Will Dig Life

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!

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...

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...

I didn't have a high bar set for me when it comes to making home... my mother reacted to her misogynistic father's refusal to educate her ("women belong in the kitchen") by running away, getting her education in the field she loved (music) and never going anywhere near housework. She didn't cook or clean. In my early childhood, my father did some of these things, but as their relationship deteriorated our home and diet spiralled out of all control. My father's mother sometimes came in to do a deep clean - I learned recently that she thought of our home as a dumpster, and she wasn't wrong - but in general, we lived in filth and ate ready-made microwave meals. As an aside, I had gallstones at age 16, having my entire gallbladder removed as the problems were so advanced... that shows just how bad things were. I also have fillings in every tooth. After my mother's death, my sister and I moved in with our aunt and for the first time (I was 15) learned a few...

This is the yearly roundup post - as I've done almost every year for 2022 ,  2021 ,  2020 ,  2019 ,  2018 ,  2017 , 2016 seems to be skipped as I got to grips with mothering two little ones, and  2015 . 2023 was, for us, a year of highlights and milestones as well as getting on with life and growing.  Milestones This year, Mr. and I were married for the third (!) time, almost exactly ten years after we first tied the knot. Some of the background (and lots more pictures) about this is here  - in short, our three weddings were firstly the Register Office legal wedding that only Mr.'s parents attended as witnesses; secondly the church wedding at City Church where we invited everyone, also in 2013; and now, finally, following the annulment of Mr's previous marriages, we made our marriage sacramental by having it convalidated in the Catholic Church. 2023 was also the year that saw N(9)'s First Holy Communion. A beautiful celebration of her now being ol...

Since the kids were little, Advent has been a very special time filled with activities and traditions created intentionally. Here's what I wrote about it in 2019 and we still do all those things. My aim in choosing and creating traditions was to help the kids build anticipation over the season, focus on why we celebrate (it's Jesus' birthday!) and to try and take the focus away a bit from the receiving stuff to the idea of giving as well. Most of the things here we've been doing for years now, but this year for the first time we're doing a 'Jesse Tree' (going through the Bible leading up to the birth of Christ, one event at a time) as well. As every year, we have the obligatory chocolate advent calendars as well as an Advent Wreath with four candles on it. Every Sunday in Advent we light another one, so that we end up with four lit candles by Christmas. There's also the reuseable Advent Calendar which has an 'activity' card in it every day (pr...