The wind's like a whetted knife

Finally succumbing and occasionally putting the heating on.

Sometimes, like tonight, it's still perfectly livable downstairs. We've already dug out blankets and fleecy pajamas, purchased new slippers and super-soft throws, but the upstairs is always at least a degree colder because of the flat roofed dormer extension and with Dot and Hoof both sleeping upstairs now I'm wary of letting it get too cold up there, so on the heating goes for an hour or two, at least in their room.

We've also dug out coats and hats and scarves, my salopettes have been pressed back into action and gloves have been carefully stashed away in coat pockets. Winter is upon us, basically! Sometimes we get a warmer, wet day, sometimes it's clear and sunny but rather 'fresh' and more often we've had a lazy wind... one that can't be bothered to go round you so goes through you instead. We're still keeping up forest school, the heated hut is a great refuge and we all have good, waterproof wellies and plenty of socks which  makes such a difference.

Other changes have been more soups and stews. I've carved up one of the pumpkins a friend gave us from their allotment and got two batches of soups and three pies from it. Have a far larger one still to use, so that's good. Miraculously everyone liked the pumpkin pie!

Dot has had her birthday. This year, rather than a huge party she just had a couple of friends over for a slumber party- well, one slept over, the other went home around eight (as planned) and we had lots of fun. So now our thoughts turn to Christmas. Names have been drawn from a hat for sibling gifts and we've also been writing Christmas lists. Really, there's hardly any year left!

Grey Dawn Breaking

Read about Attila the Hun and Fredegund this morning, also farmyard cats and the tradition of scarecrows (aka tattie bogles) in rural England. We set up some crystal growing and now one of the kitchen windowsills is full of experiments! The crystals, a gummy bear 'growing' in water and lots of orange peel drying to to be punk (firelighter) for forest school.

Papacrow moved the home ed white shelves along their bit of wall so that he could put up another set and now we have lots more room, hooray! So we spent some time this morning moving things round and organising books in the front room, moving some to the new shelves, as well as ordering the craft stuff.

I also turned out the airing cupboard and I did three kitchen cupboards at the weekend. I always feel the urge at this time of year far more than in the spring. I want everything neat and tidy and ready for winter, somehow!

Sea-gulls Crying

Well, hello November!

October was just a mite stressful which is a shame because it's my favourite month. We had lots of events squished together all at once- all fun things we wanted to do but having a gig, a wrestling show and a comic convention all on the same weekend took its toll.

Saurus was due to go to American to visit his girlfriend and indeed, got halfway to the airport before it was discovered he didn't have all the documentation he needed to get in. Luckily he and his girlfriend were able to cancel the flights and get the money back as she had got insurance on the purchase, phew! After much discussion and scrutinisation of all the rules and regulations they've decided to postpone the trip until next summer, giving him time to get more funds together and iron out all the other little details like phone network provision and health insurance. Yes these are all things we mentioned and discussed with him well beforehand but oh well, he's living and learning!

Roo had his parents evening and got a glowing report from his tutor who is very happy with him. I am not, now, so happy with his tutor as we've just discovered Roo's been told to organise his work experience. Himself. No guidance, no list of approved sites, nothing. Utter madness! This is a class of sixteen year olds who have been told, essentially, to cold call building sites to get themselves on them! No risk assessment, no insurance, no health and safety regs, nothing. To say I am fuming is an understatement.

Wig seems to be doing fine at school, still enjoying it, still eager to go. I have doubts as to how much quality education actually goes on during the school day but he seems to be thriving and they seem very happy with him so I'm not getting pushy about it. He does seem to have hit the typical grumbly teen phaze, but that's to be expected.

Here at home we've moved on from Ivan the Terrible's fascinating life to the history and origins of language. So far we've investigated Nicaraguan sign language, started reading Gilgamesh and are looking into the development of anatomy that allows speech. We're enjoying Strictly Come Dancing, Blue Planet 2 and the new series of Robot Wars. Ballet, football and karate continue, as do forest school, minecraft club and various meets. Hoof does all his alphabet flash cards by himself now and needs very little assistance. He knows each letter's name and sound and we're just beginning to put them together to make words. Dot has discovered the Dairy of a Whimpy kid and Captain Underpants, Fluff is onto the second book of Lord of the Rings and Petal and I have a date to go shopping for crop tops. They're all growing up so fast!

I'm involved in a dance show with the adult dance school I take classes with. It seemed like a fabulous fun idea back in April but in fact has become something I've begun dragging myself to with dread, mostly because the classes I am in are really above my ability. Still, now there's only the dress rehearsal and performances to go, so I only have to survive two more days. I say survive advisedly, I have a stinking cold and sore throat and feel dire and I've managed to pick up a massive burn on my chin from eating pizza, would you believe!

Rainy Days

We seem to be having a sort of autumnal version of April showers at the moment. They come on as suddenly and as hard as if someone's turned on the tap at full blast and end just as abruptly. We got caught in one coming back from the Home Ed group meet yesterday. We'd been playing in the playground not long before and when we got home- a ten minute drive- the pavements were dry, it hadn't been raining there! So extremely localised, too. The home ed friends who host Mine Craft club had it raining in their front garden but not in their back the other week!

Karate today, and tomorrow Petal and Dot are off to play with the little girls who used to live downstairs, so that will be nice. We also had lots of discussion round the dinner table about meals for the coming week, who's cooking what and what treats and puddings we are going to bake.

All I Ask

Ooof, I'm glad we've managed to get to the end of the this week! Not sure if it's the turn of the weather or the general 'back to school' vibe but it seems to have been especially busy.

Not that we have all been back to school, of course, but as the girls do a lot of ballet and Fluff does football and those things are all term based there's still been a certain amount of that 'scrambling back into routine' effect!

We've also been trying really hard to dive into Conquer maths and plug away at that. Today we have the Home Ed meet and although I'm only working very part time it does seem to take up a lot of time... wouldn't it be nice to have extra hours?! Especially to sleep in! Or maybe just some more elastic hours that stretch a bit, if you could only choose WHICH ones stretch and which ones don't. One of the nice things about home ed is that you have plenty of time, you don't have to panic... but this year seems to have flown past rather faster than I was expecting.

The Lonely Sea

We caught up with some table time yesterday, and did lots of conquer maths, too as well as massive sorting and folding session as it had backed up some. Nephew wasn't in school as he had to go to the doctors (minor eye infection, nothing serious) and then came and hung out with us, so that was nice. We went to the allotment and picked tomatoes. I've left the butternut squash on the vine but I don't think they're going to get any bigger which is annoying. The globe courgette I've left on is expanding nicely, however, and we had lots of cornflowers. They've been a delight. Only half the patch I sewed came up but that was enough to made a sizeable bush that has just been peppered with flowers, we've had bunches and bunches out of it for the kitchen windowsill.

The weather is patchy at the moment. Windy, with bits of sun and sudden heavy downpours.Typical English end of summer, I suppose!

I'm struggling a bit at the moment. I'm very glad indeed for the work I'm getting and I'm fitting everything in as far as housework and home ed are concerned and everyone's on board and helping out but I'm still getting that 'I'm not enough' feeling. Could be just the time of year, however. Home ed, parenting in general can be lonely sometimes. Life can be lonely some times, I suppose is what I'm really saying.

A Merry Yarn

Lewes Castle was great! I had to drag them all away in the end otherwise we were going to get snarled in the homeward bound rush hour and Petal had a ballet lesson at five.

I was slightly confused as to why the workshops were Saxon based when the Castle is Norman built but the attached museum does cover from the Neolithic up, finds from all over Sussex, and the workshops were excellent. We tried drop spindle spinning, handled Saxon weaponry and jewelry and enacted bits of Beowulf. A good time was had by all, particularly Hoof who had a whale of a time being an archer. Fluff was half of Grendel and the girls limpeted to me and were audience. Wasn't surprised that Petal did that, was slightly surprised that Dot did too but I'm sure they still got lots out of it. I, of course, got stuck in and was part of the Queen's hall. (Yes we had a Queen instead of a King.)

We also got plenty of exercise, parking out of the paying zone and walking down and therefore up a slope on the way back to the car. There were also one hundred and eight steps from the bottom to the top of the tallest tower and we did it twice, plus probably about a hundred steps in the second tower that we did once as well. Hoof loved going to the tops of the towers, all our quads got a good work out.

The journey was fine both ways, it was windy but we also got some sun and we used a double treadle spinning wheel in the afternoon. There were plenty of nice flowers and trees to spot on the walk and we had an interesting discussion about the prison. In the evening we all slumped on the sofa and watched Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and I sobbed my way through the last ten minutes as expected.

Saurus pulled all the stops on out being helpful today, he picked up the nephew that has just started school round the corner and is on half days (so we're helping out) and looked after him until we got back, he took Petal to her ballet as I was exhausted and, along with Roo and Wig, he even vacced- hoorah!