Craft and geography.

Earlier this week, M decided that she wanted to have a go at felting.  We've had some materials amongst our supplies for a while, which we were given as a present by our lovely friend Ma at the same time as the quilling kit that was the start of K's hobby.  I had been meaning to dig it out and have a go for ages, but it was M who finally got there first.  We had a look together at some beginner videos on how to wet felt, but M wanted to make an animal, which meant needle felting.  I suggested that our friend Z would probably have the equipment that she'd need to give it a go, but she didn't want to wait and so we paid a trip to Hobbycraft.  There were various options but to give it a try without spending too much, M bought a kit, which included a couple of felting needles, that was cheaper than just buying a needle.

She has started one of the animals in the kit, but put that on hold today to make a couple of presents.  After doing a search on youtube, M found a tutorial and this afternoon made these two owls.

A very successful first attempt!

Yesterday two links showed up on Facebook, that were linked by the idea of perception, that I found fascinating, so showed them to K & M today.

This was the first one with 3D optical illusions.  The second one, here, was about how the Mercator projection based maps of the world distort the size of countries and made me realise that, despite being aware of the distortion, my perception of the relative size of countries is still really rather skewed!  As well as talking about that, as a result of the map of Colorado which is rectangular in shape, the conversation also turned to borders.  We talked about how in most parts of the world borders are not straight and often follow a natural physical barrier, such as a river or mountain range, but that in two parts of the world in particular there are border that consist of a significant amount of straight lines.  Those two parts of the world are North America and most noticeably Africa, both of which were invaded by Europeans and divided up between them.

Various visits and trips - Kentwell, London and Wales.

A couple of weeks ago, we had our third visit to the home educator's day at Kentwell Hall, although this time is was just the afternoon.  Having been before, an afternoon was long enough, but it's a shame that it's no longer (or at least wasn't this year) the whole day.  After missing last year because of a holiday, K & M were very keen to return but had grown, especially K, so it did mean some more sewing.

We all went again this time and all enjoyed it very much.  It was quite predictably similar to our previous visits, but there is always something new to find out about.  Having written a couple of pretty comprehensive blog posts following our last visits here and here I'm not going to write about everything in detail but will share some photos and mention some 'new' stuff.

The Lord of the Manor.

The big boss man didn't appear to be particularly interested in the dancing that was going while the folk in the big house were waiting for their meal to be ready, as he seemed to be dozing most of the time!

The coat of arms man was there again and made one for A.

Cheese making in the dairy.

A rather impressive peacock.

Archery

The master builder

The master builder was someone who I recall having seen on previous visits but we hadn't really heard what he had to say, which was really interesting.  He talked about how buildings were made with a timber frame with all the joints numbered so they could be slotted together correctly, then fixed in place with wooden pegs that could be hammered further in as the wood aged and shrank and therefore the building shifted.  It also meant that buildings could be taken apart and moved if necessary!

The falconner and his kestrel.

This fellow told us that he was teaching the young boy up at the big house the art of falconry.  Among other things he told us the origin of the phrase 'fed up', which is when a bird has had too much eat so will no longer return to the hand.

I'm sure there are still bits and pieces that we haven't seen and if circumstances allow I'm sure we will be back to Kentwell.

The next day, I had a solo overnight trip to London.  I went to meet up with about thirty of what are known in this house as my 'computer mummy friends' or occasionally 'imaginary friends'.  Social media is very much a double-edged sword in some ways, but I am extremely fortunate to be part of a community of wonderful, diverse, supportive women through the internet and have been for over a decade.  We would make for an interesting Venn diagram with significant overlaps of those who are/were breastfeeding counsellors/long-term breastfeeders, sling wearers, home educators, crafters, politically active (mostly but not exclusively left-leaning) and more.  Some of us see one or more of the others regularly, others occasionally and for at least one person it was the first time she had met anyone else.  One of our number who moved to the US several years ago was back for a visit and her suggestion of a big meet up while she was here was taken up and run with.  It was a slightly surreal experience being in a room with so many people who I know very well in some ways but some of whom I'd never met before.  I had been a bit apprehensive, but it was such a lovely evening.

All of those who could make it!

One of my imaginary friends, A, lives in a real house in London and kindly put me up for the night and the next day after brunch, we met up with C, one of a number who had come down from Scotland, and went for a boat trip on the Thames and a wander around the outside of the Tower of London.  When C had to head off to the airport, A and I spent a few more hours mooching and talking before my train was due.

And in what will probably be our final (at least for now) out of school holidays holiday, we spent a few days in Wales last week.  On Tuesday we headed to my lovely mother-in-law, J's, in time for lunch and the following day went a bit further south in Wales (she lives just over the border into Wales from Chester).  We visited Harlech Castle, which was rather impressive, both in terms of the castle itself and the sensible-ness of trusting that people have common sense and don't need high fences to stop themselves from falling off buildings!

The approach.

The view from the tallest tower.  The sea was much closer when it was built!

Looking towards the inside of the entrance from the wall.

After Harlech, we headed for our hotel and after a cuppa we headed for the beach.  We had a good walk and discovered a few interesting things.

Interesting thing #1 - a rather large dead crab.

Interesting thing #2 - an art installation by K & M.

K & M liked collecting pebbles, they then got creative and made this.  It is a mozaic entitled, rather delightfully, 'Dog wee in the snow'!

Thursday was the day with the activity, booked for the afternoon after consulting the weather forecast, which had led us to choose this area.  First though we visited Portmeirion, mainly it must be said because it was there and we'd heard of it and were curious.  It's very pretty but to me didn't feel quite real.

Portmeirion

We had look around and then lunch, followed by a nice walk through the wood and down to the estuary before heading off for the real business of the day.  Three rather long zipwires at Zipworld Velocity.  J sat this one out, although had she decided to give it a go, she wouldn't have been the oldest person to have done so, as they had had a 90 year old on it previously!  It was good fun, but really not cheap to put it mildly.  We had talked about which of the three options at this site to go for, as there is also Bounce Below and Caverns, but since M is somewhat claustrophobic and A has a bit of a dodgy shoulder, we decided to all go for the zipwire. We will apparently get an email with a video of us on the second and third of the three zipwires, but we haven't received it yet.

After two really good days weather-wise, the forecast for the final day was absolutely lousy.  And correct.  It was very, very wet.  We'd found a leaflet at the hotel for the Corris Craft Centre which looked like a good bet and also had King Arthur's Labyrinth with looked quite interesting.  As it turned out there wasn't as much choice as there appeared as not everything was running and after asking for a bit more information about the King Arthur thing, neither K nor M fancied it (K because there was the suggestion of something which could be interpreted as a bit gory and M because of the enclosed space thing).  The girls and I did, however, get extremely wet doing the Lost Legends of the Stone Circle, which was a maze in which there were half a dozen scenes with tales from Welsh folklore.  While we did that, A had time for a good chat with his mum over a coffee and then after lunch we all had a go at pottery painting.

We then headed back to J's for a couple more nights, where we met up with one of A's cousins for lunch on the Saturday (it was supposed to be two of them, but unfortunately one was ill) and then headed home after lunch on Sunday.

An update on the school thing

As I said in my last post, M decided that she did want to go to school in September and it is definitely the right decision for her.  I don't know, you bring your children up to make their own decisions and they go and do so!

Since then a few things have happened.  M had another chat with the lovely A, as although she has made the decision and is happy with it, she still understandably has some reservations.  We're also still in the unsettled and therefore unsettling stage of not having anything sorted yet.  I put in the application through the local authority on Monday 20th June over the phone and was told that 'in year applications' (those that are not made before the deadline for general applications at the start of a new school) were looked at on a weekly basis, so we would hear pretty quickly.

This was indeed the case as that Friday, the 24th, I had a phone call.  It was not from the school that we had applied for, nor indeed the one that M had been allocated a place at.  It was from one of the other schools in the same academy chain as the one M wants to go to.  The very pleasant woman on the phone asked me if, since we hadn't been allocated a place at the school we had applied for a place at they had passed my details on to them and would we like to go and have a look around.  I thanked her for letting me know that we hadn't got a place, as I did not know that at the time and declined her offer, as we would be appealling.

Following this, I phoned the school and spoke to the person who deals with admissions.  At this point she apologised saying that it was her who sent out the letters (it later turned out that since we had applied through the LA, the letter should have come from them and that we should/could have applied directly to the school for a place).  She then emailed a copy of the form that we needed to fill in which is a notice of intention to appeal.  I filled this in and delivered it to the school on Monday 27th June.

By the Friday we had still not received any letter about the school place, although we had had a message on our answerphone from the school where M was automatically allocated a place, telling me that they had next year's Year 7s going into school for most of the following week for visits and asking would M like to join them.  I returned the call to thank them and decline the place at the school which is a considerable distance away and where M would know nobody.  I called the admissions person back at the school M wants to go to, to try to find out when the appeal was likely to take place and also to let her know that we still had not received the letter we were expecting.  It was at this point that we cleared up the confusion about where the letter should have come from and she said that she would chase that up for us with the LA.  She also told us that there was an appeal hearing scheduled before the summer holiday but that it was full, so ours would not be until September.  She did agree to check with the appeals clerk whether it might be possible to fit ours in as well, but said she thought it unlikely and that we weren't the only ones waiting and indeed called back very promptly to confirm that we will have to wait.  M was accepting but really not happy about this and asked me if I thought if she were to write a letter to the school asking really nicely, they'd let her go.  I had to tell that sadly I didn't think it would work.

We finally received the letter letting us know that M had not got a place at the school she wants to go to but that she's been allocated at one that she will definitely not be going to on Thursday 7th July, dated the 5th. 

In the meantime, however, I have been talking to H, who has been very helpful having been through the appeals process with her daughter L when they moved house.  She also very kindly let M tag along to an evening event for the new Year 7s earlier this week.  In addition she also let me know that when L came home from a day at the new school with a photo of her form (as did some other friends in different forms) that the three forms that she knows about have only 27 or 28 children in them.  Given that there are, I believe, nine forms in Year 7 in September, I find it hard to believe that there isn't space for at least two children in each of them.  So even if there were a dozen appeals to be heard in the session before the summer holiday, all of them for Year 7 places and all of them won, I don't see how they could legimately argue that they can't accommodate another child.

Before I learned about the class sizes, I was pretty sanguine about the whole thing, but I must admit that I am really rather annoyed that a child who has applied for a place 'in year' (not that they applied but were refused a place with the general intake), who lives in catchment (all children living in catchment were guaranteed a place this year) is being made to jump through these hoops given that there is clearly space at the school!  I know that we missed the deadline back in October, but at that time neither of my girls had any intention of going to school for the foreseeable future and I don't see that it's any different than if we had moved into the area and as a result M, and any other children in this position are going to miss out on the beginning of the school year and the settling in period that everyone else will have.