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Spring Harvest 2024

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Every year around Eastertime, we gather together with several thousand (!) Christians at Butlins for a week of worship, teaching, and fun. I have a long history with Spring Harvest, having attended there as Marketing Manager of Prospects for People with Learning Disabilities way back before I was married and had kids - manning a stand at the exhibition, to talk to people about how to fully include people with learning disabilities - but over the past few years, I've attended as captioner. Which means I work all morning and in the evening (the main celebrations); Mr. and the kids get to attend the festival meanwhile, and they love it. The kids have their own sessions which are high energy and great fun, and in between those they have the Butlins facilities to enjoy - fun fair and an amazing pool with action slides! So, a brilliant holiday for all. This year we attended Minehead, which is only two hours' drive from home, as opposed to Skegness which we usually go to (6 hours'
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Springtime, Easter & a mishap

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It's Springtime! For N(9), this has meant a radical new haircut... not entirely a planned change, though. Here's how she tells it in her own hand: Yes that's right: D(7) flew his toy drone into her hair, which messed it up into one large dreadlock, and the only thing that could be done was to cut it off. Which she was actually surprisingly happy about! And to be honest, so am I: no more fighting about brushing the hair (which she hated), it's quick dry and style and isn't it just super gorgeous and cute? Apart from flying drones in the house, what else have we been up to this Springtime?  We've been enjoying the garden so much - we tend to just not use it at all over the winter! But now we're getting into a bit of gardening, enjoying the hammock, and did an Easter egg hunt (of course). I'm loving how the two of them get along and read together. Dog Man continues to be a huge part of their lives! D's Spring plasticine creations. Including a flowery ta
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Norway - snow at last!

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In the course of my work with Churchear, we travelled to Oslo - a work trip for me, but Mr. and the kids got to explore a new country and city. Mid-March meant there was still snow on the ground, which the kids were extremely excited about!  I didn't see much of the place at all, but the others were busy exploring and having fun! Here are some photos... Visiting a reptile sanctuary Sightseeing At a museum - historic children's toys They found a brilliant outdoor museum where lots of historic buildings were open to walk into and interact with! In a historic house D trying his hand at blacksmithing We visited a friend's house, who happened to have some sledges which the kids much enjoyed! The snow was mostly ice, and some grassy patches, but they weren't deterred. The friends also had an aquarium which the kids found fascinating Goodbye Norway, see you again in August!
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Home Ed Questions: what about socialisation?

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Last week, a reporter and cameraman from the BBC visited our house to do a feature about home education. It was great fun, a real adventure for the kids to be interviewed! The team spent 90 minutes at our house, but of course they had to condense that down to a couple of minutes for the feature, and sadly the kids' interviews didn't make the cut. (A transcript article of the feature is here ) I had put my hand up for doing this because the reporter had every intention to make this a positive piece on home education, and so it was; the premise was to try and answer why there had been such an uptick in home education in the past few years. They interviewed two mothers, probably strategically chosen: me as the one who always wanted to home educate, and the other mum as someone who felt she had to due to her son's needs.  They interviewed me at length, and of course only a few seconds of that made it to the screen, but inevitably it was the part to do with social skills that th
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Poorly in Spain

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This year, like last year and the year before that , we sought winter sun in Benalmadena on the Costa del Sol. The kids love the repetition, getting to know the place a little bit better every time and knowing what to expect. We love that it's cheap and usually sunny! Beach time on arrival day That said, we weren't that lucky on sunshine last year; and while there weren't any rainstorms this year, it still wasn't the holiday we expected: both kids came down with high temperatures, coughs and blocked noses on Day 3. We ended up stuck in the hotel room for three days, sometimes with both kids and sometimes with just one of them, when one felt well enough to go out for a while. D(7) in particular is never ill, so it was a shock to everyone that he came down with a really high temperature and spent two almost entire days asleep in bed! But, here's how it all unfolded. Our flight was at 6am (!) and this time I didn't forget to pack Mr's passport... and also pac
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