Wymondly Woods

I've just got back from a late evening walk through Wymondly Woods. We went there earlier and had a really lovely time, it was the 2nd time I've been there and it's my new favourite place. We saw lots of wildlife but we wanted to come back in the evening to see if we could see any birds. So we went out at a quarter to nine, there was Jamie in her pajamas and the both of them climbing up trees in the dark! we saw the sun setting over the fields and the moon rising. It was really nice. One day I want to walk there from my house, I want to explore the whole area.

 that's an awful photo of a Cinnabar caterpillar 

but my phone died before I could get a better pic :(

The paddling pool in the garden was put to good use this afternoon, the sun had been warming the water up all day and Alex put the slide in it so they had great fun making the biggest splashes possible.

I caught a real nice bit of spontaneous unschooling on video earlier, when I get the card reader through (where is it!!) I'll stick it on, in fact, I've got quite a lot of photos to stick on too!

 Everything is changing. My families life I mean. I'm having to really re-organise everything (not that I was ever organised but you know what I mean!) I thought I was Home schooling before, but I really wasn't and I didn't realise how much I wasn't because I was still tied to school. It's going to take a while for me to get my head around that, especially as it's the summer holidays.

There's the whole gardening business thingy going on, David is having to work ALL the time, he got 3 new customers this evening! I don't know what to do when he can't fit them in at the weekend, he says he will have to work in the evenings too!!

I have taken it upon myself to put my whole family on a vegetarian diet! I'd been thinking about it for ages, and SOOO many times Alex or Jamie would see animals that are going to be eaten (like if we're watching Countyfile or something) and they would complain saying that people shouldn't eat animals - whilst simultaneously eating beef curry or something- and I just decided that we are going to have to try it. I will leave eating meat for them to decide for themselves, rather than me just serving it up for them, and this way, by finding lots of tasty meat-free meals, they'll know that food is good without the meat, instead of it being the norm to have meat all the time.

The dynamics at home are changing, if left on their own, Alex and Jamie soon get into a huge fight,
I had a little talk with them both, explaining to Jamie about Alex getting upset when his routine is changed, and having her there has changed it, that may be why he's being...difficult...and it's going to take a while for things to settle down. I know it's very early days, the changes are effecting everyone, but I hope it doesn't take too long. Also I'm having a weird time too, after all the madness of Jamies last week ever at school, it's all over suddenly and I need to adjust as well.

I think this week, and maybe next week too should be a time of chilling out, letting it all subside, we're like newly bought tropical fish, waiting in our little bags in the new big tank....we need a while to acclimatise!

And I'm going to have to restore some order in this family, it's all over the place at the moment and it really does my head in. I know we're unschooling, but when things get crazy, someone needs to step in! I need a bit of routine and structure, not the education side to it, but the running of things, I need it to keep sane.

And I also need to get myself some me time. A lovely of friend of mine has pointed out to me that I don't actually get any time for myself, so I need to really sort that out.



OK, I'm off, I'll get half an hours chillout time before bed!