Whoooosh....another week gone!

Well, week and a half since my last post actually :-/

So, first the sad news: A's remaining guinea pig - Fred - had to be put down. Apparently he had a rather large tumour, and at six and a half was getting on a bit. He is now buried next to his brother - Ginger - in granny's garden.

RIP Freddie

On the HE front, things have been going very smoothly :-)

American history has been quite a theme for the last few weeks. We're still working our way through this book, currently looking at the American Revolution. We're also getting towards the end of To Kill A Mockingbird (which we seem to have taken ages to read) and I have the film version and a documentary about the book recorded and ready to watch. All providing much material for some very interesting discussions!

A has also developed an interest in manga graphic novels, which she has been devouring, and doing her own manga-style sketches too. We recently got questioned - with a look of suspicion - on whether the graphic novel we were getting out of the library on my home educator's card was "for studying purposes?" which I thought was a bit weird. How can a book not be educational?
I really appreciate the fact that we get a HE card - I think its great that the library recognise us in this way - but it seems a little strange that they now want to put restrictions on what is and isn't suitable "for studying purposes". Anyway, I smiled and replied "yes", and we got the book.

On the work front, I feel like I'm putting loads of time and effort in, but there seems to be very little to show for it. Yet! Hopefully this groundwork and gathering of info/updating of skills will pay off in the not too distant future.
What I'm planning to do is get more research/admin type work coming in, so have been on some workshops and signed up for a couple of courses to help me on my way with this.
What I urgently need to do is set up a website. I've been procrastinating on this for ages - I know its essential, and apparently quite easy to do, but (typically for me) I became a bit obsessed about 'getting it right'. I looked at loads of different sources for advice and got thoroughly confused about the best approach to take. So, for fear of getting it wrong and appearing unprofessional, I did nothing.
Thankfully I think I've found exactly the guidance I need through business gateway who offer lots of free resources for the self employed (including workshops on website building), so at last I feel like I'm getting somewhere.

A is off to a sleepover party tonight, so I will have the house to myself. After being forced to watch the comic relief stuff until 1am this morning, it will be lovely to have control of the TV. I'm planning a night of watching horror films in the dark, to see how terrified I can make myself. Such fun.

sunshine, and more jam

There's been lots of this lately:

which for us means more of this:

we do love our beach (I may have mentioned this before a few times!!!), especially now the schools are back and there's hardly anyone on it :o)

Friday we had a 'beach art' session suggested by A, followed by chips at the cafe (also suggested by A!). Saturday A's mate came round for the day, so we all headed off again - me armed with a magazine this time as I knew I would be surplus to requirements! All good though, I had a lovely lazy time reading and sunbathing while the girls were off paddling and doing whatever it is they do (I wanted to write 'playing' there, but it seems wrong now they are so grown up. They do still 'play' but I don't think they would call it that).

Sunday was a bit windier, so we stayed home. I had another blackcurrant jam-making session with my HUGE new pan, very successful :o) think I'm going to experiment with some other fruits next.

Today A is feeling a bit under the weather so has stayed in bed :o( not like her at all, she hardly ever gets ill. So our plans for the day have all gone out the window. I'm at a bit of a loss for what to do - Mondays are usually busy for us with lots of 'educational stuff' going on. I think because we don't have anything else going on on Mondays - no clubs or regular activities - we often really get stuck into what we're doing at home - projects or new interests. Mondays are actually my favourite day of the week because of this.

However, I'm not feeling that great myself - managed to slip on the stairs last night, ending up in a heap at the bottom - so I'm feeling a bit sore at the moment, maybe a quiet, restful day would be a good idea for both of us.

Back to work

Really feels like a 'back to work' day with HE today, after our holiday break. We did some revision on the division A had been trying to get her head around before we went away, and she seemed to remember it all very well. We had a look at some of the other topics in the online course she is following (in a very flexible way, ie avoiding all the timed assessments that send her into a brain-freezing panic) and A asked me what there is to like about algebra. As I launched into an enthusiastic defence I could see her eyes glaze over, and almost heard the word "nutter" escape from the corner of her mouth. So I have been on Amazon and ordered a load of murderous_maths books, in a (probably futile) attempt to prove that 'hey - maths is fun!!!'

We also had a look at 'spelling'. We have a new approach to spelling, using this book. On Monday A is given 16 words to learn and on Friday we have a test. Very simple, very schooly, but she seems OK with it. Spelling is the one area where A really falls down. She has a great vocabulary, writes wonderfully, has a fairly good understanding of punctuation and grammar, and has no problems reading, but her spelling is pretty bad. I used to say to myself that as long as she is reading and writing lots the spelling would come eventually, and maybe that's true, but we've both become aware that she seems to be lagging behind her peers in this area. Embarrassment - as wrong and unfair as it is to be judged on your spelling skills - can be a strong motivator, and A wants to improve. We've used the 'fun' spelling workbooks and games in the past, but feel the time has come for something a bit more intense. We'll see how it goes...

After maths and spelling A decided it was vitally important to tidy her room. She's been up there for a couple of hours now and there has been a lot of guitar playing going on, and apparently she's just "nearly done the splits!!".

Some more ideas have come up for themes to work on:

• research into Anarchism (A started using the Anarchy symbol as her initial, but only had a vague idea of what it stands for)
• a creative/arty look at the periodic table, as A seemed so interested in it when looking at this book
• artists profiles - I have recorded several programmes on different artists recently, and we'll link this into doing some studies of favourite artists work

Had another 'nutter' moment this morning. Popped out to pick up a few things in town and bumped into an old acquaintance - very nice lady - who asked me if I was still 'home tutoring'. I smiled and replied 'yes', and she raised her eyebrows, gave a wry smile and a little sigh, nodded goodbye and walked off. Now I have no idea what was really going through her mind, but there was a definite vibe of 'nutter' I feel. At least I'm a happy nutter though.

Pancakes!!!

I haven't made pancakes for years, I always (unnecessarily) associate them with eggs so just don't bother, but this book inspired me to give them a go. Very, very delicious, especially with the rhubarb puree I made, perfect combination!


This past week has seemed to speed by, quite alarming, I suppose that means I'm getting old.

Rehearsals are well under way for A's drama group production. She's getting a little nervous about it, but has learnt her lines well and is definitely enjoying the group. There's a week long summer school in July with the group, which A is quite keen to attend. I can see a real boost in her confidence since joining the group.

Guides has been another good move - she's been to about five sessions now, and has enjoyed every one. It doesn't seem to be very organised, I never went to Guides but I had this image of girls working towards different badges and completing various challenges. All A seems to have done so far is play sports out in the field. Not that I have a problem with this - if she enjoys it and it works for her then that's great, and they definitely seem to be a friendly group, the 'working as a team' thing is obviously emphasised.

We went off to an interesting exhibition of Renaissance drawings at the Moray Art Centre yesterday, A wrote in the visitors book that she found it 'very inspiring'. Some good classes go on there too, we must keep an eye on their courses listings.
While we were there we bumped into a parent from A's old school, and in conversation it came up that we were home educating. We ended up having a long chat as she has been thinking about home educating her son but is a bit unsure at the moment. It felt really good to be able to offer some insights from our experience of the past two years, and also how we see the future with HE. I actually felt like I knew what I was talking about (rare for me!), which showed me how far we've come. I'm feeling less that I have to justify everything and reassure people that I'm not a feckless neglectful parent, and more comfortable in our choices, because you only have to spend a couple of minutes with A to see that she's flourishing. I gave the woman my phone number and said to phone if she wanted to talk more, which she seemed quite keen to do, so we'll see what they decide.

This may be my last post for a while, as we're off on holiday on Thursday (yipee!!). We're going down to London first, then visiting a few other places to see friends and family, and will be gone for about 3 weeks. Prepare yourselves for lots of photos on our return!!!
I don't feel I'm organised at all, this weekend I'm focusing on work as I have a piece on learning styles that I need to finish before we go, and I just know that the beginning of the week will be a blur of rushing around madly trying to get things in order. I'm making lists, which is a good start, but they inevitably get lost or hidden under piles of magazines/paperwork/books. Oh well, we have our train tickets, and places to stay, so I guess we'll be ok :o)

Edinburgh

Just had a wonderful couple of days down in Edinburgh :o)
Had a FAB conference to go to on Wednesday, so I went down on Tuesday and stayed overnight at a hotel (A stayed up here with Granny).
Spent a couple of hours enjoying the art_gallery on Tuesday afternoon, then had a delicious meal in this restaurant.
The conference itself was really interesting, entitled: Nutrition for Learning, Behaviour and Mood. Some fantastic speakers, lots of evidence and information I can use in my writing, in fact its really inspired me to write more on nutrition. It has also challenged some of my fundemental beliefs about my own diet, and left me in a bit of a quandry about that, but thats for me to try and get my head around :o/

Some pics from my hotel room window:

I'm refusing to blog anything about the election - I cast my vote, we've discussed various issues and followed whats going on, but I find the whole thing too depressing for words.

Thanks to lovely Hannah we made this today:

It caught our eye when we were looking at her blog, and A was very keen to make one ('keen' about maths - whats going on?!?) I think it appeals because of the colours and shape - the 'artyness' of it. It can be used the same way as the multiplication square, but I'm thinking (hoping) that because it appeals in a visual way it might have more impact on taking in the info. Whatever works!

We also rediscovered a story we started writing together well over a year ago (in fact it might be more like two years!). We had done character descriptions, including drawings, as well as planning the skeleton of the story, then put it all in a folder and put it away in a drawer. Once we reminded ourselves of what we'd done previously the story started flowing, and we got a few pages down. Hopefully it wont be another two years before we get it out again!

Red Cabbage Experiment

A drew up a schedule for Friday. I was a little apprehensive as it was a very long list, but it worked brilliantly. She did have to cut things out as the day went on, but that was ok. Our main activity for the day was pH indicator-making with a red cabbage:

The cabbage was first chopped...

then boiled for ten minutes

Meanwhile, several household substances were gathered

Once the cabbage water had been drained and cooled, it was distributed between 10 glass containers (I knew all those jars I was hoarding would come in handy one day!)

Then A added a different substance to each jar - recording how much was added and any differences occuring to the cabbage water.

And here are the results - A has estimated the pH of each substance based on how blue or red the cabbage water turned.

Next came the 'experimental healthy biscuits', this involved chucking a load of vaguely healthy ingredients together, shaping into biscuit shapes and baking.

They weren't at all bad actually.

Other activities included:

• another crime scene investigation project, this time looking at DNA evidence
• writing a short story in 20 minutes
• online maths assessment on multiplication (she got 10 out of 10 - yay!!)
• 'geograball' - a game A made up with her Granny which involves throwing a ball at each other and naming countries/cities beginning with A/B/C etc
• piano practice
• smoothie making session

We ended the day with pizza-making, and both felt very satisfied with our day. Its great to see A so motivated, she seems to be entering a new phase (or something) where she's taking much more responsibility for her own learning.

The art session with the HE group went really well, I think A was quite inspired by the artist taking the session, and had a good look at her website when we got home.

A had her first night at Guides on Thursday. She was extremely nervous about it, worrying that she wouldn't know anyone, but as it turned out she already knew a couple of the girls, and was put into their patrol, so she came home with a big smile, keen to go back next week.

So all good then. I'm off to the pub tonight - haven't done that for ages. I think I'm in a lager mood tonight...

"Science is not really my thing"

So says A.
But we had one of those wonderful, flowing, 'home education at its most effective' afternoons last week.

It started off with a request from A to solve one of the crimes in this book:

which involved looking at corrosive liquids and what they can do to aluminium drinks cans. This led on to her asking what the hell pH levels were all about. I explained the best I could, but she still looked a bit puzzled, so I dug out this book:

which had a perfect little section on pH levels, including an experiment involving a red cabbage where you make your own pH indicator. I have bought a red cabbage and that is on our to do list for this week.

What made me smile most of all was the fact that she kept going back to the chemistry book all that evening. Sat in front of the TV at about 9.30 that night she started asking me about the periodic table. That was the point I thought to myself 'why did I not pay more attention in chemistry class?'. (The answer to that is we had a very creepy chemistry teacher so I gave the subject up at the earliest opportunity, ie age 13, but thats a whole other story). But anyway, we talked and read a bit about the periodic table, and both learnt a bit more.
She still says science is 'not her thing', but at least she's open to being interested in parts of it. I hated science at school because it was 'boring'. It actually was very boring because of the way it was taught, and I shut off from that subject completely.
Fast forward a few years and guess where I was working? In a medical science lab. I loved this environment, it suited me perfectly, but because I'd switched off from science at school I had to enter at the most junior level and never really made a career of it. I know I could have done if I'd put the work in, but it all seemed too hard and other parts of 'grown-up' life got in the way too much. I cant help feeling that if I'd had the right teacher, teaching in a more interesting way I would have realised how much I enjoy science much earlier on and it would have been a viable option for me.

On to something that definitely is A's 'thing' - art. This is her latest drawing:

We are off to an art session with the home ed group tomorrow, really looking forward to that. Haven't been to a group meet for quite a while, a bit nerve-wracking for me with my crap social skills, but A will love it, which is the main point of course.

Busy week all round this one - various appointments, back to drama and piano, and A is finally getting to start Guides. She's a little apprehensive but I'm hoping it will work out well for her.

The stressful situation I'm in just now is ongoing, cant say much more, but I am doing something positive about the way I'm coping with it all.

I am - most definitely - back

OK, enough with the blog break. It didn't work. Even if no one reads it or wants to know what I think or what we're doing, I have to blog.

I have been motivated today, by some positive news on the work front, to give myself a good kick up the arse and stop being so lazy. I cant use the 'not enough time' line as an excuse - there is NEVER enough time to do everything I want to, thats how my life is. Truth is, I like blogging, I enjoy it, and I've missed it.

I think there may be changes in the way I blog, it has evolved along the way in any case, its bound to. I'm toying with ideas about changing the name and how it looks, but am not sure yet. I think a slight change in perspective may occur, posting more about me and work, but then my life is still predominantly about parent/home ed stuff, so not that much of a change perhaps.

I am going to try to be more honest here. I think I've held back on a lot of issues because I'm not sure who's reading and don't want to upset anyone. A bit ridiculous really, why should I care? Its my blog.

Anyway, here is a little update on some of the things we've been up to:

• went to the science festival at a local college with our HE group. A bit stressful for me as I had been the contact for the group, so lots of emailing to and fro, but all went well on the day and we learnt about volcanoes, made solar power models with K'nex, and met lots of creepy crawlies.

• went for a loooong bike ride in the sunshine.

• watched and discussed a programme called 'American Hate' about the Black Panthers - their history, and the current 'new' Black Panthers. We're going to watch the second part, about the Ku Klux Klan, sometime soon.

• A wrote a letter and drew a picture to send to the African child her Granny is sponsoring

• A created some more fashion designs for her label

• We discussed and researched setting up our own shop on Folksy - watch this space!!

• Talked to Nonno and Nonna about our plans for Italy next year - they are taking us to meet some of A's family out there.

• Lots of maths, English, piano, drama, art, singing, laughing, eating of cake....I could go on...

Marbling

Big thanks to Hannah for this idea -

we had great fun with it this afternoon, and now have some lovely cards.

Still here...

Felt it was time for a blog post.
A has gone off to an all day party today, so I've got a whole day to myself. I've kind of missed blogging, so thought I'd take this opportunity to write a few words.

I dropped A off at the swimming pool at 11 this morning, and am picking her up from her friend's at 8pm. She was really nervous about it, the friend is someone she used to go to ballet with ages ago, and they've kind of kept up with each other through email. She did come over here last week, but before that they hadn't actually seen each other for a couple of years, and A wont really know any of the other girls at the party (she knows a couple of them from her old school, but they weren't in her class and she hasn't seen them for ages either). Anyway, understandably she was quite apprehensive, but also really wanted to go. I felt sick when I left her at the swimming pool - I don't think it matters how old they get, you always feel for them so intensely. And I know she'll be fine - I'm 99.9% sure they'll all get on well and she'll have a great time, but there's still that 0.1% fear that it will all go wrong. Well its 12.40 now and I haven't heard from her, so maybe I should just relax :0)

Things seem to be coming together a bit more with (the dreaded) maths. We have been using this Australian site, I even paid for the year as A seemed to like it so much, and its been a really good way for her to chart her progress. She just does about 20 - 30 minutes most days, and it seems to suit her way of learning. There are lots of games, some very short 'tutorials', and worksheets to print out - enough of a variety of things not to get boring. She struggled a bit with the timed assessments, just the idea of being timed stresses her out, but it doesn't matter how many times you attempt them. And it really proves to her when she completes them that she is not as crap at maths as she thinks. There are also lots of other activities - things you can 'buy' with your points, and each student has their own character they can design.
To be honest its not the sort of site I had imagined using, but it really does seem to work for A, and when it comes to maths I'll use whatever works!

A had a bit of a mini crisis this week, which was very interesting for both of us.
I had dropped her off for choir at her old school, but it turned out choir was cancelled, so she called me to go back for her. On the way home she ended up in tears, saying she wanted to go back to school and that she really missed it. I had to take a deep breath and try not to react too much, as this immediately sent me into a head space I really didn't want to be in - ie I made the wrong decision about HE. So I stayed calm, and fairly quiet, and we considered the options together. As it happens, things are better for us financially now (lack of money was the main reason for taking her out of school), but not enough for me to afford fees for the next five years. We talked about what a shame it is the school isn't open to flexi-schooling, as I could possibly manage to fund that. We talked about the local schools, which neither of us are keen on.
When she was a bit calmer she told me what had prompted the upset - one of her 'friends' up at the school while waiting for me to go back for her had been winding her up and generally playing manipulative mind games along the lines of: why did you leave the school?/don't you want to be here with us?/you will lose all your friends here/people wont like you any more because you left.
This is not unusual or surprising from this particular girl. However, I happen to know that this girl is having an extremely hard time at home just now, and while that doesn't excuse what she did, it did help to discuss that with A, and give her another perspective - ie that sadly the girl's way of dealing with difficulties seems to be to hurt other people.
About an hour after we got home I had to take A off to drama, and as she got out of the car she said 'don't worry about earlier - I was just having a 'moment', I don't really want to go back to school at all, I love home ed'. It was such a relief to hear that! Apart from anything else I don't think I could face going back and dealing with all those people - I would do it for A's sake, but I would hate it.

The whole episode brought up a couple of things. Firstly, there is still the issue of 'friends' and the fact that A doesn't feel she sees enough of them. Her going to a few group activities now has definitely helped, and with drama in particular she really enjoys being part of a team, but she still seems to need more. She's really keen on joining guides now, but we're still waiting for a place to come up :0( I'm also looking into sending her to art lessons at another local independent school, who are open to that kind of flexi-schooling, as I think she needs more guidance than I can give in this subject, so thats a possible opportunity for more socialising. Its a real shame there's not a more cohesive, close-knit HE group in our area, but thats mainly down to the fact that we are in the Highlands and eveyone is so spread out. I don't know of any other HEors in our town.
A more positive upshot of the whole incident was the way we both handled it, and what that says about our relationship. I can imagine, if I was feeling hassled or rushed, reacting very differently. I hate to admit it, but I think I could have quite easily gone on the defensive, thinking 'oh god, don't tell me that!' and come out with all the reasons she couldn't go back to school. Instead I listened, and seriously considered what she was saying, and she felt heard. This is one time where I actually feel I can say I got it right :0)

A has requested a project about pregnancy and childbirth, as she feels she doesn't know enough about them, so after a trip to the library and finding very little appropriate material, I bought this and this for us to use. So will be starting that very soon.

We had a lovely little exercise this week, suggested by A - we visited a new vegan deli/coffee shop in our town (so excited about that!!!) and both wrote reviews about the place. They were glowing :0))

A slice of our day

I'm sitting at the computer, having a look at the badscience website (well worth a look), its about 11.50am.
A has been in her room all morning, took just an apple in there about 2 and a half hours ago for breakfast, informing me she was tidying her room.
She comes downstairs and picks up the stepladder.

Me: Are you going to have a bath now? Its just that we need to get out to the shops at some point, I thought we could go soon...

A looks around distractedly for a minute, then gives a big sigh

A: You know that artist, who locked himself away in a room?

Me: No, who's that then?

A: You know, the one who locked himself in a room so that he could create his masterpiece without interruption

Me: Oh, are you doing some artwork now? I thought you were tidying your room.

A: Well I was, but I finished and now I'm messing it up again

Me: By doing some art?

A: Yes

And off she went with the stepladder.

Art

Just wanted to share some of A's marvellous artwork:

I may be biased, but I think she's rather good :0)

A busy week

Well, I finally took the leap I've been planning for the best part of a year, and officially registered as self-employed! I am now a freelance writer/researcher. I haven't blogged about this before much for a few reasons. Partly because this blog is primarily about our home education experience (although its impossible to separate that from our lives generally I suppose). Mostly because I just wasn't comfortable writing about it. Anyway, now it is a reality and is going to affect us both quite a lot.
This week I've been dealing with a lot of the official stuff - phone calls etc - and have found it quite stressful. I think once everything is in place and I know what money is coming in and can budget accordingly I will relax a bit. I'm really looking forward to the 'work' bit, but it will mean juggling things a bit more time-wise. A is old enough to understand what's going on, and is very supportive, even asking if she can help with some of my work as part of her home ed. I just need to make sure 'work time' doesn't eat into 'A time', but I will be mainly working when A is at her Granny's.
I spent the whole of Sunday doing some research work - my first bit of paid employment as a freelancer - but got a bit carried away and forgot to take breaks from the computer. Consequently I ended up feeling like my head was going to implode and was unable to get to sleep until about 3am. Not a good start!

Anyway, enough of my stuff, what else have we been up to???
Very much enjoying the new series of Scrubs - a programme A introduced me to. Makes us both laugh like maniacs. Particularly like the misanthropic Dr Cox.

Granny arrived home from her trip to Napoli, with lots of pretty little gifts for A, and a huge bottle of Amaretto for me (mmmm...she knows me so well).

We had a lovely day out with some friends in Aberdeen. Went to see the
Mueck exhibition at the Art Gallery, which I absolutely loved. The giant newborn baby was so beautiful, amazing detail.
We also had a nice lunch and wandered round the shops a bit. Miserable weather, and a very crowded train journey there and back, but good company makes all that irrelevant.

Today we had some friends over from the home ed group - a Mum and her four daughters. We had met them at several different events, and at one of the more recent ones A worked in a group with the two oldest girls and got on very well with them. So when A was feeling a bit lonely recently I decided to invite them round. It all went very well, the girls all played happily, and the youngest (a four-year-old) took a particular liking to A, which was very sweet, and well received by A.
I really enjoyed getting to know their mum a bit better, and we discovered that we lived round the corner from each other when A was a baby! Small world! Hopefully we'll get out to visit them at their place soon.

Last photos of York (I promise)

Barley_Hall is a restored medieval town house.

A feasting in the Great Hall

Where the fire place was in the middle of the Great Hall

A plague doctor, nightmarish figure, part of the 'Plague, Poverty and Prayer' exhibition.

The Roman_Baths_Museum was tiny, but full of fascinating stuff, like this Roman equivalent of toilet paper.



This was a great little place - we had a wander round, looked at some of the art work and chatted with the very friendly proprietor. Would have been nice for A to do a bit of painting there, but she felt a bit conspicuous as no one else was painting when we went in.

York

Decided to get up early(ish) today and get blogging while A is still asleep. There is so much going on just now I've found it difficult to get round to doing this, and we have some nice photos to share.

One of the first places we visited was DIG , the archaeological museum. It seemed very geared towards groups (particluarly school groups), and we got our own guide who took us around. It felt a bit intense at times as all the questions were directed at A, whereas normally I suppose there would be a whole class to discuss and answer questions, but A said that overall she enjoyed it, despite visibly squirming when she didn't know the answers (I did help her out, but I didn't always know the answers either!) Our guide was very nice though, and we got to 'dig' for artefacts from 4 different time periods: Roman; Viking; Medieval; Victorian. There was lots of interesting information, definitely worth a visit.

A was very keen to visit this place...

and we spent a good couple of hours here. We loved it - they had some really good hands-on stuff available, such as objects and space to set up a still life composition, and a seated area with mirrors, paper and pencils for self portraits. A was in her element - she's happy to wander round art galleries anyway, but these activities complemented the experience perfectly for her.

We came back to the fountain outside the art gallery several times as it was a great place to sit and relax. A also did a lot of sketching here.

We had a couple of really warm days, and after trudging around York it was lovely to soak our feet.

Briefly...

We watched this yesterday, something I had recorded with my fab new BT Vision. A really interesting programme about Scottish art, presented by the wonderful Peter Capaldi. A did some sketches of me afterwards. I looked like an old lady, so pretty accurate!!

Angles and mushrooms are ongoing at the moment, both going pretty well.

Granny took A to an open day by Out_of_the_Darkness theatre company, with some mini performances and presentations. Very inspiring stuff I think. I've seen some of their performances and they are amazing.
A's new drama class seems to be going well too, she's all fired up for the Christmas show already! I'm really glad she's got an outlet again for her enjoyment of performing, I think this needs to be encouraged and nourished. Cant understand it myself - I can think of nothing worse than getting up on stage in front of loads of people, but what do I know - I'm the weird woman who likes maths ;0)

The Red Sea

This was the colour of the sea when we went down the other day. Now, I know that this is due in some way to the heavy rain and the peat being washed down from the mountains (or something like that) but I still kept looking for shark fins, and had to restrain myself from dragging A away from the water. It just looked so gruesome.

It didn't seem to bother A in the least.

We spent some time on the beach sketching with chalks:

This is the view we were sketching:

We've been having a very relaxed time lately, since the school holidays started here. I didn't think it would make so much of a difference to us, but things have really slowed down. I'm quite enjoying it, but I think A has been a bit fed up at times as most of her friends seem to be away. During term time she has regular weekly get-togethers with a couple of them, and these haven't been happening. Still, things will change soon enough as her cousins arrive next week, and just before that we are going away for a couple of nights with my friend and her two boys, we are staying in a hostel made up of railway carriages.

I recently bought A this dictaphone as I had talked about getting her one ages ago. She's had a great time with it, and its certainly helped with all the criminal investigations that go on here - now she can record all the interviews. I wish I could download some of them as they are truly hilarious. Apart from interviews with suspects, she has been recording herself singing and reciting poetry, as well as making up some of her own.

A renewed interest in Italian was sparked today (we had intended to make learning Italian one of our projects together, but found it really hard, I think its something best done in a group, certainly for A). A is off to her grandparents for the night tomorrow, and wanted to impress Nonno with a couple of phrases, so we got the books out and got online to this site, and she worked out exactly what she wanted to say, then wrote it down for herself in a way she understands for pronounciation. I'm sure Nonno will encourage her with this, I've always been a bit wary of asking him to 'teach' her Italian, knowing how A generally responds to being 'taught' anything! And I would hate for their relationship - which is based on fun, mischief, and winding up Nonna - to be affected by a different dynamic. I think what we really need to do is just go to Italy, I'm sure we'd pick it up in no time. I know that when I went on a school exchange trip to France I learnt more in two weeks than I had in the previous two years of lessons at school. Better start saving now!

No swimming today!

Actually, this was a few days ago, its quite nice today, but the weather has been so changeable we haven't managed to get in the sea again :0(

This is one (of many) creations that happened recently, we have been having a lot of arty time. The other day we got Noughts_and_Crosses by Malorie Blackman on audio book from the library. We sat for about four and a half hours listening and crafting -mostly making cards - its a great story. I think its probably aimed at children slightly older than A, and I wasn't sure if she'd enjoy it because at its heart its a love story between a young girl and boy (A is not interested in all that 'soppy love stuff', yet) but she was engrossed.

A has been doing a bit more reading. She decided to do the summer reading challenge at the library, and is on her second book. She seems to be enjoying it, she likes the fact that she can choose whatever book she wants, and tends to go for more comedy orientated ones.

Some of this has been going on - A informed me this was inspired by a scene from St._Trinians, where the girls have to get through a corridor laced with infrared light beams, avoiding tripping the alarms. She spent ages setting these up (with red wool) and working out different ways through. It was great, but a bit of a pain in the arse when I wanted to get through to the kitchen to make a cup of tea! I was very bad at it, and would have set the alarms off immediately, I don't think she'll let me be part of her criminal gang.

A has also become very preoccupied with dusting for fingerprints and looking for evidence. One of her favourite games at the moment is setting up crime scenes for each other - so I'll leave several clues as to who the 'perp' is, and she'll come along with her kit (weirdly this is kept in a jewellery box) which mostly consists of black eyeshadow and a big brush, sellotape, paper, pens, and little clear evidence bags. Far too much CSI is watched in this house.

Music is another theme at the moment, lots of it, and very loud. We just got La_Roux 's album, which has had us both jumping about a lot, very happy, dancy stuff. I'm so glad that there are certain areas where our tastes meet, we both love music so much it would be unbearable if there was nothing we both liked. However, A will not tolerate Nick Cave in any way, shape or form, and only lets me put the Clash on if I've been really good. And sometimes she does really evil things, like sneaking Beyonce or even worse - Katie Melua - into the car when I'm not looking, she then waits til I'm driving on a main road and changes the CD to hers and I'm trapped, the minx.

Arty day

Inspired by going to see the exhibition at Moray College of the City & Guilds Textiles final year work (including work by our lovely friend!) and BA Fine Arts final year work, we had an arty day today:

We both really enjoyed getting messy and creative, had some music on in the background, but both became quite absorbed in our own work.

A has become quite friendly with our elderly neighbour, so took some pieces round to show her and they both ended up sitting in the neighbour's garden in the sunshine doing some painting :0)

Painted stones

I will post some more of the finished pieces another time.

To the beach!!

We love living so near a beach. Spending more and more time there now the weather is nicer. We went down on Monday and A did some sketching in the cafe. She gave the picture to our friend who works there, who was delighted with it.

A's sand turtle: 'Shelly'

We've also had some more presentations! A is really keen on these, she's a natural performer (must get that from her Dad!). I'm trying to encourage her to work a bit more on her research and polish her performance now that she's got into them so much. She does really well though, I love her quirky little touches, like the eyes drawn on her eyelids (you can just about see them in the second picture below).

Mixing make-up

Wizardology, tarot, fortune-telling and charms

Forgot to post these last time - some beautiful flowers my friend brought over last week. I very rarely get flowers, so these really cheered me up :-)