Vindolanda Roman Museum

We made an epic road trip to this place today.  Sometimes it is good to step outside of your box and do something radical :-)

 Car boot road stop lunch.

 We are here!

The 3-D film was really good.

 Our hologram teacher for the day!

 I look like I have fallen asleep but that is not the case!  Since we took part in a "lesson" the lovely lady at the front desk gave Pip a scroll poster as a memento of the day.

 Pip testing out her archery skills, she qualified for the job!

Examining the chain mail. 

 " I wonder how I'll fair ..."

" uh-oh looks like I'm also joining the Syrian archers!" 

We all really enjoyed the day but I'm ready for bed now for sure :-)

Sheffield :: Blackberry Cottage :: Weston Park Museum

On Friday 4th October we made a last minute trip to Sheffield to spend a few days with Sara.  We stayed at this place which although in the countryside was literally only fifteen minutes from the city centre and Sara's digs:

The view from our back door.

 

 

A kitchen you can eat in, yay!

 

 

View from the back of the house, it was actually warm enough on at least two days to sit outside and eat.

 

 

My knitting corner!

 

 

There was an interesting selection of books on the shelves, Dave read about "Bomber Command" and I loved the doors, even though the latch had been put on the wrong way round and the bathroom only locked from the outside!

 

 

The other side of the lounge ~ Pip found a Thomas railway in the cupboard upstairs and had great fun with it.

 

 

Two sinks!!!

 

 

Wet room area, I must admit I prefer a shower cubicle easier to clean and maintain.  I think there was a slight problem with the drainage and the water collected in pools and took a little while to drain away.

 

 

The main bedroom, which was big enough for Pip too, hence her trundle mattress leaning against the wardrobe.  Pip loved the rocking horse which you can just see in the foreground.

 

 

Benedict's room, which was at the front of the house and level with the road, even though it was upstairs in the house!

 

 

On the Saturday whilst Sara was on a training day we pottered around at home and I managed to catch up on her laundry!  She isn't lazy but it costs £2.50 per wash in halls but naturally the washer and dryer at the cottage were free!  Once she had finished for the day, we collected her from halls and she slept on the put you up in Benedict's room and in all stopped with us for three nights.

 

On the Sunday, Sara, Pip, Benedict and myself made a trip into the centre as she had to buy some equipment for a site survey to be conducted on the following day.  We had a welcome sit down and rest in Costa before then catching the super tram home.  The kids loved their tram ride and some kindly male students gave up their seats so that the four of us could sit down.  It was appreciated.

 

On Monday whilst Sara was in afternoon lectures the four of us visited Weston Park Museum.  There was loads to see and do and most importantly entry was FREE!  I did however put a donation in the box as we were so impressed with all they had to offer.  We arrived at half past two and stayed until closing time at five and still didn't manage to see everything.  Benedict and Pip were totally engaged the whole time:

 

 

Rock Art.

 

 

Instead of making their own rock art the kids decide to make houses instead!

 

 

Textured art depicting rock stratification and archaeological finds.

 

 

Pip dressing up as a Saxon...

 

 

... and  she insisted I dress up as a Scullery Maid, I know my place!

 

 

Snowy the bear in "The arctic zone."  Pip wasn't so sure of him as she turned a corner and he was there!  He certainly made her jump but she warmed to him at the end of the visit.

 

 

They both had fun building an igloo using irregular shaped pieces of moulded plastic.

 

 

Just as we entered this space the voice over the loud speaker announced that the museum would close in ten minutes, so we just had time to strike a pose in front of this guy:

 

 

A good reason to visit again don't you think?!

 

 

We bade farewell to Sara on the Tuesday morning and had a rather eventful journey home!  Despite having eaten breakfast and a mid morning snack, Pip had a major meltdown in the car and upon checking her bloods with b's monitor she was having a really bad hypo!!!  It certainly explains her exhaustion and constant hunger and thirst these past few weeks. 

 

 To have a diagnosis of diabetes she needs to be running high, so I'm hoping that her symptoms are due to a massive growth spurt and not the start of something more sinister.  I am grateful for the monitor, because without it I might have thought she was being very badly behaved and might have challenged her as a result.  It has also enabled me to flag up the problem with school, so that if she does exhibit any whacky behaviour to not assume the worst and instead give her a drink of orange juice and a snack.

 

 

In short life has certainly been more challenging than usual and it has taken its toll on my mental health yet again, hence my absence from this place!  I know that looking at life through a lens can sometimes give an impression of everything being rosy and so I do try to be true to what is going on around me.  However there are times with the situation is so bad that having to write it all down, just drags me further into the mire and for that reason it is easier to be MIA.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 



Seven Days

Hmm, so blogger has decided that we all have to use the new updated editor, no democracy in this part of cyber space!  Ah well, it is free service so I shouldn't complain too much.

Another seven days has passed and we've had stress, sadness and continued sickness at this end, but have managed to still keep up with bits of home school and other activities.

Face painting fun.

Flower Girl.

Edible Science.

Yep that is green coloured cake mix!

Sedimentary Cupcakes!

The original edible science recipe called for crushed biscuits dyed with food colouring and sandwiched together using a "mud" of butter and syrup.  Not good with a diabetic kid thrown into the mix so I decided to make our usual low sugar cake mix and then colour with green, red and yellow food colouring.  Each layer contained chocolate chips representing fossilised animals.  I must admit the colour combo looked ghastly so we topped each cake with a little buttercream and a few chocolate chips for good measure!

A cross section... in culinary terms it was a spectacular failure!!  I think I either overbeat the mix when adding the colouring or added to much xantham gum, sometimes gluten free flour can be quite tricky... well that's my excuse anyway.  However in geological terms it really did resemble a rock strata, so yay for that!

Friday was our once a month forest school meet.  I woke that morning and truly did not want to go as I felt so unwell, but the look on the kids faces when greeted with that news was pitiful, so armed with a heat pack and painkillers we made the journey.  I'm so glad that Dave does the driving on the days out for if it was solely down to me, we wouldn't venture beyond our backdoor!

At the visitor centre.

Pip waiting whilst the adults ponder the sudden downpour and hailstones raging outside.  In short typical British weather!

Den building an absolute must given the very changeable weather.

Making wood necklaces using Elder bark. 

Prior to this shot Pip had been a scamp and charged past the tree boundary!  This girl is amazingly fast on her feet and her ancient mother sadly is not. This is not the first time I've called on her Guardian Angel to intervene, especially since she was some way ahead of me and to the right of us both was a very large lake!  She did eventually stop and was very remorseful, I however vacillated between relief and anger, so I was very glad when the craft activity appeared.

Whittling sticks ready for marshmallow toasting.

On Saturday Benedict attended a day cub camp and for the first time ever it was without either Dave or me shadowing him, hurrah!  He was in a "nag free zone!" and Dave and I trawled through months of paperwork and other boring yet necessary activities.

Free Time Fun.

Playing Capture The Flag.

On the way home to bed.

Creative Chaos.

Not wishing to miss out on the fun, Sara and Pip spent some time creating this colourful display using fabric crayons.  The design was fixed using an old sheet to protect the art work and then ironed.  The fabric was an old white pillowcase which I think will be turned into a toy sack by running a casing around the top and then a drawcord through the channel.

We are still in the process of final fixing re the building work and Dave has patiently trawled through several hundred photgraphs to bring you a very small snapshot of the work involved.  I've limited him to a two part blog post containing no more than ten photgraphs per post!  Wouldn't want to bore you rigid!!

We've made some solid progress in the homeschool department.  We've begun our narration on the book "Leif the Lucky" and Benedict drew a lovely opening picture for our work.  He worked hard with Shein this morning and after lunch he chose a lesson to complete from his workbook "Responsibilities For Boys."  The chosen lesson involved making a chore chart and so we first of all brainstormed the types of jobs done throughout the house and then narrowed it down to five easily achievable tasks on a daily basis, with one weekly chore to be completed on a weekend.  He had fun decorating his work with mini drawings, so all in all a good day.

We had hoped to visit the National Railway Museum at York with friends tomorrow but my health is not up for that, so instead we'll visit them at their house.  We all get on really well and S has offered to make a warming leek and potato soup, goodness knows it is needed in this cold wintery like weather.

An Interesting Week

We've had lap top failure so I'm writing this on Sara's computer whilst ours is hopefully being fixed.

Our trip to the MOSI inspired some independent learning and Benedict followed the instructions to make a home made rocket from the blast lab book:

Despite Benedict following all the instructions correctly we had an issue with the bottle nozzle and the darn thing would not launch!!  I did tell him that I'm sure NASA have plenty of technical hitches too.  Dave is determined not to let the whole thing defeat either him or Benedict so they're hoping for a re-launch sometime soon.

I managed to sort and tidy my work room in the loft.  I cleared extraneous paper work and have filled two boxes of old tapes and videos for the charity shop.  I've shoved all our home ed stuff  up there too as both Benedict and I are heartily sick of the daily battles regarding desk work.  I'm hoping that some time away from the desk and instead contact with other families will renew our spirits and help us plan a realistic workable rhythm. 

 I also managed to finish some knitting for a blogging mum over on here:

Amongst Lovely Things

When I first began our home ed journey two years ago this kind hearted gal sent me a copy of Elizabeth Foss' book " Real Learning - Education in The Heart of The Home."  My knitting for her new babe was my way of saying an extra thank you for her original act of kindness.  Her parcel was sent last week and contained the following items:

Baby Boheme.

Baby Bonnet and Socks.

  Last Friday we finally met with a decent bunch of home edding mums.  We attended Forest School at Bolton Environment Resource Centre and apart from initially getting lost a great time was had by all.

Den Building with The Boys.

Hammock Fun.

A Short Journey Back To The Centre.

We had a fairly quiet weekend and Mother's Day which was nice although I'm sure in the past Mothering Sunday shared the feast of Laetare Sunday, which in fact would have been this weekend coming.

Monday was a little bit more adventurous.  Benedict succumbed to a nasty stomach bug, his pump went hay wire and he was producing massive ketones in his blood.  I rang the hospital twice and in a last ditch attempt to sort things I completely changed his insulin line and gave an emergency injection.  It was a very nervous two hour wait but thankfully his bloods came down and slowly the ketones were flushed out of his system.  It was only later in the evening that I fully realised the enormity of it all and experienced an attack of the shakes!

Pip has been with another minder this week as Debbie's youngest has been really with a week long gastric bug.  She's been to toddler group and had fun this morning at "The Tractor Place."

Benedict worked really hard with Shein yesterday completing several pages of Maths and English.  He had tea with her too and loved spending his time with Sam, another boy she also helps.  Both lads are Lego mad so many models were made during their time together. 

 Benedict was also very brave as we had to fit the continuous glucose monitor yesterday lunch and this involved shooting in a two inch needle on a forty five degree angle just under the skin.  Some folks use the stomach area but B is stick thin, so the top of the buttock is generally used in paediatrics.  Despite spraying the whole area with anaesthetic spray he still understandably yelped.

Today has been a garden and errand day.  I've managed to dry two loads of washing on the line and baked to cakes, some meringues and other goodies from the kitchen.  We've made contact with another home ed family forty minutes north of our home and have arranged to visit with then tomorrow.  We initially made contact with them over a year ago when we were attending a group in Cumbria.  Sadly the group meetings did not work out for us and so we lost touch.  It was through a recent posting I made on the Green Parent forum, where our contact was made, so thank God for cyber space I say!!  The mum is lovely and she has two kids, a boy near Benedict's age and a girl a little bit younger than Pip. 

Here's hoping for a sunshiney day tomorrow!