Finally! Nondula - the sequel to Oy Yew.

My girls and I had been waiting with anticipation for the publication of this sequel to the brilliant Oy Yew. Unfortunately we then had to wait even longer to start it, as its arrival coincided with them disappearing off to Scout camp and having just started reading a new (quite long) bedtime book together.

At the end of the previous book we left Oy and the four of his friends who had managed to escape from the evil Jeopardine, to whom they were effectively enslaved, having landed in a new country, not knowing whether the people were friendly or if they’d landed from the frying pan of Duldred into the fire of a different situation.

The gentle people of Nondula take in the waifs and all seems well. The waifs all lose the starved look they’d arrived with, after years of neglect and abuse at Duldred in Affland, except for Linnet, whose health fails and nothing seems able to help her.

In Nondula, each person is helped to find their own particular talent or jenie and so work is done by the people best fitted to the job and who enjoy it. After some time to rest and play, each of the waifs finds their jenie and so Oy discovers his gift for healing.

In contrast to the gentle Nonduls, the neighbouring Fellun people are thuggish, violent and cruel. They take whatever they want from the surrounding land and peoples, including the Nondulan healers, but there are none left. In a bid to try and find what is needed to heal Linnet, Oy gives himself up to the Felluns, but it seems it was not such a good plan. Gritty uses her jenie to win a place in the dance troupe and get inside the city to try to rescue him, but working out who she can trust to help her isn’t straightforward.

It took us a little while to get into the book, but once inside the picture Ana Salote builds of the contrasting communities, traditions and peoples is rich and colourful. As was the case with Oy Yew, the vocabulary she creates is wonderfully inventive and evocative. There are the awful terrorgations, as well as the husbouts where the Fellund husbeaus compete to win the favour of the ruling Fellona, Abominata, before inevitably falling out of favour to become a husbeen. These are contrasted with the Sajistry where the Nondulan scholars live and work and where the waifs find out what their jenies are.

As we finished reading, my children were already asking when the final book in the trilogy is due to be published, and, like them, I’m looking forward to finding out the answers to the numerous questions that we’re left with about Oy and his friends.

You can get your hands on a copy (and of Oy Yew) here.

Settled in and doing well.

With M's permission (it was given on the condition that I sympathise with her over her painful back tooth that is coming through, which I did most genuinely), I'm sharing some of the things that have happened in her school life recently.

Since making the decision to go back to school after Christmas, M has been continuing to settle in and get used to school life.  We had a 'progress report' in March which clearly shows that she is working hard with an 'outstanding attitude' to study and homework in nearly all subjects (and good in the other one), and as far as I can make out from the rather bizarre reporting scheme they use, she's making good progress academically too.  They use letters that are reminiscent of the Hogwarts mark scheme!

She has been participating in plenty of extra-curricular things at school.  As well as playing her French horn in the concert band, including a performance at the recent showcase evening, she has played in another inter-school netball tournament and joined an after-school dodgeball club.  She also volunteered to help with the school's Comic Relief fundraising efforts.

We had a bit of a hitch recently when a book, that she found in our local library and wanted to read, wasn't in the accelerated reading scheme that the school uses, and she was convinced that she would be given a detention if she read it.  No amount of persuasion or reasoning from me would convince her otherwise, but fortunately an email to her English teacher explaining the situation sorted it out.

On Monday this week, on the way home from school, M told me almost in passing that she had been given three awards in the half-termly achievement assembly, and once home produced certificates for 'outstanding attitude to study' in German, science and, rather oddly since it was the only subject she was not given outstanding for in her progress report, maths.

Today put not only the icing on the cake, but the cherry on top of that too.  A letter addressed to M arrived through with the post today; it was from the headteacher.  It was a letter congratulating her on and thanking her for her attitude to work, behaviour in and around the school and her commitment and dedication.  Her tutor and head of year had nominated her for one of these letters, which, she was told, are not sent out regularly and not too many students receive one.  Shortly after she'd read this letter, an email arrived from her form tutor, who is also her maths teacher, to say that she will be moving to the set above after the holiday, that she 'has come on a long way during this year and this is testimony to her hard working ethic.'

Twelve months ago, we were happily home educating both K & M, a couple of months later M made the decision that lead to the most difficult six months of her life.  She was extremely unhappy and doubting her decision at times, but has shown amazing strength of character throughout.  I am incredibly proud of her anyway, but to have her efforts recognised like this is truely heart-warming.

First News vs The Week Junior

It’s taken rather longer than I intended (doesn’t everything!) but I’ve finally got round to comparing First News and The Week Junior, as I promised after asking for experiences on Facebook. We’ve been getting First News for a couple of years now and, thanks to Z, I didn’t need to do the six weeks free trial of The Week Junior as her boys get it, so we borrowed a couple of copies.

At first glance, the obvious difference is that The Week is in magazine format, slightly bigger than A4, and with slightly glossier paper; whereas First News is a newspaper, not much smaller than a standard tabloid. They are a similar cover price, at £1.80 for First News and £1.99 for The Week Junior, although both offer discounts with regular subscriptions.

In terms of content, they are both filled with colour pictures with short articles and have pages devoted to ‘Big News’, home news and world news over the first few pages, as well as a page with the week in photos and sports news. Both also have a puzzles page and a page for contributions from the readers. They both have at least one book review and entertainment news. Each has a section on science and one about animals/the environment. There is a double page that The Week Junior has with no First News equivalent, which is ‘Do something’ on one side and ‘How to...’ on the other. ‘Do something’ tells you a bit about an activity (chess and skiing in the two copies we have), with a little blurb written by a child, presumably a reader and then information how to get started if you are interested in giving it a go along with a website or two to find out more. Based on the sample of two, there seems to be a format of some kind of science experiment (growing crystals and building a washing-up liquid-powered boat), a recipe and one other thing (improving your score at Scrabble and speaking confidently in public).

Having been lent a couple of copies of The Week Junior, I dug out the First News from the same weeks in order to give as fair a comparison as possible. They were from mid-January 2017, around the time of Trump’s inauguration as the 45th President of the US, so it was interesting to see how they present him and the many controversies surrounding his election. It is very clear that both publications are trying very hard, and I think succeeding, in presenting the information and facts as clearly and straightforwardly as possible. They present opinions as just that, explaining people’s opinions but without telling the readers what to think. Neither paper shies away from presenting difficult subjects but does so at an appropriate level for their target readership.

As I said, my girls have been getting First News for a number of years and it is read from cover to cover on a weekly basis. I asked them to have a look at The Week Junior, which they did, but I don’t think either of them really read one properly (they really don’t like change!), so it’s difficult to offer a genuine opinion from the target readership from my girls. I’m convinced that if they’d been getting The Week Junior for the past few years and I’d brought home a couple of copies of First News, I’d have had the same reaction.

I asked on Facebook (and in real life) for thoughts from other parents and children who read one or the other, here’s a selection:

E – “If I were going to get one or the other, I think I’d go for The Week, because of the extra science bit, because that’s what my children go for.”

L (11, one of E’s children) - “I prefer The Week because it’s got a bit more science in it.”

One weekend, two very different trips.

Yesterday K, M & I went with friends to check out Clip 'n' Climb, partly to check it out in advance of an upcoming korfball social trip and partly because M was very disappointed not to be able to go on that trip because of a previous commitment.  Before M started school we went climbing most months at Alter Rock in Derby with friends who are members there at one of the weekly home ed sessions.  Clip 'n' Climb is rather different, rather than classic climbing walls with another person belaying as you climb, there are 15 or so different walls each with an automatic belaying device that you are clipped on to.  There are a couple of 'normal' walls, a pair that include a timer that you start and stop yourself by pressing a button at the bottom and then another at the top and another pair either side of a transparent wall where you can race someone face to face.  Most of them are rather different though, such as the three sided wall which you stand inside of which has semi-spheres as holds, one with holes in the holds and a pair of pegs that you take up with you to use as hand grips and another like a twisted tower of enormous jenga blocks.  You have to arrive well in time for getting sorted with harnesses and the safety briefing half an hour before your climbing slot.  There are a maximum of 15 for each group of climbers so, since there are slots every half hour with no more than 30 climbers it can't be ridiculously busy.  You need a 'key' to unlock and clip on at each of the walls, but adults and older children (I don't know if there's an age limit) can have an extra little bit of instruction and have one to clip themselves and children in their party on and off too, there are enough instructors around that there wasn't too much waiting anyway though.  It was really fun!  Some of the walls were pretty challenging anyway (I didn't manage them all) but each has graded challenges (such as only using a particular colour grip) for anyone who found them too easy.  For me an hour was more than enough, but then I find my forearms go all T-Rex-y after a few goes up a climbing wall, the children would have been happy to carry on, but they weren't at all moany about having to stop either.

M up the twisted Jenga tower.

K up one with only underhand grips.

Me up the one with pegs.

M attempting the giant ball one!

And M having made it to the top of the stepping stone one.

Earlier this week I noticed friend had posted a link to the Visit My Mosque day website and having had a look and found that there was one not too far from us, I was very keen for the whole family to go along.  The world is such a scary place at the moment and so much of that comes from mistrust and misunderstanding of people who have different beliefs to ourselves, that any opportunity to meet with those people and talk to them about our similarities and differences can only be a good thing.  There was only one place taking part near us this time, so we headed over there.  It really was not what we were expecting!  There was a very warm welcome to not a mosque, but a really rather small prayer room.  We had very interesting and enlightening conversation and had some questions answered and learned quite a lot.  K & M were not particularly keen on being dragged out at the weekend but both said that they were glad that we'd gone.  It is a shame that we didn't get to visit a mosque, but I'm hoping that there will be one taking part and will be keeping an eye open for next year.

Mostly K.

It's been rather an eventful week with K, who is now tenty-three (she does not want to be a teenager and therefore has decided not to be one and this is her way of avoiding it).  She may not be a teenager, but her independence is definitely developing and she's now comfortable doing things that not that long ago would have been out of the question.

On Wednesday she went for a home ed trip to Nottingham's Galleries of Justice, with the group she goes to each week. She wasn't sure where it was, so we went in to town together on the bus and I left her there and she spent the day with the group, going on for a game of adventure golf afterwards, before getting the bus home on her own later.  She and M had previously had one trip into town together, just the two of them, over 18 months ago, but it hadn't happened since.

Since I was in town, I bought a birthday present for a friend's daughter and went to the wonderful Knit Nottingham where I had a lovely chat with the ever helpful Eleanor and spent some of my Christmas money on yarn.  In between those two things, I went to try out somewhere that has been recommended to me by a couple of people and treated myself to a hot chocolate at Chocolate Utopia.  It was very good and I shall be returning!  I had a really good dark hot chocolate and chose a dark chilli chocolate to go with it and had a lovely half hour writing in my bullet journal (I started one a couple of weeks before Christmas and am finding it really rather useful and enjoyable).

On Thursday K had gymnastics as usual, which is the only time she sees P, a friend who she's really hit it off with.  Before Christmas she'd asked about meeting up with her sometime, but it wasn't the ideal time of year for that really.  After gymnastics she talked about the possibility again, so we discussed options and I suggested that they might like to meet up in town (P lives the opposite side of town from us) as I'm somewhat constrained by the school run to transport K places, but that I would want to at speak to P's mum before anything was arranged.  I was quite surprised by how keen K was on this idea, but having spoken to P's mum and confirming that we have very similar ideas and expectations of what's acceptable, we have agreed that they can meet up together in town next Friday!

The girls and A went to Melton Mowbray to do the Park Run there with friends who live opposite, which I got up later and then went to an LLL Toddler meeting.  While there, K got lost and although she didn't appear to have been bothered or worried by the incident, other people very definitely were!  It happened because one of the marshalls had had to leave early and she took a wrong path at the fork where they had been stationed.  Being considerably slower than all the rest of the group, it was only when the tail runner returned and K hadn't that they realised something wasn't quite right.  She was found reasonably quickly and all was well.  It's good to know that she doesn't panic when lost in any case!

She spent the majority of the rest of the day at the sewing machine, finishing off the costume she has been planning and making since before Christmas, for the girls' friend L's Danger Mouse birthday party.  She went as The Princess - and made a top and skirt from a scarf she bought from a charity shop and material found at the scrap store, plus a wig made from purple wool, ears from white socks and wool pompoms and a tiara found at the scrap store and the only thing she had any help with was cutting the words 'Happy New Year' out of the tiara (which I did with a stanley knife and saw).  M went as Isambard King-Kong Brunel and I helped her with her costume.

This is who K went as - The Princess.

M went as the one on the right.

 Not brilliant photos, but here are the results.  K as The Princess, L as Danger Mouse and M as Isambard King-Kong Brunel.

Games and work.

We played quite a few different games over the holidays, some new to us and some that weren't.  We were given a couple of games from Christmas, both of which we already knew.  One was Qwordie, which we were given by friends who we also gave it to (by agreement) and the other was Mexican Train.

The Qwordie tin.

We played a few games of Qwordie on Christmas day.  As the name suggests it's a mixture of a quiz and word game.  You collect letter tiles and the first person to spell a correct answer to each question (there are always multiple answers) adds them to their stack.  The winner is the one whose stack reaches the winning line, which you can just about see in the photo; there are three different options for different length games.

The girls were also given Hive by Uncle S & Aunty P, which is a two player tile game.  M has had a go with A and with me.  The aim is to surround your oponents' bee with tiles (which are hexagonal).  There are various minibeasts on the tiles which can move in different ways.  It's was pretty quick game to start with, but more recent games have got a bit longer as we've got the hang of the strategy.  It's quite chess-like in some ways, with pieces that move in different ways having to capture a piece that can only move one space.

Hive, mid-game.

M beat me!

For New Year we went to friends' with whom we play lots of games and unsurprisingly played lots!  They been given even more than we had for Christmas to add to their already sizeable collection, so there were a lot to choose from!  We played:

Betrayal at House on the Hill

This one starts of co-operatively, but after an unspecified time (it depends on a dice roll after particular cards are drawn) the haunting is triggered and one person then becomes a monster or is possessed in some way and then the rest of the players work together to beat them.  It's rather complicated and takes some deciphering particularly during the second part of the game, but good fun.

221B Baker Street.

As you can see, this is quite 'Cluedo-y', but with the added twist that you are given a clue (either straightforward or a bit cryptic) in some or all of the different places you can visit.  You then have to work out the murderer, the weapon and the motive and return to 221B Baker Street to announce it in order to win.  K really liked this one and wanted to play again, although there were so many other games we didn't manage.

Pandemic

A co-operative game, where you have to try to contain, cure and if possible eradicate (although that parts not necessary to win) four different diseases.  There were similarities with Forbidden Island, but I think this is better.  The players take on different roles (e.g. quarantine expert, scientist, medic) who have different abilities which gives good variation.  We played it twice and succeeded in finding all four cures (and therefore winning) once and lost once.  Of all the games we played, this is probably the one I would buy.

Another game that was new to us (and like Pandemic was new to our friends, who'd been given them both for Christmas) was Coup, or Coop as M insists on called it!  It consists of a very small deck of cards with three each of five different characters and a large pile of tokens.  Each player gets two cards, which they don't show the others and your actions are determined by the characters, although you can lie about who you have.  Which cards you have, how successfully you lie, challenge lies, accumulate tokens and use them to get rid of opponents determines how well you do.

We also played various other games, which various friends including Mexican Train, Sequence and the ever popular Penny Game (see the end of that post) and also Qwirkle and Uno.

In other news, M seems to have settled back into school pretty quickly.  She's really putting effort into the work, and certainly at home is doing far more than the minimum expected.  She's very keen on learning French with Memrise, which is encouraged at school and did extremely well in the French test at the end of last term.  She's also doing more than just the homework that is set on Hegarty Maths (I don't know if it is available for home edders, but M seems to like it although the frustration of having to get 100% right has been a problem at times).

K and I have been talking about aims and targets for between now and when M breaks up in the summer and have hopefully come up with realistic ones for maths (on Khan Academy) and her Catherine Mooney English course.

A new year and another decision.

We had a lovely quiet Christmas, just the four of us at home, the way we like it.  It was unfortunately marred by the death of M's rat Bob, who A found stiff and unmoving on Christmas evening (fortunately it was after the girls were asleep, so the day itself wasn't spoiled). She had been absolutely fine in the afternoon, so don't think she suffered and at just over two years old, she wasn't young.  We had a funeral and buried her in the garden on Boxing Day.

On the Wednesday after Christmas, we went down to stay with Granny and Big Grandad.  We went down early enough to see Uncle S & Aunty P, who had been there from the previous day.  Uncle M lives in the same town, so we saw more of him and went for a couple of lovely, wintry walks with him and his dog, Treacle.

Uncle M on a frosty afternoon.

We went to see my Grandma too, who's 95 this month and although she's still living independently, is finding it increasingly difficult to get around her little flat and has no prospect of things getting better.  It's very difficult and she is frequently low and talks about having had enough and wanting to go now and although she can be jollied out of it, it's a difficult time for her and my Dad who gets the brunt of it.  I did plant the seed of the idea of a DNR order (something we've also talked about with A's mum, who is an extremely fit and active 82 year old), not a nice conversation but given her frequently expressed feelings it makes sense.

We went to have lunch and spend the afternoon with friends of A's in Leamington Spa, which was lovely.  The girls got on very well with their daughter, also called K, and insisted on us making plans to get together again during February half term at the latest, although preferably at a weekend before that.

After leaving Granny and Big Grandad's, we went on to see in the new year with other friends, where we had a great time playing various board games (some old favourites, some new to us - I'm planning a separate post about the various games we've played over the holidays), eating good food and drinking nice things.  The next day, we met up with more friends.  We met S with J, T, B & G at the Royal Armouries in Leeds, it being around the same distance for them and us to travel, open on the bank holiday and handily also free entry.  It's not somewhere that K & M would generally go for, but there were some interesting things and a good play area!  When we went our separate ways, we went to visit the lovely Ma & P and have tea with them.  While there, I got to hear more about what M had been doing in history at school than she's ever told me, as we were talking about Ma's job, which involves the organisation of the second biggest international medieval congress in the world.  M said that they had been doing the medieval period at school and they chatted about various things that she's never mentioned to me!  Apparently asking if she's had a good day and if she did anything interesting is going on at her about things, which is why she doesn't tell me stuff.  Ho hum!  We also, very excitingly, watched a CBBC programme (that link will work for a few weeks at least) about Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, with Ma that she had been interviewed for and she's in it for about 45 seconds.

We're now back home and starting to get back into the swing of things.  It was Fun Club today, with a circus skills session which was fun and the girls also went to korfball this evening.  We won't be properly back into our routine until Monday though, as A starts his new job then.  He's going to be working from home when he's here, although will be travelling quite a bit.  The organisation is a Dutch NGO and he has to spend a week a month in Amsterdam (although probably mostly in two chunks rather than all at once) and will generally organise things so that trips elsewhere will be tagged onto his time in Amsterdam as it's much easier to get places from there than from Nottingham.  This means that although he may not be away quite as frequently, when he is it will be for longer than we are used to.  It's going to take some getting used to!

Finally, M has made the decision about the next stage of her education.  She told me that she prefers home education, but that she is going to stick it out for the rest of the year at school, so will be back at school on Thursday.  The main concern she has seems to be that she'll get to July and by then will have made some good friends, but she feels that she's less likely to keep in touch with school friends and that bothers her.  It's a tricky one, but at least we know where we are for the next 7 months.