Just reading

and so quiet

diversions and evasion

or where I've been and what I've been thinking about instead of writing my essay

the gorgeous gingermelon on etsy how could you not want to make one of these cuties

Annis bought me a ring from silk purse sow's ear and my son recently bought one for his girlfriend for valentine's day and now she's tempting me with another!

and I just love this fabric from fabric rehab, the pots remind me of some childhood cups and bowls

oh and flickr, just look at the beauty of these valentine cookies from freestyle girl's photostream

I hope you are all diverting yourselves in such lovely ways today

hmm perhaps I could do some baking, after all I've written 1061 of the 4000 words...

books and books and more books

Reading is just about all that's happening in our house at the moment.  The weather has turned grey and cold so all we want to do is snuggle up and read

I should be writing an essay on Orlando but instead got caught up in Hermione Lee's biography of her. 

This is our book club book.  The children voted to have book club once a fortnight so I tend to read the book to them, otherwise we would have to get two copies.  And I am enjoying this one.

Annis is reading the time wreccas which she has just started and says 'it's funny and I like the names of the characters, snot and scratch and killjoy'.  Ours is a library copy, for some reason the copies I found on the internet are hugely expensive but maybe it's awaiting a print run.

Teague who cannot be photographed is reading Clive Cussler The Chase which is an adult's detective story set in 1906.  He really likes the historical aspect of it and finds it exciting. 

Did I miss two days?  So early in February?  Hmmm I think so.

New Books

Today our new books arrived from amazon. 

I had seen these books several times over the last year on Angry chicken.  She uses them as starters for enviable home ed projects.  So, in need of a kick start, we ordered four of them last week.  They are suited to younger children, my ten year old is happily reading them.  There is a lot of information in them and they do make a good starting point for a project.  We just ordered the non fiction books, we didn't bother with the story books as they seemed a bit too young.

I let Annis choose three of them, she has a fascination for ancient cultures, especially the Egyptians, so we went for Romans, Greeks and Egyptians.  I also ordered Leonardo da Vinci for my son who doesnt' like to read, the language is quite young but the information is interesting.  Some good comparisons of Leonardo's inventions with modern equivalents.  I'll post more as we work through them and create our projects.

A day late!

but with good reason, the poorly blanket has had to come out

this scruffy merino and blue faced leicester slightly felted, well worn, well loved blanket is a sample of my distant spinning.  I have friends who can spin a kilo of aran weight to make a jumper, I only make blankets or throws because there is no consistency to my spinning.  It has a home made quality to it!

a (bad) picture of my lovely, and very old, ashford wheel, as proof of my spinning past.  In fact I even belong to a spinning group, we don't actually spin anymore, we knit instead and I sometimes embroider but we still call it our spinning group so ssshhhh don't tell anyone we're not spinning!

but back to the blanket and my missed post yesterday, there is a little child under the blanket who was feeling very sorry for herself and distracted me away from the computer yesterday.  She is still feeling sorry for herself this morning and has got out of bed to lie back down on the sofa under the poorly blanket.  After all, how would I know she was poorly if she wasn't under the poorly blanket?

A bit of late night art

just when I thought we weren't going to have a picture for today a sudden late night art attack created three

sports night

badminton night for the younger ones and J which means 'being human' for the teen and me

New hairslides

Gorgeous gorgeous hairslides from supercutetilly She photographs them so much better than we have this morning here on her totally gorgeous blog

beach golf and a February plan

What else to do on a cold bright winter's day but play beach golf?

This may look like golf tuition but that well wrapped up adult in the picture hasn't got a clue

 

Requirements: one very large, very very empty beach.  We chose Mexico (because it has such a romantic name)

and icicles on the beach

and the bluest sky ever

but it was so very very very cold

a view of Godrevy lighthouse (well, just about)

more strange and wonderful rock formations

and the plan

For the month of February I will try (very hard) to put one photo on a day with just a sentence as a record of our home ed life.

The coloured cave

My blogging has been a little sparse recently, not least because we keep forgetting to take a camera out on these beautiful sunny but cold days.  So we have been out for walks in the cold and drinking lots of hot chocolate (on occasion laced with brandy)

This weekend we were lucky enough to be offered a guided walk to the coloured cave at Cape Cornwall.  I say walk it was actually a boulder clamber.  This was quite a feat as I am not known for my bouldering skills, but it was worth it when we saw the cave.

Unfortunately the camera didn't capture the subtler pinks further in but it is amazing.  The colours are simply from the minerals in the constantly dripping water

It really looked as though someone had painted the walls.  Well worth the clamber.  I hope you had a beautiful weekend too.

winter walking

A sort of new year's resolution, not set in stone or anything, was to walk more often because we have gotten out of the habit of walking.  We decided a grey, possibly rainy day was not a good enough excuse to stay indoors all day

Do we look cheery in the cold?  And look at all those other walkers with good intentions!  It's surprising how many people you bump into on January beach walks.  Maybe we're all starting to feel a little claustrophobic.

Well the children are always cheery once we get out, and always find something to do

jumping rivers is always fun

and we even managed to drag a teen out with us.  Now I'm glad we forced ourselves, because sometimes it really is a case of forcing ourselves it only takes one or two dissenters to weaken our resolve.  The last couple of days have been truly horrible weather but it's nice to use them to do some indoor things, maybe even some education!!!

winter surfing

It seems strange to me that just when it's cold enough to wear all our clothes, scarves,hats,gloves...

all some people want to do is get in the sea

and so the magical moment of father and son body boarding together

winter beaching