Sushi making

Today our friends Ruth and Julia came over for the afternoon and we made sushi for lunch. The girls really enjoyed making up interesting combinations of fillings fo maki's and Mollie got an improptu Japanese lesson when Julia, who knows lots about these things, told her what al the different characters on thr Wasabi packaging meant. After lunch the girls built dens in the trees and had a quick dip in the pool, while Ruth and I had a nice relaxing afternoon.

Broody Hen

Bella the chicken has decided that it is time for her to become a mummy hen. Because we don't have a cockeral we went down to see our friends a Feufields to see if they had any eggs that she could sit on. They did, and they supplied us with half a dozen, and so now she is sat happily on them and we all have a tense 3 weeks coming up while we wait to see what hatches.

Cherry Pickers 2

Today we had a meeting of the cherry pickers group at Dalkeith Country Park. It was a good oppertunity for the children to spend some time with each other, and for the mums and dad's to chat about parenting. education and general lifestyles.

These types of get togethers are really useful in Home Edcationg because they are a chance to meet like minded people and make plans. At this meeting we planned for Ruth and Julia to come over a nd make sushi with us, and also arranged that Jo, and her children Tom and Annie are going to join us for our Georgian week. Without these chances to stand and chat lots of opertunities would probably never arise.

Beach Day 2

Following last months successful gathering we met up again on the beach a Gullane. It is really nice that we have these once a month meetings where there are no expectations and no particular point, it is just a chance to meet up, hand out and chat. It is good to see people you haven't seen for a while, and it's really nice to see the children play in a diverse group

D of E practice walk

Today Hannah went for her first practise walk for her D of E bronze award. She went off in the car with dad, her friend Taegan and a huge rucksack at 11 am,heading for the local village of Broughton. When she returned home about 5pm Dad had to carry her in from the car and deposit her in the armchair - I don't think I have ever seen her look so tired, and tonight will consist of keeping her topped up with painkillers, but we are amazingly proud that, even though she has cerebal palsy, she has managed to complete the walk. However, we don't have much planned for the next few days, so she can recover.

Muliple Activity Day 1

Today several families came round to our house for a day of activities. The dad's built a tennis ball morter from Pringles tubs, we blew up lots of coke with lots of mentoes and the bubble snake makers we so popular that every available plastic bottle in the house was emptied to make more.

The weather wasn't really on our side for Bar-b-quing, but some of the dad's braved the weather and wwe managed with a combination of umberella's and hiding inder the garage roof. I think this will become a regular event ...

Cherry Pickers 1

Sarah M has started a new group for people who live autonomous or non coersive lifestyles and today was the first meeting.

She has called it Cherry Pickers because many of us had said that we don't just follow one philosophy, we 'herry pick' the bits we like from each on and then just create our own path.

We met up in Edinburgh, initially at the playpark, but then we moved to a church hall, where we set out a pot luck supper and sat down for a discussion. It was nice to talk to people and learn about their lifestyles, and discuss the challeneges they faced. It was also nice that some of the older children chose to sit in on the discusion too. Hopefully this will become a regular fixture of our lives, it is nice to go meet up with like minded peoplem and for the children to have a space where no one is asking them about bedtimes and homework.