Birthdays and Sunshine

Crikey I didn't realise it had been so long since I blogged!

What have we been up to?


We had my niece's 1st birthday party at my brother's house (she's the little girl in pink watching whilst everyone else plays with her new toys!).

Everyone dressed up for the occasion and, ironically, Roarke, Josh and William all wore blue shirts.

That meant I got a lovely photo of my "boys in blue" (one of whom is bound to want to kill me for putting that picture on the internet... *shrug* mother's prerogative - and I could put worse ones up!)

We also officially started our Pampered Chef business, with Roarke having three cooking shows in four days. It is really fun, and we love having something to do that includes food ;-)

I have finally been able to pass on the media spokesperson role, with Ian Matthews being announced as the new spokesperson. I'm sure Ian is going to be amazing, and I wish him all the best. I'm not going to miss the endless phone calls nor the short-notice "can you do a radio interview?" or, worse, "can we send a car to bring you to the studio?"!

Ongoing activities include Josh taking his Level 4 Sailing course at Danson Park, and going to SAVVY on a Thursday. Samuel is getting more and more involved at church on the sound/multi-media desk. He served in ROCK Sunday School on Sunday and then in the evening (and again on Monday) when we had Pastor Bill Wilson from Metro Ministries over, he served in the tech box. He has also been going to band practice every Thursday to do the sound for Baseline.

Josh is still doing his math regularly, which is encouraging. I need to start thinking about giving Jonathan some more opportunities for learning actually. I think, having never gone to school and therefore having no hang ups about studying, that he would response well to having some worksheets and things to do. I need to dust them all of ;-)

Bill Wilson was amazing, actually. The messages that he brought have really affected myself, Roarke, Josh and Samuel and there is a lot of thinking, praying, and planning going on as a result. There has definitely been a paradigm shift..

That same weekend we also went to another first birthday party, this time for Kaiyah.

This was a lovely gathering and we were very pleased to have been included amongst friends and family invited.

We went with William and Jonathan for the start of it; they had a great time with all the kids there.

We then collected Josh and Samuel from their life group social, dropped Jonathan at Mum's, and went back and stayed until the end.

It was good to be out as a family.

This morning I had an interview with a reporter - not about home education for a change! Woo hoo! Actually it was about Dad's story and I'm hoping that the piece gets published and helps a little in raising awareness of coeliac disease.

The garden seems to have recovered from the frosts and the plants have all responded well to the short sunny spell that we have had. I have finally worked out that it IS the pigeons eating my brassicas, having caught them in the act, so yesterday I went out there and made a make-shift netting cover for them all as well as for the strawberries. I hope that works!

Now I need to focus on the fact that Jonathan will be THREE next weekend, and then it will only be a few weeks before William is EIGHT!

Frosty Veg

I get a feeling that I might look back at my last post, with it's lovely pictures of all the things growing in my garden, and weep by the end of this week!

What IS it with this weather?! A few days ago we had snow in some parts of the country again, and widespread frosts at night.

I panicked. I don't have a greenhouse. My tender plants - courgettes and tomatoes - were already out in the garden as they had outgrown the pots that fitted on my window sill or in my ramshackle plastic thing, and I had no choice but to plant them out.

Without any proper poly tunnels or the luxury of cloches, I had to make-do-and-mend. I pulled apart an old wire hanging basket, gathered all the large stones and sticks I could find, and collected a miraculously-timed gift of bubble wrap courtsey of my local Freecycle.

This was the result:

tomatoes and herbs
Strawberries
Courgettes
Brassicas
French beans
Over the days I've refined the covers a bit, and found some plastic cover from a new mattress which I've cut into strips to make long polytunnels to cover two rows of carrots and my precious yellow beetroot.

Sadly, three out of four courgette plants are struggling. Ironically not from the night-time frosts - they have been perky every morning when I've taken their bubblewrap bedjackets off - but from the low temperatures and keen winds during the day which was something I hadn't counted on.

Still, at least I've tried. I have felt very much like Barbara in "The Good Life" and I'm sure it must have been a great source of amusement to my neighbours to see me out there every evening..

One evening the other week we helped some friends out by collecting their three children from school and looking after them until their Mum finished work.

We cooked our famous slow cooker chilli and served a just-made-up-that-evening pudding that was a real success.

I made a rhubarb and apple compote, covered it with what we've decided is the ultimate crumble, in individual little tarts.

We served it with our home made rhubarb ice cream and a lovely syrup made out of reducing the liquid from the compote.

I managed to impress myself!

Josh, in true autonomous fashion, has decided that he'd like to improve his math ability in order to feel more confident so he's set himself the task of doing an hours math study every Monday. Gobsmacked!

Roarke had a day's acting work, on a small budget film. By the way I realised this week that Perrier's Bounty is out - Roarke is in that! I don't know if it has/is going to show anywhere near me which is a shame. Apparently the Special Relationship is out shortly too, which he is in.

Josh has continued with his sailing, and Samuel is enjoying learning the multimedia and sound desk at church so that he can start doing the sound at Baseline. I'm so proud of my lads! They have all said that they want to start doing both services on a Sunday in order to get the most out of church, and get to spend time with their friends there.

I've been able to help out more at church, doing another two meetings/trainings with regards to funding, and also helping at their awareness seminar for the work of the Hope Foundation.

Talking of Hope, Roarke is doing well with his training for the Triathlon. PLEASE sponsor him!

I'm organising a trip for our home ed group to go to the View Tube on the Olympic site which is exciting! I haven't organised an outing for a while so it's a bit nerve wracking but it seems to be really popular and we've already booked two days, with some 70 people taking part!

Community, Kitchen Tables, and Fund Raising

Sunday saw our Community Day at church. We had a visiting preacher, excellent worship from Ariki, and a Hog Roast. Roarke went early to help set up and to run the barbeque for the children. Samuel went early (having of course lost an hour's sleep due to the clocks changing) as he was helping in ROCK for both services. I had the opportunity to serve with the others on the catering team in serving people their food.

All in all it was a great day, and the weather held!

Jonathan spent the morning with his Nan, which meant that we could all serve without anyone having to watch out for him and meant his Nan got to see him.

Josh and Samuel got to go bowling in Orpington with some dozen or more other teenagers in our group this week, and it sounds like they all had fun. They also had a really good evening with some of the young people in their life group last night.

Trying to find things for William to do whilst the others are out is often hard. When they went bowling we went to buy him a game for his computer, but then when we got home we found the graphics card on his laptop isn't up to it, so he still can't play it. Poor William :-(

Two more Freecyle triumphs this week have been an ikea chair - in exactly the right blue to match the other living room furnishings - which Jonathan has claimed as his own, and today a lovely play kitchen that we collected from a house in the next road along from us! Jonathan said "thank you Mummy and Daddy - this is the best thing ever!" His little face was a real picture :-)

I made schnitzel for the first time this week and everyone love them, so that is now going on the regular family meal list.

Thinking of that, these are our regular meals that I select from every week (depending on what is on offer at Sainsburys!). Perhaps you could share your list?

• lasagne
• pasta bake
• cheesy chicken pasta
• chilli
• bolognaise
• shepherds pie
• chicken pies
• pork schnitzel :-)
• pork tenderloin
• toad in the hole
• sausages and onion gravy
• roast chicken
• chicken in a wine sauce (sometimes a jar, sometimes home made)
• mustard pork
• roast beef (rarely)
• paella
• nasi goreng
• fish pie
• risotto - might be prawn & pea, mushroom, chicken
• fish and chips
• fish with hollandaise sauce
• chicken curry

Of course sometimes there are days when the boys have chicken burgers, chicken kievs or chicken nuggest (Josh has normal, the others have gluten free), but honestly that is probably only once a fortnight.

On Tuesday I was out most of the day on a seminar about social enterprises, which I attended on behalf of our church. I came home very fired up!

The potatoes that our gardening group planted from the Potato Council are through, as are the cabbage, leek, lettuce, coriander, chilli and garlic. The cold snap seems to have slowed things down though this week :-(

Having lived here since May - surrounded by woodland and the like - we have been amazed to have not seen a single squirrel (a huge problem at my Mum's house). This week, within hours of putting up a bag of peanuts for the birds, they were in our garden! The pigeons have also arrived to pick over the dropped sunflower seeds.... I love birds and I want more in our garden but I don't want the pigeons!

Things I've baked this week, other than more of the fabulous bread, included iced chelsea buns
Talking of cooking, if you love food, loving cooking, baking, and talking about food/swapping recipes, please join my new Facebook group, the Kitchen Table!

Talking of links, the most importan one on this page is THIS LINK to sign up to sponsor Roarke in the London Triathlon, to raise much needed funds to continue feeding, clothing and helping those in desperate need in the Borough of Bromley.

Kitchens, gardens and Church

Today was a bit of a kitchen day! I started the day by mixing up a Master Recipe batch from my Healthy Artisan Bread in Five Minutes book. Next I put some chilli in the slow cooker. After that I made a batch of gluten free oat & raisen cookies. Finally this evening I made a self-saucing gluten free chocolate pudding! Yum!

In and around this we enjoyed a visit from Grace and the boys who we hadn't seen for ages, which was nice.

Our home ed group is registered with the Organic for Schools project and I'm hoping to encourage little groups of families across our area to get involved. Some of us here in Bromley are going to meet together regularly to "do" gardening. This is tying in nicely with the Potatoes for Schools project. We start chitting the potatoes tomorrow then in two weeks time we can get together and plant them up. The kids can then nurture and grow them over the following months. This year they have a weather chart to go with it so we have given William the job of writing up the weather every evening for that day.

In January I was inspired by the story of the Strauss family from Gloucestershire who only put one dustbin a year out for landfill. They had explained that it wasn't just about reusing and recycling - it was about changing your buying habits. If you would buy something usually that came in packaging that couldn't be recycled, look to buy a version that was packaged in something that could be recycled.

Since taking that on board, and since getting hold of a compost bin again (thanks to my best friend Freecycle!) we have gone from two and a half sacks a week (for a family of six, including nappies - yeah I know, but that's my one big sin, we use disposable nappies), to today only putting out one sack plus one pedal bin liner's worth. I'm really chuffed!

Some of this has been down to using the Recycle Now website where you can put in your postcode and find out where you can recycle different things, as well as checking what your council collects from the kerbside.

Of course, this would be a lot better if it wasn't for the fact that having now started collecting lots of different things ready to be taken to our nearest recycling centre, our car is off the road! Last Sunday Roarke had to go up to A&E because his foot had ballooned and started to turn purple. I dropped him at the hospital, took Jonathan to his Nan's, took the others to church, left church and came home to drop the older three boys off, got back in the car to go and collect Roarke (who by then had left and got a bus over to my Mum's to wait for us) - and the car wouldn't start!

My brother ended up coming to the rescue to bring Jonathan and Roarke home and our car has been off the road ever since - nine days now. The mechanic has gone over it, spending three days on it - no idea. Everything he has tried that could/should be the fault, hasn't been. He even drained the tank and put new fuel in, just in case we'd had dodgy fuel in. Nope. Nothing. Nadda.

I'm not a happy bunny and I am clinging to the fact that God has A Plan...

We've spent a fortune on bus fares, even allowing for having prepay oyster cards (and the boys having their oyster cards with free travel) and it has made some things really complicated. This Sunday was the hardest, with our friend Chris kindly taking Samuel to church for 8am as he was serving in Sunday School, I then got the bus to get there for the first service at 9.30am and Roarke came on the bus with the others for the second service at 11.30am!

It really brings home how busy and complex our lives are when you have to preplan everything around the bus time tables!

I've had my first go at serving on the catering team for church and I really enjoyed it. I can't wait to do more now! I'm really happy at how we are all finding the chance to slot into serving at church. Jonathan is happy in creche, William loving ROCK and everyone is always commenting on how lovely the two of them are. Samuel helps in ROCK (Sunday School) every four weeks for both services, handling the multi media. He is now hoping to start going along for the Baseline Band practice so that he gets a chance to have a go on the drums, and then staying for the worship band practice in order to learn how to handle the multi media in the main church - a HUGE undertaking because our multi media is awesome. Josh is looking at deciding to start serving at Baseline helping to set up. He's done it once and now needs to make a decision if he is willing and able to commit. Roarke is in the drama team, taking part in drama now most weeks at church. He also takes a turn once every four weeks in creche. I'm on the funding team and now the catering team.

It feels SO GOOD to be in a church where there is space and room for us all to individually find our way and I am grateful on a daily basis to be here.

Ups and Down

I managed to upload my new background image from twitter to Blogger too, so I thought I'd better post something to draw attention to it, lol!

The photos are used here with kind permission, but are copyright to John Walmsley 2010, educationphotos.co.uk (thanks again John).

As always, we seem to have done lots yet done what feels like very little in the past week or so! Roarke took the boys on a home ed visit to Reigate Fort. William in particular really enjoyed it and Roarke said he asked some really insightful questions. It is brilliant to catch these glimpses of what is going on inside his head and to be encouraged that some things ARE going into storage in his memory banks... Generally speaking, with the ASD, it seems that everything is now and nothing else has any meaning. His world is his immediate vicinity and this present time only.

He hasn't made any more effort to sit in front of the reading websites but we have noticed more and more that he is obviously reading an increasing number of words around him.

An interesting thing has been that Jonathan has taken to "reading" his own bedtime stories. He knows them all off by heart (the Peppa Pig collection) but has never sat and looked at the pictures (he's usually playing in the bedroom or in his bed when we read them). A few days ago he took one of the books and started turning the pages, saying the story out loud as he went. It was fascinating to realise that he was looking at the pictures, working out what was going on in them, and then adding the mental commentary that he had in his head - sort of syncing the visual and the audio if you like. Of course this "reading" of the pictures is exactly how Josh and Samuel learned to read and is a natural stage.

What we noticed though was when we passed the book to William for him to do the same - he couldn't. Despite having sat in the room and listened to the stories every night when we read them to Jonathan, and despite the fact that William DOES look at the pictures, he couldn't do that "syncing".

I've been helping BCC to put in a funding application for funds for the Hope Foundation. Having fed almost 4000 people in the borough of Bromley, and with at least 31 statutory and non-statutory agencies now referring people in need to Hope, we need more funds! Everything to date has been provided through the giving of the congregation.

Josh has started helping at Baseline, going an hour early on a Friday to help set it up, which is awesome. Samuel of course helps out with the multi-media in the ROCK Sunday School once a month. It is so cool to see the boys deciding of their own accord to serve.

Roarke has had some merchandising work to do which has been timely, and he is also making great progress on an extension of our Where2Eat in Kent business. His preparation for the Triathlon is slowly building - gradually because of his gout and other issues - but he has now gone from a size 42 waist since Christmas to a size 36!

Tuesday evening I went to a friend's house for a "girls night", with 11 other women, and enjoy good food and a good natter - lovely!

The major downside this week has been having the builders in. The landlord's solution to the damp problem (penetrating damp across the whole of the front and side of the house, and mould all inside the bays) was to pay to have extractor fans fitted. Despite having a heat recovery unit, the already-cold temperature in the living room and bedroom has plummeted with these things on. They are also unsightly and very loud. I'm not a happy bunny. Still it is no surprise that this was his preferred option - the alternative being the have the house coated/rendered and replace the two bay windows with modern pvc glazing...

Today I got a (very) early birthday present from my Mum - La Varenne's Cookery: The French Cook, the French Pastry Chef, the French Confectioner! I like this version as not only is it a modern translation but it has added in all the history and context of Francois Pierre's food. I hope to learn a lot!

I'm currently finishing a report for my local authority. I was contacted by them recently and the gentleman said that he understood I had withdrawn my cooperation with the LA as protest over the Badman Report and Clause 26. He asked if instead I'd consider sending in a report. I decided in the end that I would, because I want to make another point - *my* idea of a report summarising the past year and talking about the year ahead does not match with anything that I have seen suggested or outlined by anyone at DCSF.

Once I've sent it in, I'll post it here and you can judge for yourself :-)

Day 15

Hmm, my hope of blogging daily for 2010 obviously isn't happening, and neither is weekly at the moment!

It has been an odd time, with a real mix of things happening. Spiritually, things are awesome and moving, physically - not so good! We've all had a horrendous cold, with Josh, Roarke and Jonathan having the hacking cough that is doing the rounds. We've also all - except Josh - had the winter vomitting bug thing. Because Roarke and I are on a reduced diet being on the Daniel Fast, that knocked us out quite hard for several days.

Jonathan went 8 days without a bowel movement, then GP-prescribed laxatives worked - but only once. Somehow Jonathan seems to realise it is in his drink - and he is refusing to drink. Not only does this mean we can't get the amount of laxative in him that we need to but also - anyway - that the constipation is going to be worse due to the lack of fluids. He's only having two bottles of drink (the size of the lunchbox sort of bottle you can get) in a day - no where near enough.

But how can you FORCE a child to drink?!! We are doing all the usual stuff, different cups, bottles, flavours, offering it all the time - he's too smart.

With the heavy cold, the constipation AND then getting the sickness bug, he now hasn't eaten properly since Monday either. Today for example he's had 1/2 a packet of tomato & basil biscuits, one chocolate cup cake, and half a packet of marmite rice cakes. Oh and about 4 tablespoons of (dry) cereal for breakfast. He sits with his hands over his mouth refusing to eat. If you ask him why, he says "I'm scared" - which is what he says when he feels unsure or unhappy about something but can't express how/why/what exactly.

I'm really unhappy about it all and getting concerned. He saw his gastro-enterologist on Thursday who was NO help and didn't seem at all bothered. Kinda hard to do that when it is your own child though.

Roarke is at the rheumatologist tomorrow. His foot is really bad and hasn't responded to the gout diet leading us to think that this isn't now gout. He definately had a flare up at Christmas but this now seems something else.

We are on day 15 of our 21 day Daniel Fast and Josh joined us on it today too, giving up cheese and meat. He hopes to be able to last at least two days. I think it is awesome that this 14 year old young man takes his faith seriously enough to do this.

We planning how we are going to break our fast next week! It will be Samuel's 12th birthday on Monday 25th so we'll have a few excuses :-)

We are enjoying Guitar Hero! This week we had friends come over with their guitar and drum kit and we got to play "band" on it. They also brought over their Metallica Guitar Hero which was AWESOME!

So much fun!

New Year, New Focus

New Year's Eve was brilliant!

Our church held a party, which was very well attended. Everyone brought a "cultural dish" for the international supper at the start. I had offered to help with the serving and sorting of the meal, and ended up staying on to help with the whole of the evening, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

After the meal, there was a "BCC's Got Talent" show. Roarke sang "empty chairs, empty tables" from Les Miserables, to the surprise of many in the church who didn't know he could sing!

He dedicated the song to me, which was really lovely

We then had a short worship session and word from Pastor Lydia, and then broke to share some (non-alcoholic) champagne, party poppers and glow sticks - ready for the count down. After 12, there was then a brilliant firework display (which I didn't see as I was helping clear up the popped poppers!)

All in all I felt it was the perfect way for me to start my new year - surrounded by my friends at BCC, and serving.

The next day we went for breakfast at the pastor's house; his way of saying thanks to those who served during the evening. We got talking with a few people about the part 2 of Dr Who, and one thing led to another and we ended up having five friends around to watch part 1, and then part 2, of Dr Who! My left-over turkey nasi goreng had to stretch to feed an extra 5 mouths, so I decided to experiment with Indonesian food. I made a pickled salad, an aubergine stew, and then banana fritters!

The next day Josh and Samuel had their snowed-off Christmas party. A good time it appears was had by all, and Roarke managed to stay up in our room watching a DVD and wasn't needed!

He's been laid up actually since Christmas with a massive gout attack that saw him back on crutches. It has taken 10 days to ease off

On 3rd Roarke and I joined with others in our church to start a "Daniel fast". This is based on Daniel 10 where he forgo "fine food" and ate only fruit and vegetables for 21 days. Fortunately, vegan cooking holds no fear for me, and so far we are doing ok with our meals. We are keeping with very simple, plain food, in keeping with the idea of the fast.

I've been blessed with being able to slip out of bed each morning at 7am before everyone else and spend between 1 and 2 hours downstairs before Jonathan has got up. This has given me the chance to spend time reading my Bible and focusing on God and what He has in store for me this year.

Of course, we have to mention the snow!

Wrapping up 2009

Christmas was amazing!

Regular readers know that for one reason or another, Roarke and I don't usually enjoy Christmas as much as we could, so it has been overwhelming for both of us to have actually had an amazing time. We have lots of family memories and treasured things to store in our hearts from this season and it has gone a long way towards wiping out the negative "ghosts" of Christmas Past for us.

We knew Christmas was going to be "lean" and had focused instead on the real Spirit of Christmas. As God promises, when you seek Him first, all the other stuff gets added on - and that is exactly what has happened.

Not only have we found real pleasure, encouragement, even excitement in serving through our church throughout December, but also in finding pleasure in family-created moments, sharing hospitality with friends, doing special things.

On top of that, the icing on the cake, was an amazing gift from another Christian family which turned out to be Guitar Hero 5! This blew us away! It has been an excellent family present with us all getting involved (well, Jonathan would if we let him near the guitar!) and just the fact of such a gift was uplifting.

As if that wasn't enough, we also got given a gift of money, for us to spend on the family for Christmas. It was a significant amount, which allowed us to buy a new television and dvd for the family - another big gift for us all to share and benefit from throughout the year. This also meant being able to pass our old freeview tv on to Josh to use (until it dies) which means his brothers can watch things with him in his room, and he also now can watch the movies, documentaries, and other things he would love to watch if only he could get at the tv (which is mainly Jonathan's domain during the day!)

Christmas Eve we called in to see family friends, and it was lovely to spend a little while with people who have been such a constant source of support and friendship to all of us during the year.

On the way back to the house we decided to surprise the boys with spending the last little bit of the money on a meal out at Frankie & Bennies. It was a perfect thing to do and we all had a brilliant time. My boys are such good company - all four of them - and I don't think we stopped laughing and talking for the whole time we were there.

Jonathan, at 2 1/2, has an incredible sense of humour and is even making up jokes and plays on words, and is constantly making us laugh.

Christmas Day we opened our gifts, then went to church for the Christmas Day service. It was exactly a year since we moved to BCC and made it our spiritual home, and it was lovely to look around the room and see so many people who we have connected with. They have welcomed us as a family, cared for Jonathan, looked out for William and Samuel and given them space to grow in a safe environment (I know some people with SEN kids are not blessed with a supportive or understanding church/congregation so I don't take this for granted at all), and have helped turned Josh into a strong young man. I have a lot to be thankful for.

After we got home the boys got to unwrap the mystery present that was the guitar hero game.

Christmas lunch went well. I was told by everyone that it was the best Christmas meal I'd ever cooked. The timing was perfect, done to the minute, even with allowing for having been out at church. I'd made dauphinoise potatoes the eveninig before so just had to cut it into portions and reheat alongside the trimmings (pigs in blankets and stuffing). The turkey was perfectly cooked, moist and tasty, which was a relief!

We finished off with Mum's legendary (gluten free) Christmas pudding.

Boxing Day was a nice quiet family day, then on Sunday after the two church services we went over to Mum for a buffet lunch with her, my brother and sister in law and kids, and my SIL's parents (over from Hungary for Christmas). The boys got presents from them which gave them some of the books and games that they'd wanted.

I got an ice cream maker, and some doughnut trays! It didn't take me long to use the trays...

I also got the Hairy Biker's Food Tour of Great Britain Cookbook and I have already used several recipes and adapted them to be gluten free!

One of the recipes I tried out for Mum when she came over for lunch on Tuesday, and another one for a friend for lunch yesterday!

Our church is having a "Daniel fast" (going without rich food, and basically sticking to vegetables, fruit and water) for 21 days in January so I've had to experiment with my cooking this week, and we are gradually using up food and winding down preparing ourselves both physically, mentally and spiritually for the fast that starts on 3rd January.

Fortunately it starts the day after the boys have their resheduled party and finishes the day before Samuel's birthday, so that's a blessing!

Tonight we are off to our church to share in a new year celebration. We'll share an international supper (everyone bringing a cultural dish as we have I reckon at least 20 countries represented in our congregation!), have a "BCC's Got Talent" show, a short service, then fireworks and then dancing.

We all stayed up late last night and the boys are still in bed now (sadly I didn't get the chance to lie in!) in order to be able to stay up till 1am :-)

I am so excited about 2010. Again, regular readers/friends know that I have major, major issues with New Year's Eve and even more "ghosts" that haunt me, so for me to be feeling excited is something that hasn't happened for, well, probably nearly three decades...

Focusing on CHRISTmas

It has been a busy few week and a half!

The party on Saturday went really well, and it was lovely to have a house full. The food seemed to go ok too which was a relief.

On Sunday 13th our church hosted a carol service in Orpington. Roarke got to do the reading, which he did really well. The whole evening was brilliant, and the school hall was packed. We were honoured to have some of the travellers from Orpington come over for their first taste ever of a church service. I think BCC managed to show them that not all churches fit the world's (negative - but sometimes justified) stereotype :-)

Monday I spent 3 hours with a team of media students making a documentary about the fight to save home education. Tuesday saw me at Westminster again for a Christmas "thank you" from NCVO to representatives from their members.

During the week I was baking cakes and preparing for our evening party on Saturday.

Roarke spent most of the week travelling around the borough of Bromley helping to deliver hampers for the Hope Foundation. Most of the work for the Christmas give away is done by Pastor Lydia and her assistant Judy, together with the tireless efforts of Terry & Junia. I really pray that they (and all the others who have helped) are blessed for their service. To me, that is what Christmas is all about - putting others first, serving others, putting Jesus's words into ACTION.

The snow stopped our plans for finishing off our Christmas shopping! We were worried that it would stop the home ed Christmas party on Friday that we were invited to, but fortunately it didn't. The boys had a great time - outside at the venue having a snowball fight for the best part of 2 1/2 hours!

Saturday morning I started baking and preparing at 9am, including icing my third Christmas cake of the season, and was just finished in time to get the food on the table for 7pm that evening! We had 16 people as some were not able to make it due to the treacherous conditions.

It was nice to have people around and to be able to relax with them.

My "fancy" party food on a budget looked like this:

I used Sainsbury's Basics bread, cut out circles using a mince pie/cookie cutter, dipped them in olive oil then put in patties tins and baked in the oven for 10 minutes. These made the basis for canapes of beef (brisket slow cooked for 9 hours in one mini bottle of red wine) with onion relish,
and canapes of smoked salmon (Sainsbury's basic's scraps) with sour cream, lemon zest/juice and shallot. I also used them to make canapes of mozzarella topped with finely chopped roasted red peppers. I also cut stars out of the bread and treated the same way, then topped with a sliver of brie (Sainsbury's Basics again!) and a dollop of home made cranberry sauce.

I also slow cooked some gammon in coca cola and cut into cubes. I then used cocktail sticks and put a cube of cheese, cube of gammon, then a tiny silverskin onion on top. A mad idea I had was to make individual prawn cocktails. I mixed up the filling then used it to stuff cherry tomatoes. Yes, really!

I also stuffed baby bell peppers with a mixture of feta, mint, and lemon zest/juice. The usual sausage rolls ( thank God for Sainsburys Basics range!), sausages, and bits and pieces finished the savoury food. I'd made a clementine cake, mince pies, and of course the Christmas cake (all gluten free as one of our guests was gluten free).

All in all I was quite pleased with the over all effect.

The next day we had the second BCC carol service, this time at the church in Bromley. With everyone on their "home ground" they were all a lot more relaxed and the evening was a lot of fun.

Yesterday the boys were meant to have their party. I spent the day baking, and in the afternoon we popped over to see some friends from church for a short while. Whilst we were there, the rain turned to sleet, then snow and oh boy did it snow! If you were anywhere in Bromley or south east London area you will know what I mean! The snow, about 2-3 inches, fell on top of the freezing roads and there was chaos.

We realised the conditions looked grim and left our friends to get back in time to set up for the party. About 1/2 a mile later we hit gridlock and realised we were going no where. We all frantically texted/rang everyone to try and say that the party was cancelled.

We headed back to our friends and they very kindly took us in, warmed us up, and fed us.

About 2 hours later we tried again, and this time - very slowly - we managed to get home.

The boys were of course upset to have had to cancel, though it had been quite an adventure!

We were much more fortunate than thousands across the south and south east who were stranded in cars. Many of my facebook friends had tales to tell of being stuck with kids in the car and unable to get back, or having to walk home from work etc.

Today we finished off delivering some hampers, then headed out to Bromley for our own last minute Christmas shopping. We then took William into Orpington for his. This is the first year that all the boys have bought presents for each other and it is really heart warming to see.

We then took another hamper over to a family that we knew who were in need. To be blunt, seeing the huge difference it made to them has just blown us away and has made this an AWESOME day. To be serving in a church that serves the community so well, with no strings attached, just because it is what we should be doing, is just the best thing ever. It has really made Christmas for us.

As a family we are seriously excited about 2010 and where serving through our church is going to take us.

Eyes down for a full house

Last Saturday the boys were guests of a friend of ours at the pantomime in Greenwich. They saw Mother Goose and it seems that they enjoyed themselves. Jonathan and I stayed here and caught up on some cuddles :-)

In the evening Roarke and I were very pleased to be able to join 140 other guests at the M66 Christmas Ball in Chislehurst. It was nice to have the chance to see friends from church in such a relaxed social setting, and great to have a chance to dress up! Sadly, I have some way to go before I've lost enough weight to get back into my glad rags from the height of our World Team Herbalife days, but I did at least manage to wear the shoes and accessories!

Roarke has lost a lot of weight, enough that people are really noticing so I need to catch up fast!

On Sunday our church is hosting a carol service in Orpington and all this week Roarke has been putting leaflets out. I'm hoping we have a lovely turn out. So if you are around Orpington and free at 6pm on Sunday 13th, please come along to Perry Hall School and join us.

Roarke and I finally managed to get out and door a very small amount of Christmas shopping. We always focus on the meaning and message of Christmas rather than the commercial side but this year we will be aided by it not being possible with budgets to do anything else.

Instead, we are making the most of family and friends, and sharing. As part of this we've got four Christmas social events coming up. Tomorrow William and Jonathan have a few friends over during the day, and I'm putting on party food for them. On Saturday we are having over some families - I think if everyone comes there will be just short of 40 adults and children. Then next weekend we are having an evening do for those people we know who can come without children, or who are single etc. Then the following week Josh and Samuel are having a small party for some of their teenage friends.

We would like to have done more as we actually for once seem to have more people to invite than we can accomodate, which is a nice feeling! Or rather, nice to know so many people we want to socialise with, but not nice to not be able to host them all.

These parties are a joint family present from ourselves to ourselves (and our friends!) but it has meant scouring my recipe books and digging for ideas on budget-style canape/buffet catering! I'm not sure I'm going to be able to pull it off, especially as three out of the four events include catering for gluten free guests, but I'm going to go down fighting at least!

Today I finished icing a gluten free Christmas cake, and made and iced a gluten free clementine cake. I also made some fairy cakes. Tomorrow I will be making gluten free sausage rolls, mince pies, star biscuits, savoury straws, and sausage balls along with the other gluten food. I think I may need to get up early... oh and chocolate gluten free pizza, inspired by my friends at Limoncello.

If it works, you'll get the recipes!

Other than baking and cleaning, this week I did get the chance finally to get back to another ladies event at BCC, and I was able to join them for a relaxing morning on Wednesday. We were looking at the verse(s) that have sustained us during 2009 and looking ahead to what God has in store for us in 2010.

As well as the party tomorrow, Josh and Samuel are out bowling with the 11+ home ed young people in Orpington, and then off to the Baseline Christmas party in the evening. All in all a VERY busy day! Roarke was at a training day all day today and didn't get in till late only to go straight out again for rehearsals for the carol service, so I've done all the cleaning and cooking on my own today. At least he is around tomorrow, and then Saturday!

Mind you, having said that, he might be out delivering Christmas hampers for Hope Foundation, so maybe I won't have his help!

A brief round up

Joshua is nervously approaching his Show on Saturday, with just the tech rehearsal on Thursday before the performance. He's also finished the website for his Bronze Arts Award "My Hero" project which you can view here.

Samuel is in turn working on his next venture, which is his own gluten free hand made shortbread service! He's designing a website and some leaflets and wants to then leaflet the local area. He's been doing a lot of research and costing it all out, including deciding the best packaging to use.

William seems to be doing increasingly well despite not being able to read properly still. He's even managed to create a movie, drawn in Paint and put together in Movie Maker! As soon as I've got it off of his laptop I will share it.

Jonathan is continuing to shine. As an example, view his latest "performance" on Youtube!

He's also been introduced to the potty, aged 2 1/2, and managed this evening to use it for the first time. He recognises lots of letters, all his numbers up to 10, can count up to 20 in English and 10 in Spanish and is generally scaring the living daylights out of us!

Finally he's allowed someone else other than me to put him to bed. All last week Roarke did it, and then on Friday we were out and my Mum put him to bed.

Roarke and I have been busy, but there have been some highlights. We reviewed a restaurant in Sevenoaks which turned out to be one of the best meals I've had in a very long time. Then, this week, we attended the Gala Reopening Dinner for Limoncello Restaurant in Sidcup. It was a lovely evening (we hosted the Deputy Mayor at our table), including opera by Aspects of Opera, and their new chef proved he was more than up to the task of a four course banquet for around 80 guests. If you live near Sidcup, please go and visit. This weekend they have an Italian Market at the restaurant and you can sign up here to get a voucher for a free cappuccino when you buy a cornetto pastry (yes, it's an Italian pastry - like a croissant - and NOT an ice cream!)

Roarke has actually been quite unwell and is awaiting an appointment with the rheumatologist to try and get to the bottom of it. In the meantime, we're picking back up our Herbalife business and thankfully the nutrition products are working their usual magic and his health is picking back up.

Christmas is a busy time for our church, especially for our community arm, the Hope Foundation. With a Christmas meal for the elderly of the borough, and a Christmas Hamper give away to those in need in the area, it is a very busy time. If you live in the BR, CR, DA or ME postcodes and have any white goods - especially coookers - that are in good condition and full working order, PLEASE contact me as we have many families in dire need who would be very grateful for them. I can collect from any of those areas. Leave a comment on this post with your contact details - all comments are moderated so I will not publish those details but just make a note and use them to get hold of you. Thanks!

Picnics and Hairy Bikers

Sunday saw our church moving to two morning services in order to make room for growth. I got to go to both services, one after the other which was just amazing.

I'd been highly organised in the morning and had put a curry into the slow cooker at 7.30am so we got a hot midday dinner before Roarke and Josh went off to the O2 in order to take part in Hillsong's 10th Anniversary celebrations up there. By all accounts that was pretty awesome too!

Monday was a busy day with Roarke in and out, and us trying to catch up on various things.

Tuesday evening was a logistical nightmare! We took Josh and Samuel to their life group for 6am, collected Mum to babysit William and Jonathan here, then left to get to church for 7.30pm for a meal and then the start of the DNA2 course that we are doing. Josh and Samuel therefore had to get a bus back to our house. It was the first time they'd got the bus together, only the second time Josh had got a bus without us, and the first time either of them had done it in the dark. They missed the first bus and had to wait quite a while.

I am SO proud of Samuel yet again. Even a few months back that would have destroyed him, as he would have been so anxious about being in the dark, being out "on the streets", feeling vulnerable. I really do have God (via Rock Camp and BCC!) to thank for that, as well as the time and space that home ed has allowed him. He is maturing so quickly!

Anyway, they texted us to let us know they were home, and we could relax for the rest of the evening!

Today was Not Back to School Picnic Day! We went to Gravesend and handed out leaflets and balloons in the high street, then on to the park for a picnic. About 43 children and adults attended and all had a great time. The highlight was that someone we'd given a leaflet to came along with his two young daughters to share the picnic and find out more about home education!

It definately made it all worth while.

Jonathan had a fabulous time. The longest time he'd spent outside at a park, safe and secure and able to play away to his heart's content on all the equipment.

He feel asleep in the car, and stayed asleep when we carried him in, and then slept like this for another hour and a half:
Very cute!

I've been watching the Hairy Biker's Food Tour of Britain and loving it! Mixing two of my favourite things - cooking and motorbikes - is a definate winner for me. It has really inspired me to get cooking properly and the family have definately benefited ;0)

We've had daube of beef and herb crusted pork tenderloin so far this week! Roarke says I'm not helping his diet...

Wedding Anniversary

This week we celebrated 16th years of a most marvellous marriage.

I dug out the wedding photos and posted a few on facebook, managing to seriously embarass several people who were there at the time and I've hooked up with on facebook!

Here are two of us from that beautiful day:

We look shockingly young!

To prove how much we have changed, here's a similar pose taken on our anniversary:

Even allowing for the poor quality photo, squashed noses, and the fact that Josh took the picture, I think we are looking a bit the worse for wear :0)

We had a nice day though. A friend from church took me shopping (as we didn't have a car at the time - see next item!), then I came back and packed some snacks to take to the Bromley home ed regular meeting. Roarke met us there half way through and we took the boys to McDonalds for a change. In the evening Mum came over to baby sit Jonathan and William and we got a lift to Bromley so that Josh and Samuel could go to Baseline. It was Samuel's first time and he was nervous and excited. The pastor and the youth leaders kept an eye out for him though and he had a great time.

Whilst they were there (3 hours) Roarke and I went for a tapas meal in Bromley, then onto a pub. We both felt very old watching the goings on in the pub! Actually some of it was shocking, to see that the stuff on the news about binge culture, and girls in particular, is totally real.

Neither Roarke nor I were saints in our teens (he became a Christian in his early twenties, and I calmed down around then too) and I certainly had my fair share of outrageous behaviour, but still this just felt different. Not nice.

Anyway, praise God that through being part of BCC, our lads have the opportunity to be involved in Baseline, and through home education too they are able to have a much more positive teen experience than I fear many of their schooled peers are able to.

I'm in the process of sorting out our new, revamped family website. The old one was very popular, especially the gluten free recipes, so its well overdue for me to get another one up (after loosing the free hosting we used to have for it). That's in my spare time ;0)

We spent the afternoon today in the garden clearing up and getting it ready for autumn. Now we've finally got the housing benefit sorted I think we both feel more that this is home - rather than expecting to be thrown out any minute - which is why we've both felt the need to attack the garden. I dug up the strawberry plants to clear out the bindweed coming under from next door, and took the opportunity to split up lots of new plants before replanting. I also got the chance to replant the crocosmia. Roarke took out two shrubs that were in the way, and we moved a tea rose too that had been covered by the shrubs and was looking very sorry for itself.

All the time a small rodent was runny around that appears to be a mouse that lives in the other neighbour's shed :0(

Roarke is already starting to go into hibernation mode; he's not a winter person and as soon as it starts getting dark of an evening, and cool, he starts to struggle.

Time to dig out all the soup recipes....

This week has been a rollercoaster week. The car broke down on Monday night and we went from thinking it was a small thing to fix it, to being told the car was a right off as it would cost more to fix than it was worth (and than we could afford) to the garage ringing us back saying it was a "miracle" but they'd found some tiny thing that was causing it all and had fixed it for £80! God definately had it all in Hand.

Next week our group is planning a Not Back to School Picnic along with more than 30 other groups across the country, as part of an effort to raise the positive profile of home education. The deadline for the written submissions to the Select Committee Inquiry is also approaching so I've got to get around to sorting my personal submission.

The phone has been very busy with new home ed enquiries, mainly from people who have not been able to get their child into the school that they want and so they are needing to home educate whilst going through the appeal process and/or waiting for a place to come up.

For all my non-home educating friends

The Government's main plans for home educators focuses on several areas:

• compulsory registration
• the parent providing a statement of educational approach against which the child's "performance" will be assessed
  
• annual inspections, with right of access to the home and
  
• right of access (alone if necessary) with the child

I can understand that some people who have no experience of home education may fail to appreciate why reading that list is sufficient to make me weep, and I also understand that some families who DO home educate, may also scratch their heads and wonder why other home educators are so distressed and angry at these proposals.

Many finer minds than mine and more eloquent writers have already put into the public domain explainations of the issues in order to raise awareness and to gather support. However this is just my attempt to get some of the stuff rattling around in my mind OUT - in the hope that perhaps some of my non-home educating friends might better understand what is consuming me at the moment.

Compulsory Registration

This is a point that I think most members of the public have the biggest problem with, in terms of understanding why many home educators are against this. What everyone needs to understand - including home educators who are already to known to their Local Authority and/or who don't have a problem with the concept of registration - is that this is NOT about "being known". This is NOT the "we're doing it to protect the children" measure that it claims to be. Being registered will not save the life of even one child. I am convinced of that.

One thing that it is about is numbers, statistics; the fodder for government departments to use, manipulate and chose to focus on - or ignore - as it suits them. Knowing just how many home educating families there are is important if you are wanting to win votes, or bring in unpopular measures. Knowing how many children are home educated is a useful figure to know for budgeting purposes. It would also help them know if more people were turning to home ed (though sadly, I doubt any increase would drive them to examine the reasons why and improve schools - instead it would just lead to more restrictions).

If it was just a matter of your name being on a list of home educators, held by your local authority, then it is true that some home educators would not have a problem with the idea of being known. However, not only do many more home educators have real issues with the idea of registration even if it was something straight forward (for a variety of reasons, ranging from lack of trust - with good reason - of the authorities, social services, and other services right through to a belief that the state does not have any right or need to have such a list), but also we take issue with the sort of registration proposed by the Badman Report.

One recommendations states:

That local authority adult services and other agencies be required to inform those charged with the monitoring and support of home education of any properly evidenced concerns that they have of parents’ or carers’ ability to provide a suitable education irrespective of whether or not they are known to children’s social care, on such grounds as

• alcohol or drug abuse
• incidents of domestic violence
• previous offences against children
  

And in addition:

• anything else which may affect their ability to provide a suitable and efficient education

Does not the phrase "anything else" not frighten you? Maybe you have been fortunate enough to never have experienced depression, or post natal depression. Or have any long term illness, disability or condition. Maybe you do not have strongly held Christian, Muslim, Pagan, or any other religious or political views that you know often sets you apart from others. But, if you do, then you are well aware of the potential abuse of such a dangerous phrase.

I am not a conspiracy theorist. I think I'm a fairly open minded, fairly rational person. The fact remains however that we live in a world where governments - western governments - regularly use laws to their own ends regardless of the original meaning or motivation behind the law makers. I think the Terrorism Act is one prime current example.

On top of which, lets just examine the rest of that recommendation. Of course it might seem on reading it through that it was reasonable to think that someone with a history of, say, drug abuse, shouldn't be allowed to home educate.

Can I ask you to stop and think WHY? WHY shouldn't they be allowed?

"Safeguarding", you say, "the child isn't safe there".

Now think that through logically.

The child is considered safe to be in the care of its parents - otherwise it would have been removed. Yet it isn't safe to be educated at home. That is illogical - Mr Spock or Tuvok could see straight through that one! Either a child is safe, or not. Either a child is under social services care, or not. To suggest that a child is safe with their parents as long as they are at school during the day, is ludicrous. Even to say ah well its because the parent couldn't cope with them home all the time - er, excuse me, what about the summer holidays?

If a child is not safe enough to be educated at home by its parents, then presumably if the local authority deny permission to educate the child at home then the same local authority will pay for that child to attend some kind of school club in every single school holiday - because the child is "not safe" to be with its parents between the hours of 9 and 3.

Absolutely complete RUBBISH. It is so ridiculous I repeatedly have to reread the Report to believe that someone actually wrote this down without thinking it through.

The fact that the DCSF and government have come out 100% in support of the Report either means they haven't read it, or they are equally ridiculous.

Statement of Education Approach

This is an area where there are a number of opinions, it has to be said, amongst home educators, but nearly everyone can see that particularly for those of us who are child led, autonomous learners, informal learners, unschoolers - whatever label you want to use - this is a disaster.

It also has to be said that many who home educate for religious or philosophical reasons also will have issues with this, regardless of whether they are structured or not, because it has the potential of your view being judged by the LA as "not being suitable".

This has already happened in Sweden where you can no longer, in effect, home educate for religious reasons as to provide an education based on one world view is apparently not suitable.

The detail of this recommendation is truly ridiculous, but possibly only of interest to a home educator - things like the LA being the one to help a new home educator draw up such a statement, which is like saying that a GP should get help from a herbalist in drawing up a plan of medication for a patient. The GP and the herbalist share little in common other than (supposedly) both wanting the best for the patient and for them to get better. However, their belief as to what constitutes "the best" and "getting better" and how to acheive that will most likely be completely different. For every GP who is open to alternative therapies, or every herbalist willing to work alongside a GP, there will be many more who wouldn't even want to give each other the time of day because they each believe that the other is doing more harm than good.

That's what it is like to say that an LA employee should help a family who have just deregistered to draft a plan - even worse, that they should have a say in whether or not MY PLAN is suitable.

I don't have a plan! There, I've said it. I have no educational goals for my children.

I certainly have hopes and desires. As a parent, and as a Christian parent, I have very firm idea as to where I hope my children will be - as people - by the time they are 18 or 19. I know what I would like them to have learnt and understood by then. Not one of those involve anything to do with maths or english.

I want them to be secure in themselves. I want them to love life, love God, love learning. To have open hearts and minds. To be able to see the beauty around them. To be able to see the beauty inside everyone they meet. I want them to have a willingness to help, to teach, and to be helped and to be teachable. I want them to believe that they can have, do, be anything that they want to. I want them to have chosen for themselves to always walk within the will of God.

I want us as a family to have had the chance to explore each other, to build bonds, to store up precious memories, to be able to rely upon each other. I want them to continue to see their parents and their siblings as their friends.

I don't think that my LA will take that as my "statement of educational approach" - though I will certainly be submitting it as one should it come to that.

Annual Inspections/Right of Access

I would hope that most people could understand for themselves that for the Government to be bringing in powers that give a local government employee automatic, legal right of access to the home of someone who choses to home educate, is, well, downright scary.

Remember, the law already exists to give them legal right of access to the home - and the child away from it's parents - if they have safeguarding concerns. They had right of access to the child in Birmingham who was taken out of school and starved to death. For some indefensible reason, they didn't exercise that law. Instead, that case is now being thrown in the faces of home educators as justification for this change of the law. I can barely type that sentence because of the rage that I feel whenever I think about it.

This is an automatic standard right. It can only be seen as "prevention" - our children are, because they are home educated, "at risk of being at risk" of not receiving a suitable education and/or of being harmed without anyone knowing. Apparently.

Anyone who believes in human rights, civil liberties, should be horrified at this and campaigning alongside us to get it thrown out. I cannot understand how any MP, once made aware of these facts, could consider voting this through. Anyone who doesn't believe that the State knows best, should be against this.

Actually, I may come back to this point, because I am genuinely now so upset writing about this that I think I need to go away and come back to it.

I need to think how I can make my friends understand the seriousness of this.

If you are a friend of mine/ours reading this, regardless of your personal feelings about home education, please please consider supporting us in fighting these proposals. Please add your name to the petition against the recommendations which you can find here.

Please also consider writing to your MP to ask them to vote against the proposals to be contained in the Improving Schools and Safeguarding Children Bill due to be announced in the Queen's Speech in November. You can either read more about this here or contact me personally to find out more.

You can also watch a short video about it here.

If you are still reading this, please consider if these proposals were applied to whatever is dear to you. Whatever is precious to you.

Consider replacing the word with any other minority.

What if it was right of access to the home of any Muslim? Any Socialist? A disabled person?

First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up, because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me."

There is no evidence that supports this attitude of "guilty unless proven innocent" being directed towards home educators. Trust me on this. I am living and breathing this at the moment, and am part of many different groups of people who are doing an incredible amount of work to find the statistics, the information, the detail, the evidence, the research, and are gradually building up the picture as to what evidence is (or actually isn't) available that could form any basis for any of these recommendations (something that was severley lacking in the actual Review/Report).

If you are the sort of person who needs proof, evidence, that's fine - contact me. I can talk detail!

Sorry its been so long

Someone has pointed out how long it is since I last blogged so I thought I'd better show my face!

Family life, plus EO stuff, and most significantly the home education review have really taken every moment of time. I manage to update my Facebook status, but that tends to be it. I'm so far behind on other stuff that its getting silly. I keep flagging up emails that I need to "do something" with and all that happens is I've got 200+ red flags in my inbox now!

Josh has had two castings, one of which was at least a paid casting, even though he hasn't got any work yet. Roarke had some filming this week with Outcast TV and also has a sideline project for presenting for a company at the Ideal Home Exhibition (companies often use actors/actresses for things like the Ideal Home as they need people who can learn a script and deliver it again and again every time a group gets in front of their stand!).

Josh starts back with the SAVVY Youth Theatre tomorrow which he is very happy about! Actually he's quite happy anyway - he went away with his church youth group at the weekend and has come back BUZZING!

Jonathan had his blood test yesterday for the allergies/intolerances. Poor thing screamed so hard at being held tightly for the blood test (didn't scream at the needle though!) that he has little red spots all over his face from burst blood vessels :0(

I spent an uncomfortable 12 1/2 hours just gone, as I'd woken in the night to find I was totally deaf in one ear, and losing my hearing in the other one! I got an emergency doctors appointment to make sure it wasn't an ear infection and thankfully it was just the onset of a weird head cold with my ears having got completely blocked.

During the past two weeks the home ed review stuff has been manic, including being part of the EO team that met with Graham Badman. It was good to see over 2100 responses to the home ed questionnaire. If only I truly believed it would make a difference, and thought that our views would be listened too...

I've been doing the Wii Fit every day for 3 weeks, though I must admit I've been too busy in the past few days. I've decided I'm never going to lose weight, but at least I can be fit(er)! My challenge is to beat Roarke on the free jogging - he's first with 1033 and I'm second with 9833!

Nearly back to "normal"

Silly me for thinking the workload would ease once the site was live! Yeesh!

Anyway, websites aside, it has been a good week.

The boys are very much into Runescape now and I'm glad to see that it *is* proving to be stimulating. I like the fact that Josh is hooking up with so many of his HE mates online in it too.

This weekend he has been at a drama workshop at the Secombe Theatre. This afternoon we'll go to see the "show" that the kids will have put on. He went off to it really happy, even though it is miles away, no one he knows there, dropped off and collected, it was a 6 hour day for him yesterday and an 8 hour today!

He has also been asked if he wants to take place in a youth production with the SAVVY Theatre's Young Company so he's applied today. Awesome!

Roarke has some huge business plans in the offing that he is working on. Watch this space for when the online booking form goes live for his first, live, life coaching seminar in January!

Josh now has Roarke's old laptop, and we're moving the other pc around today for Samuel. I've now got Roarke's old phone (there's a theme here, isn't there?) as he's got a new one. Though Joshua's phone has died so we need to look at replacing that for his birthday.

We were mightily blessed this week! A friend that we've known for 12 years, since just after he became a Christian, has had a real tough life (before and after becoming a Christian) and we've always tried to be there for him down the years. Well he recently came into money and, to cut a long story short, ended up with two cars so he has GIVEN one to us!

It is a seven seater, a kia sedona, exactly the same year, model etc as the one I wrote off in the floods!

In order to pass on this blessing, we managed to find via some Christian home educators that we know, another family in dire need of a seven seater, so the one that WE were given last year by another Christian home educator (gotta love these Christians!) has now gone to another deserving home and helped a couple with four young children to be mobile again after their car broke down beyond safe repair.

Needless to say the boys are very happy - Samuel in particular loves having "back" the car and we've realised just what a big deal losing that one last year was for him :0(

This week Samuel and William went along to an HE science tutor group for the first time - and LOVED IT! They want to go back which is great. We also got around to go to see some friends who we've recently made in our HE group, and we all had a really really good time over there. I can never stop being amazed at home many women friends I have now, compared to when I was a "school mum" and the odd one out!

Gotta dash.. got to get the boys ready for church on my own as Roarke out taking Josh to Sutton..

PS if you are in a local HE group and it isn't on the map here please use this contact form to tell me and give me ("webteam") the details!

Birds, Stings, and other things

Wednesday morning Roarke had another audition. He won't hear back till the end of August when all the rest of casting finishes. At least its good experience for him.

In the afternoon we went over for Toni's birthday barbeque. The weather held - drying up shortly before it started - and the kids all enjoyed themselves.

On Friday we had our Bromley gathering. The weather was great and poor Sheila who had come up from the Medway for the day, got sunburnt!

Today was our church picnic and, again, the weather held and we were able to enjoy ourselves. The tug of war got a bit competitive! William had a meltdown over not being allowed on the bouncy castle at the same time as Samuel (they were letting them on in age bands) and several people stopped to ask what was wrong with him (head stuff in his chair screaming for all he was worth for over 10 minutes non stop). It led to some interesting conversations about ASD, and school...

The boys have had a good game running this week in their room, centred around megablock islands that they have each created.

As for Jonathan, he's definately gone through a new stage. He now drinks at least 12 ounces of water or squash each day, only has milk twice (mid afternoon and early evening - though still all night!), eats a more appropriate sized meal three times a day, plus two light snacks, and - the biggest deal - he is now learning to go to sleep on his own.

As none of the others were breastfed this long I had no idea how you go about getting a baby who has only ever fallen asleep on the breast, or being held/rocked off, to get used to going off in his bed. I don't believe in "controlled crying" (tried it once with Joshua and vowed never to do it again), and I firmly believe that they will learn when they are ready - I just didn't know how to start!

Anyway, the first time I tried (4 days ago) I laid him down immediately he finished feeding, before he snuggled into me. To my amazement, he wriggled around for 20 minutes then went to sleep! And this was for his afternoon nap!

We then repeated it that night (30 minutes) and every daytime nap and night since. It takes him between 20 minutes and 40 minutes. I stay in the room next to him, sitting on the floor out of sight but where he knows I am. If he sits up and tries to climb out (he's in a toddler bed rather than a cot) I stand up and lay him back down again. Some times he whinges, other times he giggles (!) but he has still gone off ok.

Interestingly, whether its down to falling asleep on his own, or the increased drink (which I think must play a large part in his improved digestion/reduced colic) he is not stirring half hour or one hour after going up, and the gaps between him stirring in the night are a minimum of 2 hours now, and up to 4 hours.

PROGRESS!

During the week we had two "nature" related incidents. Mum heard scrabbling from her chimney (capped at the top - or at least it WAS) and when Roarke took the back board away a JAY flew out into the room! That was a shock (especially to someone who is freaked out by birds, having been scared by watching "The Birds" as a very young child!). Roarke managed to get the patio doors open quickly and it flew out, seemingly ok after its 24 hr ordeal.

The other incident related to my getting stung by a wasp DOWN MY TROUSERS! All we can think is that when the loft hatch was open one flew down (we know we have some up there) into the toilet (the door was open). When I went into the toilet it must have flown into my trousers! Talk about caught with your trousers down! Honestly, it REALLY hurt as it was at the top of my thigh (could have been worse I guess...).

Roarke is away tonight for a full day of EO meetings/business tomorrow, so I'm indulging in a gluten free beer (courtesy of a friend of Roarke's who came to dinner this week, and showed his appreciation in a very kind way), having just played around on Facebook for a while.

Just got to get the OTHER kids to bed now...

The Cook, The FT, and the New Man

Friday Josh has kayaking, and in the afternoon the boys and I went up the park. Unfortunately no-else turned up so it was a sad little bunch that came back home.

Saturday morning Roarke and I were up sharp, sorted Jonathan out, then went to the church kitchen to prepare lasagne and a fresh green salad for the Alpha course "away day" lunch. It was my first time cooking my own recipe, from scratch, for anyone other than family or friends (the Christmas meal we did was basically all catering, premade stuff so I don't think that counts!). I was very nervous!

However, apparently everyone had seconds, and I got several comments at church on Sunday as to how fabulous it was! I can't share the recipe as its one the kids insist is a family secret ;0)

The other big news on Saturday was the article about our home ed group appearing in the FT magazine.

Saturday evening was, of course, Dr Who. I can't believe there are only a few more episodes left; then we'll be back to the boys watching endless reruns on BT Vision....

The boys took delivery over the weekend of the new Lego Indiana Jones game for PC. As you can imagine, its been the all consuming fascination for the past few days. Actually I was grateful for it on Sunday as, after church, Roarke took Joshua up to West End Live to see the Lego Roadshow. The others wanted to go but sensibly realised that the crowds would be too much for them.

So Samuel and William instead played on the game for 2 hours, Jonathan slept, and I got some work done! Not a bad afternoon.

Having posted that picture the other day, I have to post another one. Josh has had his hair cut and my goodness me, all of a sudden my little boy looks like a man! Scary stuff, but doesn't he look good:

Happy 1st Birthday - Twice!

On Friday my little baby was ONE! Can you believe it? It doesn't seem a year...

In the morning Roarke took Joshua kayaking, whilst I dashed around baking.

I picked first Liz and the kids, then Sheila & Callum, up from the station. They had both come early to help, and Sheila kindly brought some cakes too.

They were needed!

My "open house" invitation led to no less than 38 home ed kids and adults turning up!

The sports equipment from Sainsburys & Tescos got well used, as did the bouncy castle donated by a fellow home educator (thanks Dawn!) and our new trampoline.

The weather held - it started to rain at 3pm just as the kids at the school over the road were about to come out!

The birthday boy wandered around the garden with Nanny, taking in all in his stride!

In the evening, Joshua then set off on an adventure. The Independent on Sunday had called asking me to find a 12 year old HE kid to go that day to be interviewed for a feature on growing up in the UK, to be published this Sunday! Roarke took him off therefore to the offices of the Independent. They got there at 6, and didn't leave till 8.45!

The item was published today - in the paper version Joshua's picture is on the bottom of the front page of the newspaper, together with him being in the group photo in the inside feature on pages 8/9. The online version is here.

As we were tired out, Mum treated us to a chinese so that neither of us had to cook.

Saturday I got up ready for the second first birthday party (!). My brother and sister in law were coming over in the afternoon with their son. As my brother is a coeliac that meant cooking and baking everything gluten free.

As usual I over catered - forgetting that Roarke wasn't there because he was in Bristol chairing the EO Council Meeting!

We had a green salad, baked courgette risotto, ham cooked in coca cola, a plate of salami and smoked sausage, Tesco's gluten free sausages, the inevitable cheese and pineapple, fresh baked finger rolls, chicken pieces marinated in lemon, fresh thyme and rosemary from the garden, garlic and olive oil, plus various dips and crudites. For the sweet stuff, as well as a fruit salad, we had chocolate fairy cakes, vienesse chocolate biscuits, and for Jonathan and I to eat (dairy, wheat, egg and soya free) we had newborn biscuits, and birthday cake!

We had been due to go away for three days to Sheffield but our car is in serious need of some work and to risk that drive would have been foolish. So inside we decided to "holiday at home".

This morning therefore, we went to church first, as they had a guest speaker, for the kids. After that the boys predictably chose McDonalds for a rare treat of a meal there. I took a pot of the left over cola ham, and Jonathan and I ate that and shared some chips!

In the afternoon we spent the money we'd saved on diesel on wooden laminate floor for the front room (we share the house with mum and have one of the "reception" rooms as dining room, lounge, office and classroom all in one!) and some paint for the wall.

We had a lovely family dinner; we put the extension into the table (Ikea, courtesy of Freecycle), and had what Samuel calls a feast - all the left overs spread out on the table so we could help ourselves.

Jonathan enjoyed helping himself to pineapple, carrot sticks, cucumber, pepper slices, and more ham. Oh and humous of course!

Roarke's now gone off to the hospital to visit a friend. Poor guy is a carpenter and was working on repairing a roof when he fell 40 ft onto a concrete floor - with only a wall to break his fall. God really stepped in there, because he should really be dead. Actually he has a broken pelvis, lower spine and arm, but although they say he may never play football, or maybe be able to run again, he is otherwise fine, Do remember my friend in your prayers if you can, as he is missing his family especially his four week old first baby daughter :0(

The boys are being dipped - I mean bathed - as I speak!