York again - lots more pics!

We visited the Minster , but only went up the tower as the rest was too expensive (we were running low on funds at this point!) Lots of steps, but great views.


Clifford's Tower - part of York_Castle , and site of a horrific anti-semitic massacre in 1190.

We went to the Castle museum too, the prison exhibition was really interesting.

Spotted these on the wall of an old church in the centre of York - gorgeous!

More York

We went on a guided walk one morning, which I had been really keen to do (A less so) but it was very much aimed at adults and A found it quite boring. Don't get me wrong - I hate it when children are acommodated by being patronised and treated like idiots - but I have to admit that this guy was very dry. He was factual and informative, clearly from an academic background and definitely knew his stuff, but it was a bit like a lecture really, and quite hard work. The worst bit was that he charged for A as a student rather than a child which would have been a lot cheaper, I didn't realise this until later on. I know she's getting tall, but surely he didn't think she was over 16?!

We also visited Yorkshire_Museum , which was pretty good, but lacked the more interactive elements A had enjoyed at some of the other places. I think its really difficult to get it right, because if there is too much of the hands on stuff, particularly computer based, then it actually detracts from the whole experience as that becomes the focus, but A certainly seems to engage more when there are relevant activities to get involved in. There's only so much 'looking' and 'reading' she can do before she wanders off to find something to draw!

A enjoyed making a mosaic

The gardens outside the museum were beautiful, and there were plenty of these fellows about to keep us entertained!

We did get to the theatre one evening, and saw a wonderful production by Puppet State: The_Man_Who_Planted_Trees . It was a brilliant show - really funny in a very gentle way. We both enjoyed it a lot, despite A's concerns beforehand that it would be for little kids.

After our theatre excursion we went in search of a vegan restaurant I had heard about - El_Piano - and we had the most delicious tapas meal. Their onion bhajis are the best I've ever tasted (and I've tasted many!). Best of all was the selection of desserts - a rare treat for me :0)

Needless to say, we went back several times during our holiday.

Pea and potato curry; Albondigas (soya mince 'meat' balls); onion bhajis; rice.

Sticky toffee pudding and chocolate brownie

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.

RIP Les, a very special man.

We are back! After a rather extended trip away.

We had a really nice time in York (I will blog on that with lots of photos soon), but while we were there my Grandad died, so we ended up going first to Southampton to my brother's, then travelling up to Northampton with him, his partner and my oldest nephew for the funeral. We then stayed with my brother and his family for a few days.

I felt quite sad that we didn't get to see Grandad - we had planned a trip down to visit him from York, as I knew he was very ill, but he went before we made that trip.

This was my Dad's Dad, and like my Dad he was a lovely and genuinely good man. He was a bit cheeky, and a bit of a geezer, but was also very wise, and sharp as ever at 95. He always made me laugh.

All my grandparents were a huge part of my childhood, and with my Dad's parents there was always a lot of laughter. They were married for 70 years - seems unbelievable - and when we lost my Nan a couple of years ago we all wondered how he would cope. He did ok, with a lot of help from my Aunt and Uncle who lived near him, but he did get lonely, especially in the evenings.

This picture really reflects the warmth I always felt from them
I love this one too, not sure when it was taken, 50s, or possibly early 60s.

I have some wonderful memories of my Grandad. I felt truly humble, and grateful, listening to the tribute at his funeral. I really did get lucky with my family.

We're off!

I had intended to do a proper posting before we headed off on holiday to York tomorrow morning, but it will have to wait til we get back as I have no time!
We'll be back by the end of the month, hopefully with lots of pics and news. X

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)

Back to work

I'm enjoying getting back into a kind of rhythm after our summer 'break'. A and I had a discussion about how we are going to approach our second year of HE. We talked about things being a little more purposeful this year. For our first year we were kind of finding our way a bit, thats how it feels looking back. Nothing wrong with that, but I think we've both grown to know how things do and don't work for us.


A asked me to put up a chart of all her projects so she can keep track of how much she's doing:



So our basic routine is: some maths and English in the morning (this can take many forms - I'll expand later); then A chooses what she wants to focus on in the afternoon.
This is a very loose, flexible routine - sometimes we'll go out for the day and there's no 'routine'. Sometimes A becomes so engrossed in a project that she spends the whole day on it. Its all good.
But somehow it helps us both to have some kind of framework grounding us, even if we do ignore it at times.
And the routine only works for the days we're based at home together - one or two days a week I have to work, so A spends time with her Granny, where she has some workbooks she sometimes uses, but the two of them also go off on all kinds of adventures. Granny is involved in Adult Literacy classes, so some of the resources she uses for that are quite good for A.




For English we do all kinds of reading and writing - A is much more interested in reading since she did the summer reading challenge at the library, and is often happy to sit and read for a while. Sometimes she'll ask me to give her some titles for stories to write. Other times I'll ask her to write a review or summary of something. I read to A regularly too, something we both still enjoy, and which often sparks off interesting discussions.




I'm feeling very inspired about maths (even if A isn't!). We had a great session on 'angles' today, which seemed to go really well. I'm very excited about Khan_Academy , which I'd put on my favoutires links some time ago but never looked at properly until recently. These little YouTube tutorials look perfect for A - visual, short, clearly explained - I anticipate using these quite a lot. I also had another look at NRICH , which looks promising too.
I'm using a mix and match approach to maths, picking a theme then gathering lots of info from lots of different resouces, and using what I think will appeal to A most. A still has a very negative attitude to maths, so I'm being very gentle and encouraging with it. I'm doing my best to make it enjoyable and relevant. I've told A there are only 2 rules for our maths sessions - 1. she can take as long as she needs to think about/work out things (she reacts very badly when pressured or rushed on maths questions, and completely loses confidence in her ability), and 2. its ok to get things wrong, as thats a crucial part of the learning process.
I keep hoping that my enjoyment of maths (yes, I am that nerdy) will be infectious, but it doesn't seem to be.