Life is a Highway - it’s the journey, not the destination

playing Blokus and top trumps.

eating lots of chocolate

playing the Wii

violin practise (not enough though!)

doing a little bit of reading and maths

and our bedtime story at the moment is The Twits.

We listened to the cd of the twits after Alex got a set of Roald Dahl audio books for Christmas. They absolutely love that story and we’ve listened to it so many times. Dug the book out and showed them it and they begged to have it read. I think they enjoy seeing all the pictures to go with what was inside their head iykwim.

I’m feeling a lot more happier about those 2 thorns, reading and maths. We’ve been trying out a new strategy which although isn’t hugely perfect in my mind is working ok. I really wanted to try and be more autonomous in what we were doing. I was getting way too annoyed at M asking constantly for the playstation/wii whatever all the time and wondered if I could get the kids to a point where there was no set time to play it, no limits and hopefully they’d limit themselves eventually. I think I chose the wrong time to try though. Straight after buying a new game! Anyway, it still wasn’t feeling right and I was niggling away, being too controlling so I said if they had done one bit of reading and one bit of maths I was quite happy for them to get on and do whatever else they liked in the day. Well, this seems to be working for now. M seems happy enough with it and isn’t whinging. And it also means sometimes he isn’t so desperate to go on it straight away and will do other things before thinking about doing his work and after games. I suppose I’m maybe justa little too much of a control freak to be truly autonomous.

Maths wise. I think maybe M just doesn’t like the Math U See we got. A still likes it, but we haven’t done much of it recently. Maybe it will be a good way to get them on different paths wrt maths and so not so much of a worry if A can do things M can’t (and vice versa obv). Anyway, he’s been doing ‘anything he wants’ out of Miquon Orange book. So for a while all he was doing was pages of adding, but you know what he now has stopped thinking he can’t do it. Which is how he was with MUS and was really worrying me for a bit. I so did not want any of my kids growing up with a complex about maths (or anything really). So feeling better that his confidence seems to be back to normal.

Reading still going ok. M got a couple of joke books and has been doing great reading through them. A always surprises me by what she can read, and subsequently what she can’t when we try a reader!!

A has been learning some recorder as well as her violin, I’m sure I have a book for learning it but I can’t find it. Am having to rack my brains as to what I can remember!

She’s also written an e-mail to F from Where the Days go and so we’ve had some fun working out what to write and then typing it. Set her up her own e-mail account too so she’s been thrilled to have recieved her first reply, and also one from me that she could read perfectly. See what I mean about surprising me?? Anyway, if anyone wants A or M to write to them (or their kids ), let me know and I’ll suggest they write to them too.

this time to Eyam. It felt like we’d wasted the rest of the Easter weekend by doing not very much so I was determined to go out today. Except we couldn’t decide what to do so I was etting stressed out at the idea of going somewhere far away and being grumpy with everyone. Eventually told James just to drive to the Peak district and we’ll just see what happens. Anyway he took us to Eyam where I’d never been before and tbh didn’t know a great deal about. Cue lots of talking about the plague, when it was, how it happened. You get the idea

After lucking out on a parking spot we headed for a walk round the village and up to the little museum where we did a quiz sheet and had to find the names of the people on the sheet. Marcus was whining about being indoors but I know he’d have whined more at being outside for the whole time. Was interesting seeing all about the village, the huge list of names of people that died was quite sobering too. There were 3 ‘Stubbs’ family members who died. Came out with a small booklet from the shop too so we’ll read over that tomorrow and I think we’ll try and put something in our timeline book.

Had another walk around, into the graveyard to spot some things we’d just seen and to see th Plague houses that are still there. It started to snow then and got very cold, so we headed back to the car and had our lunch.

Had a looong drive home as James thought he knew the best way but obviously didn’t

The rest of the weekend has been pretty uneventful. Kids have had lots of chocolate - you’d be proud of me, I’ve been extra good and have hardly had any choc! I watched the BBC’s Passion on Sunday as I’d missed it being on through the week. Really enjoyed it. Alex seemed to pick up on a few bits as when I finally got round to reading our traditional Easter book she remembered lots from the telly, even though she didn’t really watch much at all. I do really like that book, I must see if I can get hold of the others he’s written.

Sometimes I wish we didn’t have a car. Aside from the general costs when doddgy garages don’t do things right (don’t ask) it’s getting so expensive just to get from A to B these days. And it causes so much stress!

I was reading the Green House By the Sea holiday blog this morning (And also Ali’s blog made me think of it the other day) and it set me off thinking about when we never had a car and had to go everywhere by public transport. I know it sounds mad, but I used to love the freedom of it, of not having to think when I got on the bus, it took me where I wanted and I didn’t have to worry about traffic, other idiots on the road or how much it was because I’d buy a weekly pass. So I could go anywhere I wanted and it was no more than if I just did my normal route. I loved the time I got to myself, just letting myself daydream and think about things. I really miss that time to think nowadays and often I have days when I just need to think so I spend it moping around daydreaming!

I was so much fitter back then as well. I can’t believe how unfit I am these days, all that walking to bus stops and running to catch the last bus must do something!

This *was* before kids of course so maybe my romanticising about it isn’t wholely about buses and public transport in general!!

Train journeys are great too. We used to get the train to London when I was a kid so we could visit my aunty. It’s been a while since we had a good train journey and my kids have never been on a train so we’re really looking forward to going to Edinburgh by train in 2 weeks. I think I’m more excited than anyone else though! Definitely shall put a train journey to St Ives on my to do list as well.

So yeah, I think it would be really interesting to give up the car for a while and see what life without it would be like. It aint ever going to happen really. James would rather cut off his arm than go carless, but maybe I can have a think to see if I can really cut down on my use of it. Start taking the bus more and get some more fresh air. I’ve just found out we can get a much cheaper weekly bus ticket if we just use certain buses, so will be looking at that more. I’m sure it won’t all be a bed of roses, but worth a try anyway.

(keep starting blogs, but never seem to get my brain and fingers working together to write it all how I think it should sound, or it just sounds boring so I leave it)

We had a nice day out into Sheffield city centre on Friday. I decided we just needed to go out so asked the kids if they wanted to go to the museum or the gallery and they decided gallery. We always go to the museum when we do hospital visits as it’s next door, but it’s been a while since we went to the gallery. Anyway, we took the tram in which is always a nice treat and got off at the railway station to look at the trains.

Outside the train station has been done up fairly recently and includes lots of fountains so they then raced around there.

Then I realised my camera batteries had died so we headed off to find some new ones (which then still didn’t work - james thinks has to be special ones?) before then going to the Graves Art Gallery. We’d never been to this one before and tbh scooted round most of it, but we did see some nice Impressionist paintings so looked at how they were made up of blobs and were better viewed from far away (ala Katie and the Impressionists!)

We then headed back through the winter gardens and on through to the Peace Gardens which again has loads of fountains. When it’s a nice day it’s lovely here. Kids just ran around like loons…

Eventually we headed to another gallery (Millenium I think) and looked there. Kids took a pew and drew the stuff they found. They also looked at Hallmarking of silver and stamped their own marks on silver card.

Then before long, we decided we’d head back. Cue another race around the fountains at the train station and another at the university. Have to say, Sheffield is looking quite nice lately (better than when I arrived 10 years ago anyway!)

We had such a nice time. I think mainly due to being no pressures. We didn’t go for any reason, we just did whatever we fancied at the time and mostly it worked. Wish everyday was so good!

Just uploaded some photos to Flickr from various points inthe last year. Included are A’s 6th birthday, our trip to Donington Park and our holiday to Wales last year. Nice memories.

Now if I can find the remaining few from Friday I shall try and blog something…

I’ve been determined to get back on to a better footing with home ed and being at home in general, we’ve just been having a pretty crap time lately and getting shouty and just not enjoying our time together. This doesn’t even start to go anywhere near the amount of ‘home ed’ actually being done which gets me down too. It’s bad enough us all not enjoying being at home, but to not enjoy it and it being unproductive too, well that’s much worse. So I was all ready to get back into it all when we’ve been struck down by a horrid cold.

I’ve been a bit out of it, mostly feels like a head cold, enough to just feel wiped out. Alex has been much the same with a temp last Sunday. M has an awful sore throat and snotty nose. I actually thought my luck was turning yesterday and that M would lose his voice, but not yet We’ve tried to keep going with some bits and bobs - we’ve done a few bits of reading practice. M has been reading Superpooch which seems just the right level for him at the moment. We read some Murderous Maths and the How big is a Million book (thanks Joanna). Alex and I did some violin practise the other day too, couldn’t find her book so she did some of mine and did quite well with it. Just glad her confidence with it is coming along.

Sarah and the bonkers tribe came over Monday so at least I can feel like I have socialised a bit too. Lovely to have them round and kids played fairly well throughout. I tried to do more socialising today with a trip to the Nature Reserve which I’ve missed the last 2 months. It’s only on once a month and so I really like to try and make it. Got there and M was just being obnoxious so I was thinking of only staying for the morning session, but then A started looking droopy and clingy and said she wanted to go home so we did. She never asks to go home from these things so she must have been bad. We went home and had hot chocolate and watched Indiana Jones. Much better. I think the rest of the week will involve us staying in and just recovering.

Feel like I’ve got more to say, but can’t be bothered just now. Maybe trying to get back into the blogging habit is enough for now.

4th time at Melrose and finally enjoyed myself. Maybe it was due to not expecting to The kids had a whale of a time there and I hardly saw them. Sometimes that makes it hard though as you’re stuck with nothing to do except sit and chat, which is ok but sometimes I feel a bit overwhelmed with the amont of people in Melrose and so it’s not so good. Anyway, I was fine this year.

Another change that I enjoyed was sharing a room, although was worrying slightly about that too in case I needed my own space, but in the end it was fine. The kids didn’t need me so much at bedtime as there were other kids so bedtimes were a breeze!

So the highlights were:

having big kids that entertained themselves
swimming
yummy meals
evening chats and jigsaws (not games though!)
geocache around Melrose
computer game workshop

lowlights I suppose included me not feeling well one night. I really thought I was going to come down with the sickness bug, but thankfully didn’t. Don’t really know what it was, just felt ill and dizzy. Also not making it to Edinburgh due to said dizzyness which re-appeared the next day.

The only other bad thing I can think of was Marcus being a bit annoying during the week, especially when it came to the computer game workshop. He wanted to do it and I knew he’d enjoy it, but he kicked up such a fuss about joining in If he’d not expressed any interest I’d have left him, like I did with the music (he definitely didn’t want to do that!) but he did want to do it but he gets so shy he panics and can’t join in. It just gets me down as this is how he is with lots of things. It’s why he won’t do anything like Beavers, swimming lessons or violin lessons or anything really. He seems to be getting worse and not better either. I think it is just his personality but it’s something that I know can be picked up as a negative thing by James’s family so in turn it feels negative to me too. Argh! I need to chill a bit!

But this is why I like getting together with friends, I realise that my worries aren’t that bad. Everyone is so accepting of the differences between the kids I just wish I didn’t let everything get to me so much between meet ups