Looking back, looking forward

Change can come suddenly, unexpectedly, catastrophically. Change can creep slowly, erosion over time, unnoticed until comparison with the past forces focus. Today, it was the cheese. As I ate my lunch and my supermarket Stilton, I had a moment of regret, of noticing.
One of the life-style changes we actively embraced on moving from suburbia to rural was our weekly trip to the village market: the fresh fruit and veg. from the greengrocer and a new cheese as well as a favourite from the cheese van. It's one of the little losses that have slipped away in the last year. I don't realise how poorly I've become and how furious our current pace of life is until I remember that we always went to the market on Fridays and now we just don't have time. My energy levels mean that I get much less done in much more time and my partner has far more on her shoulders than is equal. Growing a business in which our product is ourselves, our time, our energy and our motivation and running this business in two locations, three-hundred miles apart takes its toll.
We are counting the weeks: six until our last work-trip South; eight until surgery; thirteen until the last exam paper is marked and we head on holiday to Scotland and a caravan on a quiet island where otters play.
Then. Then it will be different. We have to make it so. We have to remember the life-style we chose, reject the adrenaline rush of busyness and the other-people-impressing activities and possessions. We have to remember the list we wrote when we moved in of all the things that life here was supposed to be:

Happy
Cosy
Candles and shovels when we're snowed it
Dinner at The Farmer's Arms
Old hats and scarves for snowmen
Sitting in the sun, reading
Sitttng by the fire, reading
Snuggling up watching T.V.
Home-laid eggs
Swimming in the Swale
Lots of walks and hills and hot chocolate by the fire and talking
Playing hide-and-seek
Driving an off-roader
Baking
Painting
Catching the bus to Reeth
Writing

Isles Bridge

A perfect home ed day. Really. It doesn't get better than this.
My eldest son is preparing for his first GCSE exam on Friday and the twin priorities this week are practicing differentiation and keeping him relaxed. We did an hour of maths at the table, packed a bag and walked 10 minutes to the river. Paddling, it seems, is irresistible.

It wasn't long before my middle son had waded to the other side with his sister anxious to join in. My eldest sat down with me while I painted and we talked over the things on his mind and he drew a little. We had lunch and I read to them from the Science book (he is also revising for Biology GCSE) and we discussed genetic engineering and genetically modifed food. There are frost-resistant potatoes with the DNA of Antarctic fish which they thought was "cool" but were concerned about whether they were vegetarian.

The younger two returned to the river to dare each other to swim and my eldest and I read more about cloning and developed the dystopian idea of  football clubs cloning their best players and training them from birth to be even higher levels of brilliance. Who would the parent be? Would corrupt clubs produce clones with defective DNA and sell them to rival clubs? What if the child did not want to play football? My son's DNA clearly hold more novel-writing genes than engineering genes! I left him revising Biology on my iphone app as I responded to the calls of the younger to to watch them swim.
By this stage they were blue with cold, even in the bright summer sunshine, so we headed home and sat in our garden with hot chocolate and cake and read our current chapter book pausing only to gloat when tourists strolled passed, quietly and to ourselves of course, that we actually live here.
The younger two went out to rehearse for their play after dinner, I had some time to head out on a long run and my eldest enjoyed a solitary couple of hours.
Everything I had planned to do was done: Biology and Maths were revised, chapter book was read, art was available and so much more importantly, emotions were heard, attention was given and life was lived!

Titanic

It is 100 years since the tragic sinking of the Titanic.We took the trip to Godalming today to visit the exhibition in the town museum based around Jack Phillips, the ship's chief telegraphic officer. He was undoubtedly a brave man, staying at his post until the last, his final transmission cut off mid-way as the power cut out three minutes before the ship went down. I found the telegraphic transmissions sent and received by the Titanic especially moving - the simple descriptions of the increasingly desperate situation, the frantic responses of ships promising that all their boilers were at full steam, and the last few from the surrounding ships: nothing heard for half-an-hour, for two hours and then the Carpathia reporting that the Titanic has gone down with all hands.
The children all took a ticket from the reception desk, found "their" suitcase and dressed in character. My eldest loves the chance to look smart and enjoyed being William John Parker, ship's crew.

Middle son was also a crew member, although clearly not of such rank, and my little girl part of an upper class family's entourage. Their friend was a first class young master.

We stopped for a runabout and a tree-climb on the way home. Fridays are definitely fun!

Dialogue

My kids are amazing. Every mum says that, and I'm sure yours are too, but today I have really seen and felt and enjoyed that.We are continuing on our journey of Dynamic Revision and one suggestion for this week's assignment was to write an imaginary dialogue. My little girl chose the cat and the dog. She wrote from the dog's point of view and I from the cat's. It made us both think about writing in character, how would the cat reply to our dog? Not very nicely. It's not what I would say, but our grumpy feline wouldn't mince words! With my boys we chose people from the chapter book we have just finished and wrote "behind-the-scenes" dialogues, what might have been said but we, the readers, were not privy to. We extended our sense of audience by reading the conversations aloud to a lunch-time visitor. My children have been witty, careful and fun. Their spelling and punctuation wasn't too bad either! Much more that "good" pieces of work, these were fun times, a joint effort, a connection between mum and child. It is experiences like these that make me love home ed!

Words

 Words have weight. They are not light and insubstantial but can be heavy and indigestible. Words are sharp. Some stay stuck in places that hurt, barbed arrows lodged in the heart. Words echo in the empty moments or scream in the stressed places. At times of uncertainty and panic - hanging on the end of a rope at the rock wall, the voices of failure take hold of those words and fling them about, the chaos and fear of a riot. An ill-placed word can topple the precarious structure of self-esteem and set-off, like a firework display, an explosion of past words:  words from childhood, words from adulthood, words spoken by people who have forgotten they knew me and words spoken by loved ones.

Words can be whispered because they are so hard to say. Words can be shouted in anger and hurt. Words can be promises made and vows sworn and yet can prove impossible to keep.

Words can be a comfort, a safety, a thread to follow back to safety. Words that are spoken softly in the darkness of tears can remind and reassure of love, of hope, of life. Words can explain, used gently and intentionally, treading with great care around the pot-holes of misunderstanding that upset life’s journey. These are words that set things right.

 And I speak words over the lives and hearts and minds of my children. My own arrows sent flying to lodge and hurt, my own comforts, safety or reassurance.

And I write words in a blog post, tentative and exploring. Not holding all the answers, not even to myself, but discovering and seeing what my thoughts sound like caught in time, dressed in words and held up to view.

Wonder wheel

 My kids are amazing! Almost every mother believes that about her own children - and rightly so - and mine have been particularly amazing this week.
I like to be "educational" with the children, not all the time of course (although that is an educational philosophy debate in itself ...), and so I planned to watch the first episode of the new BBC documentary "Earthflight" with them after their swimming lesson. However, while they were out, the local delivery network brought a birthday present for my middle son, 11 just a week ago, of K'nex. As soon as he received it the box was open, the tray for pieces on the table and he was away, puzzling over the instructions, fitting tiny plastic parts together and constructing a ferris wheel. I got on with a few admin jobs and wondered when to switch the tv on. I went to find my eldest and he was busy on the computer creating another animation with increasingly complex special effects. My daughter was out in the street cycling with the two girls she is friends with who live in our road. All of them engaged in exactly the kind of industry any mother, any teacher, would want to see children taking part in. And I am convinced that what they choose to do meets needs in them that they know, or maybe only sense, that they have that I could have no clue about. I am not so arrogant or sure of my "educational ideas"  that I believe them to be better, more important or of more value that these self-selected activities. I went back to my admin and left them to it!

Black and Blue

It has been a hard week. Two of my children are busy in the kitchen as I type, preparing for poetry tea. We have the unexpected gift of Cornish Clotted Cream so they are getting a traditional Cream Tea ready to share; my middle son is upstairs writing a poem. This time last week we had poetry tea. Since then I have spent hours and hours in long, emotional, difficult  and often tearful conversations trying to make progress in some important personal relationships and defending home education for my children. Today I received an e-mail from a friend whom I have inadvertently offended and I am saddened by it.
The children are muddling along fine but I feel that my planned start to the academic year is having some trouble getting going. The suggestion to focus for the next couple of months on their emotional education: the expression and management of  big feelings, being gentle and compassionate with each other, listening and talking, has proved hugely helpful. They are unlikely, many years from now, to remember the details of the curriculum they followed this Autumn but I  will do my best to make sure that they also don't remember this term for the emotional stress. We can still drink tea, write poetry, take the dog out for a walk and enjoy living this life and being part of this family.

Great Grandfather

Ron was a good deal older than my mother, and in this picture of him holding my baby daughter he is 87. His eldest great-grandchild was born just six weeks after my little girl. My children all remember riding on his back around the living room and snuggling up close to him as he read them Mr Men books. Friday is his funeral and we are travelling down today to help my mum prepare. We will return home late on Friday, pack up the car on Saturday morning and head north, to Swaledale, for two week's peace, quiet, rest and relaxation.

Twelve Today!

My eldest child is twelve today. He is a responsible, funny, witty, imaginative, creative, caring, sensitive and trustworthy young man. He is good company, with a passion for words, animation, manga and Dr Who. He is very much his own person and I am proud of his individuality. His presents reflect his character: a "cool dude" mug, manga pens, puzzles, a hard-back, beautifully bound copy of "On the Origin of Species".

Another milestone on the road of parenting.

Dr Who

Dr Who is a big character in my house. I lost interest when David Tennant regenerated, but my two son's have deepened and extended their passion, pored over many books, watched numerous clips on the internet and hold obscure conversations about particular episodes and the finer points of alien species. As his twelfth birthday is tomorrow, my son's present from grandma was tickets to the Dr Who Experience in London and we headed up into town today.

Despite the humid and sapping heat excitement levels were high and the exhibition lived up to all expectations. The interactive experience to begin with thrilled the children and caused just enough terror to bring them all close to my side but not enough to result in tears. The display brought exclamations of delight as we saw the costumes of all eleven Doctors, two TARDIS consoles, Daleks, Cybermen and Slytherines and more.

It was amazing to see my eldest so excited and passionate and I was reminded again of the need to engage with what interests my children, rather than trying to interest them in what I think is worthy; to enter into their worlds and to see life through their eyes.

Big Brother

My big brother flew in from the States on Saturday to be alongside my mother in her bereavement. It was good to see him and we both valued his support. He's working at his UK office today and stopped by yesterday evening for a bed for the night and, with a couple of friends, we headed to the rock wall and climbed. It was great fun: my arms still feel weak this morning and I've a couple of bruises, but I'm smiling. It's a long time since I taken part in any kind of activity with my brother: we both left home when we went to university and haven't spent much time together since, he's been in the US now for over 15 years. It's not always easy keeping up a transatlantic relationship but in recent years we have begun to get to know each other better. As I hung on the end of a rope, 20 feet off the ground, and he lowered me carefully down, it felt like a new place of trust and friendship. I even offered him some of my chocolate in the car on the way home. Now that wouldn't have happened thirty years ago!

Gerbils

It was recently brought to my attention that I have tags for both the dog and the cat but none for our three gerbils. We bought the gerbils last summer on a trip to the pet shop to research the logistics of getting a rat for my eldest son. It quickly became apparent that the space necessary for a rat was beyond our ability, but a gerbil, well that might work. This quickly escalated to three gerbils, one for each child, and despite a my insistence on a trip home to check with dad, the decision had already crystallized. And so, Argentum, Hat-trick and Bumble came to live with us. All the children adore their little pets and they are regularly taken out to be cuddled. My eldest son loves to write poetry and although Jonathan is not one of ours, apparently he was inspired by Bumble:

A radical rodent is Jonathan Gerbil

He doesn't drink water, but tea that is herbal.

Will he eat seeds and vegetables? No!

He'll eat boiled eggs and asparagus though.

He will not chew tubes made out of cardboard,

But instead smokes a pipe like a small English Lord.

In spare time he rolls not in a plastic ball,

But visits his uncle, who's six inches tall!

He has all his fur, but on top of that,

He wears a frock coat and a splendid top hat.

If you went to a pet shop, he wouldn't be there.

He lives quite comfortably near Coventry Square.

(Though you won't find him there at this time of year:

He'll be visiting his cousins in West Bedfordshire.)

And though a gerbil should sleep in a cosy little nest,

A four poster bed suits Jonathan best.

Goodbye

In the early hours of Saturday morning, my step-father died. Friday was his ninety-sixth birthday and he had been well enough on the morning to listen to my mother read him the many messages of good-will that had been sent, but throughout the day he became progressively weaker and was struggling to breathe. By the evening, it was clear that he was in his last few hours.

He and my mother met at Whitsun thirteen years ago. He was eighty-three. They married just over a year later and have been very, very happy together. They have travelled the world on many fabulous holidays, my children have loved riding on his back around our living room and listening to him read Mr Men stories and I have learnt much from him on the art of gardening. He will be sadly missed but remembered with much love and thanks for all the blessings he brought to our lives.

Maths and Running

Two big things last week. On Friday, my eldest son took part in the Junior Maths Challenge. He dressed smart and I dropped him at my husband's school where he took an hour-long paper in a large hall with a hundred other students. He has never done anything like this before. He was nervous but he did well although I have no idea yet of his mark. While I hope it is a good one so that he can feel proud of himself and I can feel as if he is at a good level with his maths, what was important to me was that he got the "proper exam" experience and he coped very well with it.

On Saturday my middle son won the cup for most junior points at our local parkrun. Points are awarded based on position in each race completed and he has missed very few in the last year. He was surprised and incredibly pleased and proud. We have a large cup to show off for a few months and a small one to keep forever. He has completed 68 5k runs in total - 340 kilometres!

Although this falls into the Christmas newsletter style posts - proud mum with her son's achievements - it also reminds me that, while my children are not in mainstream school, they do have "normal experiences" and take part in the kind of thing that any other school-aged child does. They may be home-educated, but most of the time, they're just kids!

Easter Weekend

The weather has been beautiful and I have made a conscious effort to relax and allow this Bank Holiday to feel like a holiday. We had plenty of chocolate and a Simnel Cake,

an Easter Eggstravagansa in the garden,
and breakfast in the sunshine this morning.

We spent today at another National Trust property, admiring works of art, sunbathing while the children played and following an Easter Egg Trail. And, of course, we had tea and cake. It's been fun, it's been a break, and it's been good to spend extended time together.

Chartwell

My husband has been off work for nearly three weeks, on his Easter break, yet somehow it has not felt like much of a holiday. I have been lucky enough to be out walking for quite a bit, two days from home and three days away, and he has worked hard tutoring, which really enjoys (honestly!) and brings in some money to spend on fun things. I didn't quite finish everything last term that I wanted to and haven't quite wrapped it all up over the holiday so there has never been that sense of an end of term and the beginning of something different. With my mother's unexpected ill health last week, it has all felt quite a rush.
But not this weekend. I have made a decision to take this long, double-bank holiday weekend to really be a holiday. We spent the day at Chartwell yesterday, walking in the woods, exploring the history of Winston Churchill's home and experiencing life as a slightly different-shaped family.

Stay Day

It was an idea conceived in early November and, after months of discussion, prayer, doubts and reasurance, it finally came into being - unexpectedly suddenly at the last - on Monday: my best friend has moved in and become part of our family.

We have been through some rough weather, literally, emotionally and in life's events, but there has been a lot more sunshine.
We got home late from our walking trip to the Peaks on Monday night and, after conferring with the children on Tuesday, decided to celebrate as soon as possible. Chocolate cake was duly baked for breakfast consumption - elevating this event to the status of a birthday - and we sang "Happy Stay Day". Even the builders got a slice (which will hopefully energise them to finish the garage conversion, giving us all a little more space) and we are looking forward to this new chapter in all our lives.

Still waiting

I left my mother today, still in hospital and still waiting for tests. There is nothing I can do to help her and she is surrounded by an incredible and loving church community who have held her through some bad times in recent years and I know will hold her and help her through this one. I took her husband to a nursing home this morning where he has been admitted for six weeks' respite care. It was hard for me to say goodbye to him, knowing how much he did not want to leave his home. It seems cruel, knowing how little time he and my mother may have left together. All I can do is trust in those around them that they will both be well-cared for; that the tests will reveal the cause of mum's collapse so that the doctors can begin to treat her; and that my loving heavenly father is their's too and is holding us all.

Waiting

I am very much a list person. It doesn't take long once I meet a new person for them to realise this: even the builder has taken to teasing me about my lists. If I lose one, which happens quite often, it is like a fire alarm: nobody stops to collect anything, we all hunt for the list. I am often told to "chill out" but I find that my lists are what keeps me sane and calm. Once all the swirling thoughts are on a piece of paper they no longer feel so threatening or overwhelming: they can be moved, but under my control; priorities are easier to identify; time-scales easier to calculate and I can find ways of trying to factor in some space. And when everything suddenly changes, at least I know what didn't get done, what needs picking up later and what just has to be left.
I had a list yesterday, and had already written today's and Friday's, making sure that I had enough time to do everything that I needed to before I catch the train to Derby for a weekend away walking.
And then the phone rang and it was my mother's neighbour telling me that mum was being taken to hospital, leaving her frail, elderly husband at home. It was helpful to have my list, so that when I had to drop everything and leave, I knew what had to be caught by someone else and what I just had to let fall. It is amazing to have friends that are willing and able to give their time to drive my son to his god-mother's for the over-night stay and day trip that he has been counting the weeks, days and hours to. He had only just told me that it was 35 minutes until he left.
It has also been amazing to see social services in action and to have a carer arrive only minutes after I did to tell me that 48 hours of live-in care were in place while longer term arrangements were made, leaving me free to visit my mother and reassure myself that she was comfortable and in good hands.
And now I am waiting. I have another list of what I need to do once my step-father is safely in respite care, which will be organised today. I cannot even make a list of what to do to help my mother until she has had the necessary tests to determine what happened yesterday. So, at the moment I have only one thing on my list: wait.

Priorities - again!

I love the idea of having a clear idea of what matters most and getting it done, of letting go of the "small stuff". I applied this principle well in some areas of my life last term, most notably my running. I accepted that it mattered to me to do well in the Hastings Half Marathon, I put my training runs first into my weekly plan and I ran with purpose. I focused on my goal and I achieved it. But I am struggling again. I think the problem I have has is two-faced: I deny what I really want and I try to have too many priorities. An example of the first: I can think through that having hummus for lunch is not very important and that filing my son's term's work and preparing him for the Junior Maths Challenge are my real priorities but when I find myself getting the food processor out as my husband calls the children to lunch, I know that in my heart, hummus was paramount. I am beginning to plan next term and have come face-to-face with the second: trying to fit too much in. It all looks so good until I hear myself tell the children that we will concentrate on improving their cycling in the summer months and that we will "slot it in" to our timetable. A friend suggests a dog walk and I find myself thinking that I have filled every day between now and the end of June and wonder how I will fit in seeing any friends. Something will have to give. Can I really do no handwriting or grammar practice until September. What about the project the children would like to do - where will it fit? Surely we need to finish Maths? And I want to do the things we love, like Poetry Tea and Chapter Book. And I want to have time for spontaneous picnics in the park or the garden. Even I can see that it isn't all going to happen -certainly not if I want it to feel like fun and not like Boot Camp.