In At The Deep End

Yesterday, after a later start than we’d hoped, we just squeezed in to the post office depot to pick up some undelivered parcels. Some lunch bits from Sainsbury’s included some experimental wasabi and soy almonds, which were Marmite-like in their splitting of people who liked them (me, K and L) from those who didn’t (Katy and J) and those too young to eat nuts (A).

Then back to where we used to live for a Winter Festival. Definitely not a Christmas Festival as it was in the most cosmopolitan and eclectic part - one long street with Korean, Indian, French, Brazilian, etc. shops on it. The mosque’s off a side road, and was having an open day as part of the festival. It was great - they gave a tour and explained what they did, when and how. I hadn’t realised that the times of day for the prayers were based on daylight, so vary by time of year and where you are in the world. They were serving tea and biscuits, so was just like church :). They also had English books - so we went home with the Quran, and a book on prayer and another on the principles of Islam. L got her face painted (which for her always means a butterfly) and K got a spider on his hand.

There were some rather cold (female) morris dancers outside the old people’s home, the health food shop served some reviving food, and a food market from local suppliers. J had missed out on the face painting at the mosque by leaving it too long to say he wanted something, but an Asian-run mini-supermarket was doing henna tattoos, and so he got a nice design on the back of his hand.

It was a lovely event in a great area, although if we wanted to live there we could afford a rabbit hutch with a tiny garden and no parking. Tesco wants to move there and it’s exactly the wrong kind of shop for there. Many of the locals have organised opposition, and quite right too.

Another late start this morning - don’t all parents make their children eat their porridge in the car? Back to the previous place again, for a family service. Then we zoomed to another church for the B-a-r Christmas party. We’ve been going there on and off since J was little and it’s a very nice place, where the vicar and his wife care a lot and they and their army of staff and volunteers always have excellent parties with excellent food for summer and Christmas. More face painting - another butterfly for L, a tiger for K (his usual) and J turned into Harry Potter (very simple but very effective).

Once we’d got back, the children wanted to decorate the tree. I think they got the “wrapped him in swaddling bands” a bit wrong and so strapped the poor tree’s branches to the trunk with all the tinsel and baubles. Katy has had the idea of tackling J’s occasional bad attitude to work and the computer in one go - now people earn marbles through work, then redeem them for computer time. Work done grumpily earns fewer marbles than work done willingly. This seems to be doing some good, but it’s early days.

At tea we discovered that L hoovers up semolina as fast as she can porridge - faster than the boys by far. K learned a minor life skill - he saw the mushrooms that we hadn’t put away and asked for one. Katy showed him how to peel them and so he peeled one and ate it raw like an apple (liking it even more than when they’re cooked).

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 2nd, 2007 at 11:07 pm and is filed under Home Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.