A silly carrot, I mean nut, and ramblings...

Well, I'm feeling the need to blog, but I'm not sure what about yet, so I'll just see what ramblings come to me. I'm loading some digital photos onto the computer, so they will remind me of all that's been happening over the last few days. It's 8pm on Sunday evening, Luke is asleep, Sam is taking a shower ready for school in the morning, and Jude is getting ready for bed. Steve is tidying the garden or something, I'm not sure. He never sits down.

Tomorrow is the start of Sam's first proper week of school. Friday was more of an induction day, but this week he will really get to see what high school is all about. He didn't seem overly enthusiastic about the place when he came home on Friday. The most exciting thing that happened was that the till in the cafeteria wasn't working so they all got a free lunch! I'm remembering today what it was like in the days when both Sam and Jude went to school. That Sunday evening check list of 'are the uniforms clean and ironed?', 'is the homework all done?', 'are there forms to be filled in?', 'do the kids need a shower or bath?' Sunday evenings in the home educating family are usually pretty laid back. Tomorrow Jude starts some more formal work. I haven't asked her to do anything over the summer holidays. She hasn't even practiced the piano. She is starting on some new books this year, and continuing with some old ones too. The new books are Madam How and Lady Why, It couldn't just happen: fascinating facts about Gods world and Kon Tiki, Across the Pacific by Raft. I have no idea yet if these new books are any good, but we'll soon find out. They were, of course, recommended on the Ambleside Online Curriculum, so I didn't just pluck them out of thin air!

I've just loaded on the photos and they have jogged my memory a bit about our weekend.Today Steve and Luke dug up the first carrot from our veggie plot. They aren't really ready to be harvested yet, as they have a bit more growing to do. But once Steve discovered that there were actually carrots growing under those 3ft tall green grassy carrot tops, he could not resist to pick one. Then he insisted, like a child, to have his photo taken with it, for the blog, as if he was the one who actually planted it, watered it, fed it, weeded it and cared for it. So here is his special photo of our first carrot.

And here is a cute photo of one of our glorious sunflowers, in bloom.

Steve took this photo of Sam, Jude and Luke on Friday morning, before Sam left for school. Doesn't he look smart in his uniform? Luke was so excited about it. He asked me "can i go to school too?" I explained that he couldn't, so he asked "why? Are they shooting there?" What a strange question, I thought. Then I realised he must have been thinking about archery, where he can't go because they shoot arrows. Then he told me that they read lots of books at school. He must have decided that from the amount of reading both kids did as part of their home education, when they would tell Luke "shhh, I'm doing my school work".

Sam took it upon himself on Saturday morning to draw a picture of our house. I thought he looked so studious and artistic sitting in a chair on the lawn, with his paper, pens and an umbrella to shield his artwork from the drizzle, that I had to take a photo. It was a very good picture and if I find it I will scan it to put on the blog tomorrow.

Oh yes, last night we were invited to Mum's friends house for a lovely dinner of curry and rice. They are the family who own the dog Diamond, that we cared for. The food was lovely, and Mum cooked a scrumptious apple and blackberry crumble for pudding. Oh boy. The kids were well behaved, and even Luke managed to be good natured and charming until almost 10pm when he decided he needed to go to bed.

I found a blogring devoted to International Adoption, and read some blogs that really pulled on my heart strings. Oh I better not start blogging about that now or I'll be here all night.

Well, I'm off to bed myself now. It is 10.15 pm, despite me starting this blog at 8pm. Blogger wouldn't upload my photos and I got cheesed off and left it. Then I came upstairs to do some yoga (that's another story for another time) and got lured into the computer room (the way Steve does when he goes past a Chinese restaurant) and low and behold, blogger was working again. So here I am. And now I've gone.