An unexpected turn of events.

I considered adding this in with my previous post, but decided it was better to put in it a separate one.  We are in a somewhat unsettled period at the moment; one that I really did not expect to be in.

Until very recently (weeks, perhaps a month) K & M were always absolutely adamant that they would never want to go to school, although they have always known that it is an option and have friends who are happily schooled.  In the past few weeks though, M in particular (although K a bit too) has been talking about school and wanting to know what it's really like.  I suggested talking to friends (both home ed who have been in school for a period and schooly friends) and asking them any particular questions they might have.  I have also been happy to answer any questions and told them as much as I could (having been to school both as pupil and teacher, albeit a couple of decades ago in one case and 12 years in the other).

Rather ironically, given that one of the reasons A & I started looking into and considering home education in the first place was the amount of testing at primary level, the year 6 SATs tests seem to have acted as a bit of a catalyst.  M was rather upset and feeling very left out when at korfball quite a few of her friends were talking about and celebrating the approaching end of the tests.  

More conversation has got us to the point that M has said that she is "about 7/10 likely" to want to go to school in September and K a bit less likely, but still a possibility particularly if M does.  As a result I have phoned up two of our local secondary schools (M would be year 7 and K year 8 in September), to try to arrange a visit to have a look round, so that the girls can make a more informed decision.  The upshot is that both schools are full, which is what I expected to hear, but that doesn't necessarily mean out of the question.  One of the schools does not allow visits during the exam period (fair enough) but I am welcome to call back after half term to arrange one after the exams have finished.  The other school (where I used to teach) does not allow visits at all, no exceptions, but we are welcome to come to the next open evening, which will be in September, aimed at pupils wanting to start the school in year 7 the following year, not entirely helpful if we wanted to be put on the waiting list as soon as possible with a view to starting as soon as a place became available!

So that's where we are at the moment.  At the moment things are carrying on as usual and will do so until we have visited the first school.  Then it's a question of having the conversation with each of the girls about whether they want us to apply for a place (aware that a September start is highly unlikely) and if so whether at that school or if they want to look at either of the other two local options.  We looked at these two first as one is our catchment school and the other the local RC one, which they/we are if rather more nominally than practising (I still play the organ at Christmas though!).  If one or both decides that they do want to give school a go, we'll have a conversation about expectations (theirs, ours, the school's) and have a look at the National Curriculum, to see what if anything would be a good idea to try to catch up on before they go in order to make it as smooth as transition as possible.

I have rather mixed feelings about all this, but have had some helpful conversations with various friends who have a variety of experiences of home ed, school applications and different schools.  Although we (A & I) will expect them to go into it with the attitude of giving it a really good go and K & M know this, knowing that whatever the girls decide it will be their decision and that they know there are other options is reassuring.

What I will do if they both decide to go to school and it works out, is a whole other question.  I do know that I will not be returning to teaching, but beyond that I have no idea.

More busyness!

We've been rather busy again lately!

We had an arty couple of days on Friday and Saturday.  On Friday we met up with friends A, N, L & T at the Lace Market art gallery to visit the Artist as Mother as Artist exhibition.

My (sort of) selfie with one of the pieces.

Afterwards we headed to the Dice Cup, where we had a go at a few games.  Ghost Blitz was a good game to start with, once everyone knew what they were doing, as with English, French and FSL as first languages between the 7 of us having a visual game was a good plan.  We had a go at a few other games including some that did involve more language with varying degrees of participation and success, but quite a lot of laughter anyway (which is the main thing in any case).

The next day, K, M & I spent most of the afternoon at the Lady Bay Arts festival.  Dozens of different artists who work in all sorts of different media were showing their work in about 20 venues, mostly in peoples homes but also the school, one of the churches and a couple of businesses.  In many cases the artists were there and happy to talk about their work.  Unfortunately I haven't got any photos, but works included paintings, ceramics, metal work, textiles and many more.

On Sunday K cooked the meal that she had planned a couple of months ago when we spent a day at the library while having a window put in in the kitchen.  I knew that it involved duck but no more than that.  It turned out to be a Vietnamese style duck and noodle broth, which was very good (although not really filling enough for the main meal that it was supposed to be, particularly not for A but he ate some cheese and crackers while we were waiting for pud, so it was fine), followed by chocolate soup!

Since buying some workbooks at M's request a few weeks ago and after ignoring them for a while after the first quick look, M has got in the habit of doing a comprehension exercise most days from one of the books.  We have had some discussion about how sometimes the right answer may not be the one that gets you the mark, for example, there was a question about the made-up word 'doctopus', asking what two real words it makes you think of.  M had answered 'doctor' and 'puss as in cat', which clearly is correct if that is what it makes her think of, but I think that the answer they are looking for is probably 'doctor' and 'octopus'. 

After some disagreement about who was going to write to whom, my suggestion that the girls could write letters to Nana and Great Grandma about our recent holidays was accepted.  My idea was partly that it would be very much appreciated, that they would probably get a reply and also it would be a good reason to write.  I did suggest that I would quite like to read the letters, so I could see if there was anything (grammar, punctuation etc.) that we needed to have a look at together.  Yesterday M disappeared into her bedroom, emerged sometime later having written a letter to Nana that was 4 sides of writing paper long.  I wasn't allowed to read it though, because it's private, so I'm going to ask my lovely mother-in-law if she can give me some feedback about how it's written.  K has also started a letter to Great Grandma, although the girls are going to be seeing her tomorrow, so she will be finishing it off and sending it later.

Granny has come to stay this week, which is always lovely.  One thing that I have found quite entertaining is that she has marked the pages in M's workbooks that she has done, despite the fact that in vast majority of cases (except for those that M had chosen not to show me!) I had already looked at them and talked through any mistakes with her.  As a primary school teacher by profession and instinct, she just can't help herself - and it was all done in a very positive way with M.

M had decided a few days before Granny arrived that she was going to prepare a quiz for everyone while she was here, and spent quite a bit of time preparing and researching and came up with a number of rounds, including naming a variety of sports, identifying pictures of birds of prey, answering multiple choice questions about rhinos, and a 'missing vowels' round (like in Only Connect) on the subject of dog breeds. 

While here Granny asked K to make her a couple of birthday cards one for a friend and the other for a family member, both of whom are 70 this year, which she did.  K really isn't what you would call a business woman, as she wanted Granny to buy her more general cards from Locally Produced for You, as she thinks it's good that the K there gets some of the money!

The 70th cards.

Tomorrow A has a meeting where Granny lives, so is taking her home and also taking the girls down for the day and they will be seeing Big Grandad, Uncle M and Great Grandma.  It'll be the first time that they'll have seen Big Grandad since his birthday in March, so K is taking his present which she made.  M is taking her French horn and will be playing Puff the Magic Dragon and Happy Birthday (and possibly some other things) while it is presented, and also made a Puff shaped gingerbread biscuit to give him, made with a batch of others yesterday.

A quilled Puff the Magic Dragon.

A holiday/educational trip.

Last week we headed north for a few days.  I had spotted that there was a workshop in Scotland that I really liked the look of and it wasn't too far from St Andrews, where A's best friend from uni and family live, so I suggested we could make a trip of it.  It was a very good idea!

Rather than driving all the way in one go, we decided to have a night in the Lakes.  We stopped at Wray Castle on the shore of Windermere, a place that is best summed up I think by the phrase 'delightfully bonkers'!  In brief it was built in the 1840s by a couple in the style of a medieval castle as a retirement home for the two of them, all 46 rooms of it.

Wray Castle from the outside.

There also used to be a purpose built ruin right in front of the place, blocking a wonderful view across the lake, although that had to be taken down for health and safety reasons, as it was falling down.  The NT bought the place for the land that it came with and weren't entirely sure what to do with the building, so it has had a number of inhabitants, including the Merchant Navy for a while, and it's only relatively recently that the NT has opened the building to the public.  Unlike most NT places it was pretty much completely empty, so they have done something a bit different with it.  There's a warren of rooms in the servants quarters that are done out as Peter Rabbit rooms, as there is a Beatrix Potter connection, since she stayed at the house a few times.  There are various rooms with big games to play; drafts, Connect 4, there's a table tennis table in one room and a full-sized snooker table that you can use in another.  There is also a large room with a considerable number of soft play type large building blocks.  K got very busy in there while A, M & I had a three-way game of snooker (ignoring fouls, otherwise scores would have been considerably higher!).

Castle from behind.

The front from above.

The orangerie, the war memorial, a hill and a big hedge walk.

K has plans to write a leaflet about this castle and grounds that she built, which I'm really hoping she will get round to soon.

In the adventure playground.

We had a bit of a play in the adventure playground and a bit of a wander by the lake before heading off.

On the Wednesday we headed further north and on spotting a sign for New Lanark I mentioned to A that I had visited there 20 years or so previously and so we decided to stop there for a break over lunch time.  We ended up spending a rather interesting 3 hours or so visiting the various parts of the site.  We learned about Robert Owen, who not only believed strongly in treating his workers well, but acted on those beliefs.  He provided free schools for children, not allowing them to work in the mills until they were 10 years old, as well as classes for older children and adults.  One sixtieth of the workers' wages was paid into a fund that meant that they could otherwise see a doctor for free when necessary.  The mill was originally powered directly by water and is once more a working but now with hydro-electric power.  Owen is considered one of the fathers of both trade unionism and the Co-operative movement.

The view from the roof garden.

As well as the visitor centre, we went into the mill workers houses, Robert Owen's house, and the school.

We arrived at Kilconquhar, where we were staying late afternoon and briefly saw C & D (A's friends from uni) and their youngest son, L (who is a year 6 months older than K).  

On Thursday, we went on a boat trip to the Isle of May, in the Firth of Forth, which is one of Scotland's National Nature Reserves.  It took just under an hour to get there, during which we learned a bit about the history of the place (it was home to the country's first ever lighthouse for example) as well as the wildlife.  One thing that was very interesting (and tied in nicely to an experiment that the girls had seen at Fun Club last October and read about in Aquila) was that diving birds such as the gannet have an extra eyelid that has the same refractive index as water, so that they can pinpoint fish in the water and target them.  Another was that after giving birth and feeding their young on incredibly rich milk for a very short period of time, only around 3-4 weeks, the females are immediately ready for mating.  However, there is a delay before the embryos start to develop and don't do so for another couple of months, once the females have regained the body weight they lost from feeding their previous baby.  (We were told that it was only seals and kangaroos that have this delay, but after bit of investigation it seems that this 'embryonic diapause' happens in quite a few other groups of mammals.  K has written an email to the ferry people, letting them know that they are misinformed on this point).

We had about 2 1/2 hours on the island which, at around 1.5 km long by 0.5 km wide, was small enough for that to be plenty.  We saw....

Puffins!

Lots of them!

Quite a few nesting shags.

Eider ducks.

And a lot of absolutely bonkers nesting razorbills and others on the cliff faces!

We also saw some seals bobbing about in the water, having a look at us as much as we were them.

On the Friday we spent some time at the place we were staying, taking advantage of the facilities.  M, A & I had a go at snooker again, and on the putting green course and then the girls went for a swim during the allotted slot when children who are over 8 and able to swim are allowed to go without adult supervision, as there is a life-guard on duty and there are various floats to play with.  We were joined by C & D for lunch, after which we introduced them to Pit before heading off for a bit of a coastal walk and a very good ice-cream.

On Saturday A, K & M dropped me off to hear Michel Odent speak at the workshop I was going to (fascinating and in a language that wasn't his mother tongue without notes!).  Then they went off to spend the day at The Scottish Deer Centre which wasn't too far away.  As well as deer, they saw otters, lynx, birds of prey, bears, wolves, wildcats and more.
 

One day old baby reindeer 'having booboo' as it's known in our house.

Otter.

M tolding me the next day about some of the things that they'd seen and found out about, including discussions about re-introducing wolves to Scotland, to help keep down the deer population which is destroying some of the natural habitat, but that it's understandably opposed by farmers, and also lynx, which is much less controversial and looks likely to go ahead soon.  She also asked me if I knew what the biggest threat to the native wildcat population was, which is that they are interbreeding with domesticated cats.

It was unfortunately time to head back home on the Sunday - a very long drive!  We had already decided to have a decent break en route and had picked out Corbridge Roman Town not far from Hadrian's Wall.  We had a look around the museum, which had a lot of artifacts and information about the place, but much of it we really didn't find particularly inspiring as it was all quite dry.  We spent some time wandering around the sizeable ruins before heading further south.

M in one of the granaries.

Considering that this was planned as a short break around me wanting to go to a workshop that happened to be not far from where friends live, it turned out to be pretty much one big education trip.  I'm sure that we're not the only ones that seems to happen to!

Back to the Dice Cup again.

Yesterday was International Table Top Day and The Dice Cup was celebrating with a special offer of no cover charge.  A's cricket season started, so the girls and I had the afternoon to ourselves and headed into town, where we met up with friends and bumped into others.

We arrived before our friends, and had an abortive attempt to play Dixit, which we've played before a few times, but it doesn't really work very well with just three.  So while we were waiting we had a game of Ingenious, which we played on both of our previous two visits, and then once our friends (rather confusingly also K & M - so I'll call them K2 & M2) arrived we had another go as they didn't know it.

M2 wanted to play a game that he'd played before, which I really rather liked and I think the girls did too.  It's called Zeus on the Loose, it's a card game that's a bit mathsy and strategic but with a sizeable dose of luck needed too.

Next we had one of the two games that M really wanted to play again, Telestrations, the 'chinese whispers drawing game'.  I don't know if we were particularly good at drawing this time or whether playing it with fewer people makes for less inaccuracy in identifying drawings, but while it was still fun, it didn't cause quite as much hilarity as last time.

Hey, That's My Fish came next.  This was another one that K2 and M2 already knew.  It's for 2 - 4 players, so K decided to sit out the first game and watch.  It's one of those games that it very simple to play, but actually very strategic.  The idea is to catch as many fish as you can, while trying to block other penguins from doing the same.

Near the beginning of the game.

Since it was also Love Your Local Yarn Shop Day, I nipped out at the this point to the absolutely fabulous Knit Nottingham and bought some yarn, since I'd just finished my most recent project (which I forgot to take a photo of before posting - oops).  I've bought some yarn and a pattern from Ravelry although I think may have been a bit ambitious.  However, I know that I can do what I have done previously when I've got stuck, which is visit the shop, say 'Help!' and get it!

When I got back, K, M & M2 (K2 was watching), where playing a new game with a little bit of help from one of the lovely Dice Cup people.  I got the gist of it more or less by the end, coming in half way through as I did, and the kids seemed to be enjoying it.  Rather than try to explain, you can read about Port Royal here.

Mid game.

Unfortunately K2 & M2 had to dash off after this, but K, M & I stayed on a bit longer.  M and I had a go at Munchkin Loot Letter.  K didn't fancy it.  M and I weren't madly impressed to be honest, but it might be better with more than two. 

We had one final game before heading home, this time another one that we had played before a couple of times at the Imagination Gaming sessions at our local library, Anomia.  You take it in turn to lay cards down and when the symbol on your card matches an opponent's, you have to name something in the category written on their card.  Harder than you might think!

Anomia.

Given it was free to play, it was unsurprisingly very busy in there, which is really good to see because it's a great place.  A group on the table next to us were playing Pirate Fluxx (I had the orginal version for my birthday), K in particular, being closest to them, found it quite hard to concentrate because they were talking in pirate voices, presumably because there's a card that says you have to do so!  Admittedly it was very funny and I think that might be one that we'll have a go at another time.

It was also brilliant that although we've only been there three times (so far!) that one of the lovely blokes knows us enough to want to tell us about a new game they've got in that he thinks we'd like (only in the shop so far, but hopefully to play soon).  The game in question is a co-operative game called Mysterium, which sounds a bit like a combination of Dixit and Cluedo with a bit of something else and definitely sounds like something we would indeed enjoy.