscray Place estate buildings, which burned down in 1949. We also examined various trees, saw a hummingbird moth, lost count of the number of parakeets we saw and heard, amongst other birds.
All that was in Roarke's 3 1/2 hr break that he has had each day on this shift, which was very pleasant.
Afterwards I did some more gf baking, this time fish cakes for dinner which, even though I say so myself, turned out quite well, as well as another cheese loaf for the boys.
Saturday, October 07, 2006
Ouch!
Spent today clearing the rest of our old house out, 3 trips to the dump (with 2 cars), dismantled the shed (after clearing it), loading van, emptying said van at this end..
We couldn't have done it without Jenny, and Johnny & Vanessa from our cell group - what absolute stars who worked so hard, especially Johnny who is working tonight!
I hurt in every single place except my nose and ears!
My biceps are solid still due to the amount I've used them!
It hurts to type - maybe by tomorrow evening it will improve.. mind you, tomorrow we've got to reassemble the shed...
We couldn't have done it without Jenny, and Johnny & Vanessa from our cell group - what absolute stars who worked so hard, especially Johnny who is working tonight!
I hurt in every single place except my nose and ears!
My biceps are solid still due to the amount I've used them!
It hurts to type - maybe by tomorrow evening it will improve.. mind you, tomorrow we've got to reassemble the shed...
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Grey Day
We seem to be in the final stages - finally! - of the house sale. We hope this weekend to get the rest of the house emptied, including dismantling the shed, with the help of some friends from church.
A friend of mine has just discovered she has Intramural fibroids, and I would really value prayer for her, for strength and peace at the moment, particularly as she has a young family.
Today I've been experimenting again with some gluten free recipes, and getting to grips with sorting out how to ensure that, when I bake for my brother, I make sure there is no cross contamination with gluten. I'm struggling to find tapioca flour - to buy it online is unworkable due to delivery charges, so if you live near a good health food shop that sells it, let me know and I'll gladly pay you to send it to me!
The boys have been reasonably ok today - we went off to Petts Wood library today, for a change, and Samuel was pleased to have found 5 more train books that he'd never read :0)
Joshua is struggling I think to get his head around his brother having "needs". It must be extra hard - being the eldest and therefore always expected to "know better", help more, make allowances for younger siblings, and now on top of that being more and more conscious that Samuel needs even more allowances made. We are trying to plan out how he can have some special time with us over the coming weeks, and in the run up to his birthday in a few weeks time as he is right - we have focused a lot on Samuel recently and I can undertand why it is tough for him.
We were planning to have an outdoor Jeans for Genes event tomorrow but it appears we have been rained off, which is a pity.
Other than that, a bit of a wash out of a day. I've had a sinus headache today and haven't really felt in the mood for much. I think I feel a bit in limbo with the house sale and I just need to get it all over and done with.
A friend of mine has just discovered she has Intramural fibroids, and I would really value prayer for her, for strength and peace at the moment, particularly as she has a young family.
Today I've been experimenting again with some gluten free recipes, and getting to grips with sorting out how to ensure that, when I bake for my brother, I make sure there is no cross contamination with gluten. I'm struggling to find tapioca flour - to buy it online is unworkable due to delivery charges, so if you live near a good health food shop that sells it, let me know and I'll gladly pay you to send it to me!
The boys have been reasonably ok today - we went off to Petts Wood library today, for a change, and Samuel was pleased to have found 5 more train books that he'd never read :0)
Joshua is struggling I think to get his head around his brother having "needs". It must be extra hard - being the eldest and therefore always expected to "know better", help more, make allowances for younger siblings, and now on top of that being more and more conscious that Samuel needs even more allowances made. We are trying to plan out how he can have some special time with us over the coming weeks, and in the run up to his birthday in a few weeks time as he is right - we have focused a lot on Samuel recently and I can undertand why it is tough for him.
We were planning to have an outdoor Jeans for Genes event tomorrow but it appears we have been rained off, which is a pity.
Other than that, a bit of a wash out of a day. I've had a sinus headache today and haven't really felt in the mood for much. I think I feel a bit in limbo with the house sale and I just need to get it all over and done with.
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