Hectic times

Catching up again...

Friday 7th August
F and I went off to the local shop in the morning to see if we would be in the Brighton and Hove Argus - got there to find only one copy left, and there we were! A big double-page spread about home-ed, bubble demo, interviews with several of us and photos of us, T and T, and lovely P blowing bubbles. Really good feature, covered loads of points, am very pleased with the coverage that the event got generally. Had a quick chat with local shop woman about it and took it home to enjoy at leisure.
Rest of the day was spent checking that F had something to wear for the next day (wedding in London) and mooching.
In the evening (I think) after a bit of a brainstormy chat with Jax on Facebook, I set up the Yahoo list for the Not Back To School Picnic group with the aim of setting up a whole lot of local home-ed picnics on one day (now we've changed this to one week, but still focusing on one day) in September - it's going pretty well so far, we have some definite picnics set up but could do with more. The idea is to invite friends and family along too, anyone who supports you in your home-ed life. Also to encourage those considering home-ed to give it a try - even if the children are in school, the parents can come along, see what it's about, talk to us. And of course we hope to get plenty of local and national press coverage, maybe get some MPs attending. It's in very early stages though, but does look like it will happen. And there'll be more bubbles, so I'm happy!

Saturday 8th August
We all went up to London to the wedding of John (my ex and one of our oldest friends - J shared flat with him back in college days) and Fiona. F behaved so well all day, really patient about all the hanging around you get at weddings. J was semi-official photographer for the day (photos on Flickr) and did a great job, I think - have suggested he should take it up as an alternative career!
We didn't know that many people there but did meet up with one old friend and got on fine with the people at our table. It was all very nice, summer wedding, informal, lovely to see John happy.
We got home about 8ish and had a half hour turnaround for me and F before we headed out to Proms in the Paddock, where we met C and K with E, M, baby D and C's parents and other members of family. K and I chortled at our mutual reluctance to sing certain lyrics in the more patriotic (flag-wavingly) part of the repertoire, the kids all did various going off and coming back stuff until it got late/cold enough for them to prefer a lap and a cuddle. It's an enjoyable local event, now established as a bit of a tradition for our two families I think.

Sunday 9th we were at home without visitors and just chilled out. Bit of Wii, bit of telly, chat, reading.

Monday 10th we went to the circus in Eastbourne, with J's mum. It was the Chinese State Circus. We particularly liked the swinging poles act, but the end of the show seemed to come very suddenly without any tightrope walking or trapeze. J said the contortionists were particularly boring and he was not entertained by their ability to hold chandeliers in various folded up body configurations. F liked the aerial silks. Grandma Ju liked most of it, but we all agreed that it wasn't as good as the Moscow one we saw a while ago. There was a lot of relating things to the Olympics and vaguely propagandaist business going on.
Afterwards we went to Pizza Express and had a lovely meal.

Tuesday 11th
Had to get up early and go into Brighton to be on the radio. We met up with A, T and H and all went in on the train together. The radio interview went OK, but would have liked F to be on a separate mic, so that there would have been a bit less of her giggling and asking when it would be her 'go'! I guess she did a good job of representing fairly normal child behaviour and at least nobody would think she was being hothoused and turned into a miniature adult. She declared her favourite subjects 'art and science' and thought she might like to be a hairdress or pet-sitter. N and T (11) did brilliantly I thought. I struggled with the whole context - DJ-type presenter, no time for actually listening to what we said really - but it was what it was and we did OK.
We all split up when we came out and F went instantly into fairly stroppy mode, which was no fun at all. She and I went to buy her friend C a birthday present as we would be heading straight over to her party from Brighton in a while. Then we went and had 20 mins or so on the beach, where F paddled and collected seaweed, a nice chilled(ish) break in the middle of a busy day - rang Nic to debrief, as I wouldn't be able to listen to the interview till late afternoon.
After that we had a quick lunch with A, T and H, but F was far from sociable, in a bit of a world of her own.
We went and caught the train over to C's in Lancing, bumping into L and A at Hove station, which was good. F was over the worst of her stroppiness by then and it was good to have more company, don't get to see much of L and A these days as I don't get to MMs much.
We made our way to C's house from Lancing station, I had no clue where we were going but L steered us efficiently and F seemed to have some sort of internal radar.
The party was great - C and family had gone to great efforts and the children all had a lovely time. A really good variation on musical statues where instead of going 'out' children had to put on some item from a dressing-up box, really liked that. I had to spend some time with my new phone as various e-mails and texts were requiring attention, which was a bit shit, but never mind.
Lovely to see lots of mates there and chat. Made me laugh that E said to me 'I'm not doing anything' when she regularly puts more effort into the local home-ed community in an average week than I do in 6 months. But I am doing my bit at the moment and it feels good.
Went back on the train with E, L and T, having lost L and A to the lure of the shiny new Asda at the station.
Was good to get home and know we had less busy days ahead.

Wednesday 12th August
My mum came, we would have been going out for pizza but neither she nor I really felt very keen so it was a more usual afternoon, where I worked (had got behind with work unsurprisingly) and she and F spent time together. We will probably do something nicer next time she comes.

Thursday 13th August
Very relaxed day, didn't need to go out, no visitors, did a bit of housework, F went up to E's from half 1 through till 7. J was taking Friday off for my birthday so we started celebrations early with a beer and a curry, which was lovely, as I had finally caught up with my work and had no more media appointments! And so could properly relax...

Friday 14th August
My birthday! Would quite have liked to go to cinema but nothing on that we could all enjoy, so suddenly had the idea of Crazy Golf - I actually love Crazy Golf, but have only played about 5 times!
I started the day with a nice bath, which got cut short when my magazine fell right in and turned into a gungy mess! Followed shortly by F having a huge strop about not wanting to go into Brighton and then by the discovery of a big pile of cat poo in F's room!
Things improved though, as I opened my prezzies and was very pleased to find lots of things I'd wanted: a book ('The Help' by Kathryn Stockett), several games (Wii Endless Ocean and Sports Resort, Game of Life board game), DVDs (Oliver!, Season 1 of Deep Space Nine :) - we are already on Season 6 of ST:TNG) . Also some dairy free fudge which we all had a piece of before heading out into Brighton by bus.
We went straight down to the beach and had chips and mushy peas (F had chicken nuggets - chicken is a bit of a favourite at the moment!), then caught the Volks railway to the Peter Pan station and played Crazy Golf there. Had a lovely game, J beat me by 1, F did pretty well and beat us on a couple of holes. Really enjoyed it.
Then we went and did a bit of shopping - J got the Star Trek TOS movie box set for us to watch over the weekend! Yes, we do like Star Trek! A lot! I went to Marks and Spencers and spent some of my £50 gift card from my mum - got two T-shirts, some lemon body butter and a lovely grapefruit and ginger scented candle and room spray. I really wanted a colourful summer shirt but I'm a fussy, picky shopper and couldn't find what I wanted.
Next stop was Montezuma's for vegan chocolate truffles - got lots! I plan to spend the whole weekend playing games, watching The Shat get increasingly fat in the series of Star Trek films and munching chocolate, thanks.
Then we went and had one of the best meals I've ever had in Terre a Terre, where they have improved their range of vegan offerings again, really good! We had everything - nibbles (hoi-sin tofu), cocktail (alcohol-free lychee blush), starter (skordalia and sesame aubergine), main (miso pretty - ginger sushi, hot miso, lots of twiddly lovelies on the side), pudding (Thai ice thingy) and coffee (soya cappucino). Felt very very birthdayed!
Got the bus back and were home about half eight, so watched Star Trek: The Motion Picture - awwww William Shatner just loved being James T. I got almost teary at all the lovingly shot slow pans along the new Enterprise from lots of different angles and the close-ups of Kirk looking at it and at the 'love you but I shall only show it in small manly doses' bits between Kirk and Spock.
Long film though, F did very well to last till the end at 11ish. They really did take their time with some of those effects sequences 'look at this model of the spaceship, no really look at it, see the detail, now from this side with some swelling music, perhaps you didn't notice this bit at the top, etc.'
Eeee it were lovely and we ate truffles.

And that's us.
What else though - oh yes, F has finished all her encyclopedias now and has moved on to books about periods and body changes of the 'What's happening to me' type. Next she wants books about looking after animals and babies, apparently. She's been on the Animalia site, was very good at the code game there and we did that and the core spore game together. She has been pretty challenging but it has been very hectic, so hoping that things will improve with a bit less rushing around soon.e