What we have been doing...

Seems ages since posting last, so here's a quick round-up of what we have been doing! (In no particular order)

Out to use my new National Trust membership that I received for my birthday... We visited Dudmaston Estate. Lovely house, stunning gardens!




Yummy home-made smoothies... digging for dinosaur bones... gorgeous magnolia tree in neighbour's garden.





















A visit to the county museum - Hartlebury Castle. Lovely place, lots of history.

Old School room

A toy merry-go-round, that a middle class family would have had in the nursery... Bubbles and Spike wished it was in THEIR 'nursery'!

Out to a walk in the woods where the moat and coppice used to be, along with an old 'ice house'; and we found carpets of celandines.

Birds in tree (Bubbles' photo contribution)

"Mistletoe tree"... This is the first year I've ever seen or noticed Mistletoe growing! And this is the closest I've got to it. Fascinating stuff. Obviously, it's not a Mistletoe 'tree' as such, but a host tree that the Mistletoe is growing on... just needed to clear that up!

Ahhh... lambs...

School and Sience experiments - celery in food colouring... only we chose blue and green colouring instead of something bright like red... so it was hard to see that the colouring had worked it's way to the leaves! Duh! We'll remember next time!

Canada Geese on the Severn River outside Tesco.










When going out one day, Bubbles noticed this bug on the porch window, which she decided to name the 'T Bug'... I have no idea what it is, and must look up about it, but I've never seen one before!



I've also been busy organising myself! This is the less 'fun' side of what we've been up to!

I have been taking a fresh look at our 'school' and have decided to revamp our work and follow (to a large degree, though not totally strictly) Ambleside Online. I've plumped to work Bubbles & Spike through AO Year 1 together to start with, but in a period of 18 weeks rather than the said 36... it's perfectly manageable, and will give us a good grounding... then if we decide to split into 2 different levels we can next year. I have always like the Charlotte Mason style of education, and this 'curriculum' is entirely free (except you have to purchase the books needed) and where possible, it gives links to the books that can be read online without the need to purchase. I suppose that in many ways, I'm changing because we're now going to be having 'inspections' from the local authority... but I think this will be a good schedule for us to follow, and should help tie up all our loose ends... which weren't really loose, but a bit straggly looking!

I've also been thinking about the possible up-coming (though not pressingly urgent) need for me to work in the nearish future... and considering what I might be able to do. After initially tucking the thought to the back of my mind, filing it under 'can't cope with that thought right now', I decided to revisit it... My musings have led me to enrol on a course at the Home Learning College - the ICB Practical Book-keeping course. At worst, it should give me a good qualification; at best it might offer me the ability to work from home! Let's hope it's not too hard to master! It's always a little daunting starting to study again, and I'm aready worrying about the end of course exam, but maybe it won't be so bad!

Finally, I've been trying to get to grips with some sort of budget again... it's not all grim, and we've been doing a lot better since moving closer to amenities and using foot more than car, for example... but it would be nice to be able to see the credit card balance going down a bit, instead of throwing money at something that seems to stay static! I guess that's the price one pays for having used such a card (and not had the ability to pay off the balance) and a norm in the society we live in, where it doesn't seem to matter if you don't have the money, you can still have whatever you want at the click of a button... we live and learn... hopefully the kids will do better than I have when they grow up!

Been having fun on the Wii Fit too, despite all the serious stuff I've been up to... sorry, NO chance of a photo of me hula-hooping Shauna! It IS hilarious... but *not* something to be photographed! I have been frustrated at the moment by the simple balance game of trying to guide myself in a bubble down a river... I keep getting popped just before the finish - how annoying is that! And worse, it then describes me a 'unbalanced'!!