Never At Home Education Part 3 (I think - I don't do maths..... sshhhh )

A week in the life of.....


Last Friday. The courtesy go-kart's power-steering started working again. Hooray for an easier drive down to Hastings than it was for the previous night's wrenching down from Gillingham. Just £3 for 24 hours parking right on the seafront. Words, breath, thoughts blown away by bracing (fucking bracing) British coastal winds. A bun shop widow of pure dribbling delight. Bags of buns procured. Cosy little cinema with lush red flippy seats. Taken over by a horde of Home Ed vagrants. Table suddenly covered in cakes, crisps, biscuits and .... special salmon fried rice to die for - who brought that? Lots of MmmmMMmmmMMMMMmmmming. 'Oh T you're SO lucky!' 'Oh yeah everybody loves his cooking! Noone loves my hoovering, tidying, washing do they?' True. Bless her. But it was bloody delicious. The Thief Lord thoroughly enjoyed by little thief lords and ladies. Fancy dress basket discovered, raided, trashed. Fancy dress dancing 'til it was time to be thrown down the stairs back onto the street. Remains of the table top falling out of backpacks all the way back down to the beach. Chips. Shivering. Slabs of something very very sweet. Cold bottoms. Stones with holes in 'em. Shoes with holes in 'em. Wind-blasted faces. Gangs of rioters. Very very sweet ones. Back in the car. Wet trousers. Pink faces. Cold chips and extra body-weight of flotsam. A good day. And Daddy did the evening football run. Even better.


Saturday. Pick up Minx's chum. Raucous fun. Tiger Shark Boy back from football. Mud-splattered superstar. Man of the Match this week? Ah well.... Can't hog the limelight every week eh? Think that sea air still in my veins. Hide upstairs and pass out. Dance moves. Plots and plans. Unbelievable noise level. Daddy trips up the step and drops Minx's dinner all over the floor. She doesn't see the funny side of it. Everyone else does. Greater unbelievable noise levels. Hide downstairs and pass out. A bit of a day.


Sunday. Back on the beach. Brighton this time. Had done the chips on the walk down from the mind-fuck car park to see Holiday On Ice with big 2 and chum. Lots of 'Ooh' and 'Aah' and 'Where's the Starbursts?' Wonderful show but well..... maybe not as jaw-droppy as last year. At least I didn't cry this time. Still - cool stuff. Ice is cool right? Then back in the smackness of the coastal breeze. Donuts, candyfloss..... Stones with holes in 'em. In between the piers. Amazing light. May as well have pissed into the wind as suggested time to go home. May as well give in and watch the sunset. Seems like all the birds in Britain have gathered for the ritual too. Stunning swooping displays. One minute like flung pepper in the sky and the next they're water-skiing at the speed of fright. (Mine.) Realising I'm not the only one here facing this direction with my phone camera aloft. Even the kids have stopped jumping the waves and are doing the same. When the sun finally flops into the sea there's a round of applause. Looking around me I spot lots of happy daydreamers starting to shift. There's a shared sense of lazy achievement. Glad we all stopped for a bit. Minx bounds up and says the birds over the old pier are 'like pepper in the sky'. I do 'Wow - that was exactly what I said to myself!' 'Well, I am your daughter.' The pier that still beats is all lit up now. But we're still not going on the amusements. No. I said No. Come along. Got a long drive...... And a long queue at the mind-fuck car park to pay £11 for our dalliance. It would only really take 20 minutes to get home - if it wasn't Brighton with it's Sunday evening home-time traffic, but due to courtesy go-kartage I have to go home via Edenbridge 'cos I can't fit Minx's chum in the car in the morning. I expect the coach-load from Gillingham got home hours earlier. But she gives me a box of seashells chocolates to say thank you. She's 12! Not only does she speak to me - she gives me chocolates! A big day.


Monday. Tunbridge Wells. Gymnastics and more chips in the park. Lots of kid politics tho'. Lots of adult wonderings. Discussions. No solutions. Finally decide that sod 'em - they'll have to all work it out for themselves. Another tea? More streetdance moves decided and practised. The crew's name changed from Sunday night's decision. Who's in the crew? Politics and dancing. Tiger Shark Boy scoots off for a sleepover. My car's ready to pick up from the garage - yay! I send the man to do it. Remove layers of Starburst wrappers first. 2-way texting with sleepover household. They're all watching Streetdance 3D (but without the 3D 'cos it's useless) while we catch up on the first Got To Dance semi-final. Seriously dancing obsessed our lot. Tiger Shark Boy homesick. Awww..... 'What's your postcode?' text. I tap it back but protest that I really ought to do the getting - and also our house is invisible. Noone ever finds us. Text beep. TSBoy's chum's dad only used to work with the chap who used to live in our house. 'We know where you live!' Freaky! Interesting day.


Tuesday. A day off! A what? We've switched skating to Wednesdays. This does leave Tuesdays vunerable. Could bomb down to the forest for a wild gathering. But it's a day off! Gingerbread. Robots. Chinese lantern? It's a day OFF - put that DVD on. All the seashell chocolates have been devoured. But - what a result - the trays from the box are sturdy and now we have seashell moulds to make MORE chocolates! Go shopping. Buy chocolate. And needles! Hooray! Achieveful day.


Wednesday. Gillingham. Crack of dawn ice-skating lark. Buy thermals. No Streetdancing this week. Running fortnightly now to ease the general Home Ed purse but now we have such a huge crowd - not sure if this discipline will hold out. We're all howling to get back on the floor. Can't get enough. However, back home - conk out on settee. Dance in my dozing. Clattery noises in kitchen. Run away upstairs. Dig out pictures of WWII from photo books. End up reading them. Reading in the daytime? Outrageous. Hiding place discovered by beautiful mermaid bearing seashell chocolates. Yes! Suddenly remembered I'm supposed to be knocking up a roast tonight. More gravy adventures. If something that doesn't move can be classed as adventurous. Start sewing a new needle case stupidly late at night. Channel 4 on low - discover a new band. I must remember to look them up on YouTube. The Go Team. Sound fun. A long day.


Thursday. Tun Wells again. Drop off big 2 at the theatre for Horrible Histories - The Rotten Romans. Swamped by schools parties being ordered to stay in their crocodile. Scruffy Home Ed gang in the middle. Kids 'hanging'. Adults clutching take-away tea. Then I bomb over to a bang-tastic percussion concert with the small 2. Another sea of schools parties. Another tea-clutching/rabble babble Home Ed oasis. The chap who does all the talky bits does his best in the face of this unruly sect. He asks all the kids in the room how many times do their teachers tell them to listen. 'Never!' we all yell. 'Millions I hear you say' he replies to the uniformed ones. Later he addresses all the adults - who might not like things to be so noisy. 'Nah we love racket!' Bless him. He did very well. Look up O Duo (www.oduo.co.uk) - they were blinkin' brilliant. Dive into the sweet shop for change to top up the car park. Wouldn't give me much change tho'. Need to time this exercise to nearest second. WWII reference book snatch at the library. Over to car park. Up 3 flights. Come on! 'Can I press the green button?' 'Can I take the ticket out?' 'Can I put the money in?' 'Hang on! Not yet! NOT YET!! Now! NOW!!' Dump books. Down 3 flights. Hurry up. Back to the theatre for the next show with full compliment of sproglets. Horrible Histories - The Awful Egyptians. And a well-earned little kip for me. May I add I wasn't the only one. Run baby run back to the car........ and no parking fine for overdueness. Phew. Extra chum back again. No ice skating tonight tho'. Knee injury. Should be sympathetic but inside my head the world cheers. More dance moves worked out however. Hoping the ceiling will hold. A busy day.


Friday. Drop Minx and chum back over there (Edenbridge) in time for bus to somewhere else (Rotherfield). Suddenly find 2 hours to kill before more gymnastics (East Grinstead). Or....we could be really really early for a change? Nah. Hobbycraft (Copthorne). Lots of tutting at prices. Lots of debates. Find a clearance bin. In Hobbycraft? All hands on deck to carry as many A1 sheets of watercolour paper and tracing paper for 29p each. Perfect for next Monday's WWII collage gig. And big bag of non-air drying clay. It's clay right? It dries. In air. It's cheaper than air-drying clay. Wot's the problem? Cough medicine. For Tiger Shark Boy's viral-related asthma-like cough thing. A regular event. He doesn't have asthma. But when he gets a cold he gets The Cough - which doctors always say is asthma. The inhaler does help tho'. But when he hasn't got The Cough, he doesn't cough. Or wheeze. I once asked to go along the our doc's asthma clinic. 20 questions. Answered NO to all of them except just one. 'Does he cough after running around?' 'No. Except when he's had a cold and he gets The Cough.' 'Oh classic sign of aasthma. Next!' Anyway - just as I'd agreed to the suggested cough medicine in Boots today the assistant adds 'As long as he's not got asthma'. 'Funny you should say that..... why?' 'Cos if he takes a cough suppressant and then has an asthma attack he won't be able to fight it off' 'Do what?' We had a nice chat about it - she has an allergic-related asthma so knew her onions. No doctor's ever told me about cough medicines being cough 'suppressants'. Weird. I only buy them as a psychological tool anyway. I thought coughing was the body's way of getting rid of the problem, and that the medicines were just to ease the throat or something. Well.... bought a blackcurrant linctus with no child-proof cap. Thank god. Always have to get the children to take them off for me anyway. Gym done but skipping football tonight. Back home my beans-ful Tiger Shark Boy goes downhill. Duvet, cuddling and animal programmes on telly. And again I conk out on the settee. Wake up to see a vision of Roman romance - or Mr Roving Blade in a towel - asking if I want his water. A sleep and a bath? And a take away! Not to mention a little sauce later. The gods must be smiling. Apart from the soundtrack of my poor boy's barking. A mixed day.


A typical week?


Pretty much. Actually didn't do all our usuals. Coughs, injuries, keeping knowledge of certain events to myself...... Already thinking I'd better remember more To-Bake Baguettes for list of to-do's for next week. 'Cept I always bring most of it home again. Usually just find chips somewhere. There was a request on our e-mail list thing recently about sources of good materials. 'Save your wallet for the cafes' I replied. Should have added 'and car parks'. And plasters.... And diesel......


And garage bills.


And tomorrow? Back in TW. Chinese New Year lantern-making. And samba shaker-making? Under The Sea theme for The Year of the Rabbit? Don't look too closely. Don't do thinking. Just go along for the ride....... Shame that Lantern Parades necessarily require darkness. By then I'll definitely have Homing Pigeon Head and be craving Primeval. At least no football for The Cough Boy in the morning. A lie in!!!!



Mmmnnn bed....... I really ought to hit the pillows and get some proper night-time sleep stuff. Little wonder I'm always nodding off in the daytime. This blogging business is almost as obsessive as the kids' dancing. Just thought I'd escape my latterly Me-Me-Me-Moaning and go back to logging the kids' up-tos. The reason I started this blog in the first place. Trouble is - ramble bambling on and on and on........ Well - you don't have to read it....... I don't want to. Just gonna hit that ol' Publish button and move along....



Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz............