Vienna 2025: Getting Outside

-

It just so happened that we had two trips into the country in just this past week - so here are lots of photos, as we've had a great time!

With the Freelearners

On Facebook, I connected with a fellow free learning family in Austria. There are a few of them, much fewer than in the UK but it is a legal choice to home educate; although there are exams at the end of every school year. Which is fine through primary, but makes a child led education all but impossible in the secondary years as all subjects have to be covered. I learned a lot about the legal situation here and how families cope... and we all had a fantastic time at this family's organic milk farm. The kids loved that there was a pond to float on, a tractor to ride, fruit to pick, cows to milk and cats to pet - as well as three lovely kids to play with who are clearly having the best childhood ever!











Seeing old friends

Since we did the same kids' camp every year until this year, we had made some lovely friends there that the kids saw at camp annually. This year, we missed them, but having each other's number meant we could work out a meeting. These guys have a lovely weekend home in the country, a very traditional vineyard farm, which they invited us to for the entire weekend - the kids had a lovely, simple time playing with the water hose and running around. A great, relaxing weekend.










Next week it's camp time again, and finally Mr. arrives on Wednesday!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Into a new world: allotmenteering

-
Image
I am not, and never have been, a gardener. There's some real trauma in my teens, when after moving from my parents' apartment where I grew up and into my aunt's house which had a garden, I found myself having to weed and cut grass for the first time - and I hated it! I never tried again. The garden of our house (as well as the houseplants!) have been firmly Mr's responsibility. On a whim, years ago, I put our name on the waiting list for the allotments near our house. I knew the wait was long, and to be honest I forgot about it, until a few weeks ago an email came in saying there was now a plot and would I like to come view it. I thought, well, viewing it won't do any harm... and the timing was impeccable, because only a few weeks prior to this email, Mr and I finally settled in our hearts and minds that we would not be moving house (which had been vaguely on the cards for years, culminating in almost buying a house in 2022, which fell through). We are in Bristol, a...
Read more

Easter 2025

-
Image
It's been two busy, amazing, wonderful weeks. First, Spring Harvest; which led straight into Holy Week. A huge contrast as we went from the loud concert atmosphere with strobe lights at Spring Harvest to the silence, reverence, bells and smells of the Cathedral... here are some photos. Holy Week kicks off with the Chrism Mass on Wednesday. This is where the oils for the coming year for use within the entire Diocese are consecrated - oils for healing / anointing the sick and for anointing at Confirmation. Every priest, deacon, and seminarian of the entire Diocese is there too to officially renew their vows, and it had such an impact on me seeing these men, who have given up so much and are literally living their lives in sacrifice and service... true, everyday heroes. D(8) got to serve too, he was in charge of the Bishop's Mitre. D(8) passing the Mitre to a Deacon *All* the priests On Thursday, D served at the altar again and Mr. got his feet washed by the Bishop at the Maundy T...
Read more

Spring Harvest 2025: Skegness again!

-
Image
After last year's hiatus to Minehead, we returned to our 'home' Spring Harvest at Skegness. It's a long way away - five hours' drive - but for years it's been the site that Spring Harvest wanted me to go because there's already a captioner at Minehead who's been covering that site for over twenty years. The kids had the best time, as usual, they loved the kids sessions. N(10) particularly really gets it now, and even decided to begin sponsoring a 10 year old girl from Uganda through Compassion . She'll give up half her pocket money and write to Jenipher regularly, and pray for her. This was N's choice and I'm really proud of her. Hooray for Spring Harvest! It was such fun for us all! I've written about what Spring Harvest is like previously - see here - so I'll just put the photos of this year on this post, with some comments... We stay the night at about halfway - Leicester - because we're supposed to arrive  in Skegness by midd...
Read more