yellow and blue

I’m not actually trying to appeal to an entirely new demographic (three year old boys) but I like the contrasts here; well I like the colors, the conflicting realities of the situation are not quite so pleasing. Wind turbines are great but lovely trees being destroyed to make way for them seems an ironic destruction. Miles of track has been widened to let the much larger crane in and many very large Scots Pines have had chunks carved out of them… *primal urge to protect trees kicks in, glares at digger*

resuming pretty colors…

big digger

dig

The picture does not convey quite how large and deep that hole is – if you fall in there you’re not coming out!

hmm... would quite like a go, actually... no tree hurting obviously...

and because I love it, The JCB Song:

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I love it when I have a book that I’m enjoying so much I resent all other activities that take me away from it .  Things like housework, cooking, sleeping… ugh… website work, long walks and lovely trips out with friends are still good I did/do/will manipulate any conversation to a discussion about the books in question and the author though

Halfway through the second title in the Millennium trilogy with the aspergian character Lisbeth Salander. Long term readers of the blog will know that I do like writers who are saying stuff that needs to be said. Exposing the rot in the hope of helping clear it away. Here we have institutional abuse, sadistic bullying, violence against women and children and the compliance and ignorance of those around the situations against a very thrilling murder plot with corruption and political comment aplenty. Wonderfully recognised individuals. So exciting, I have to go…

Wiki on author Stieg Larsson

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The title of Ken Robinson’s new follow up talk to his wonderful Schools Kill Creativity one from 2006.

His book, The Element is also excellent

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There were swans on the loch yesterday

Had a lovely day with friends morphing into a very balletic afternoon which was great fun. It’s been wonderful rediscovering ballet being for enjoyment, rather than an eternal striving (not to mention starving) for perfection. Looked out the old class music etc. I have but it’s all on cassettes – technology moved on a bit fast for me there

Watched Fast Food Nation (quite good trailer there on amazon), fictional film based on the non-fiction book – strong stuff, a round of exploitation to go with the fries… good cast, making it very watchable though gradually more horrifying.

 

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more snow… some little bits I’ve been meaning to mention spread among the lovely signs of spring to come

Wayne Dyer’s new program: Excuses Begone! – been enjoying listening to that – he is always so motivational and uplifting.

The Bristol Dyslexia Centre has some interesting stuff on it’s site including some free educational games taken from the Nessy learning program.

Sensory Perceptual Issues in Autism and Asperger Syndrome: Different Sensory Experiences, Different Perceptual Worlds

Olga Bogdashina has written a wonderful book here – helpful in very practical ways and quite refreshingly non-patronising in it’s manner of looking at autism and the associated sensory and perceptual issues. There is evidence that these may be at the core of ASDs and what is actually physiological has been treated as purely psychological for far too long by the so called experts. A fascinating read

Amazon.co.uk  or  Amazon.com

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Have finally got the blog how I want it – a terrible tale of databases, installations of wordpress and corrupted (by me) css files ensued but I’ve now uploaded the archives (see drop down on sidebar) and cleaned up dead links too

Reading a book lent by my mum. She found it while scouring her shelves during the snow time (unable to get to a library) and thought it might actually be mine… can’t imagine why

Ivan Illich’s Deschooling Society is full of wonderful radical thoughts on education, reminds me a lot of Holt and Gatto. The previous owner has hardly left a page untouched, with highlighting and notes everywhere, which somehow makes reading it more interesting, an extra dimension, what someone else finds of import. I think he went a bit too far in sometimes underlining whole pages of text, but there we are

Enjoying Scotch Broth, not the most photogenic of soups but it tastes good:

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…with stories of a dinner lady sacked for telling the truth about bullying (I can vouch for such an act being akin to this, though stoning is done with tongues and a twisting of the truth these days in this country) and two policewomen being prevented from looking after each others children by Ofsted…

Worry no more! An article in the Guardian from 2007 gives an interesting insight into how children are prioritised in the household of Yvette Cooper (Childrens’ Secretary) and Ed Balls (Education Minister). So there we are, all is well… we can all go back to being

hmm… could blog mojo be returning?

NB: no offense was intended to sheep in this post. They are commonly misrepresented as being too stupid to think for themselves as is referenced above, but are actually rather good parents and beautiful creatures

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Very good weekend. Yesterday we watched the ceremony at the Cenotaph on TV – kids found it very interesting and insisted on continuing to listen to the rest of it on Radio 4 in the car on the way over to my Mum’s for lunch. Saw various war memorials with their new wreaths on the way. I have, in the past been guilty of a fair amount of cynicism about Remembrance Sunday and the real reasons for war. I retain it in part but you know it really doesn’t matter what one thinks about war in general or particular wars. Millions died, very young people witnessed and lived through horrors most of us can’t really conceive of… and it felt important to honour them. War discussion continued over lunch… various books brought out and mulled over, got on to the American civil war… Kids had a lesson from my Dad (have just had to enquire what it was about – such a bad parent, like expressing no interest when your kids come home from school!!) – it involved crystals, water and molecules. I knew there was a microscope out :) We played cards and behind the doors – I married Don Giovanni (lovely – watched a really good version on DVD the other night, great cast, no old and fat Don Giovannis).

…and here’s the lunch:

I am in the process of adding photos to recipes over on vegan family – back in 1999 when I first started on the site, there was no broadband and you really couldn’t be too picture intensive… so people are being prevented from eating while I take photos just now. Recipe written up here now with pics

Were all reading lots. Daniel is on 1984, The Cappuccino Years and a couple of books on languages from the library, one on hieroglyphs and one on world languages (he is the first person to check these out, brand new books). Charlotte found various Asterix titles she hadn’t read and is waiting to grasp TCY from Dan as soon as he’s finished (should be today) – she found a book on drawing fantasy figures too which seems really good. I have just finished Arthur and George, one of the best books I’ve read for ages, very moving, I really felt for both men in their very different lives. The corruption during the various enquiries and investigations really reminded me of the official investigation I instigated after our state school experience: the blatant lies; the avoidance of answering any questions or giving information that would make them look bad; the ‘let’s blame the victim because we want them to be to blame’ attitude; outright discrimination… ugh, total institutional scumbaggageness. Nice to have got some distance from it so it’s not emotional now – but it’s no less shocking. Last night as I was finishing the book, I came to a letter from Sir Arthur detailing all those he had lost in the Great War including his son just a couple of weeks before the Armistice was signed – will be reading that to the kids later.

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Our very small, very local home ed group went to see Tales from Earthsea yesterday courtesy of National Schools Films Week (link deactivated for demanding passwords for just showing it!) – do like a bit of anime, us. There was one school in with us – primary 4-7s. It was a bit of a shame for them as they hadn’t realised that the film was in Japanese with subtitles. One of the teachers approached us to ask if we had known and told us that many of their kids couldn’t read – rather upfront and honest to a home ed group I thought! I think they complained, as the manager was looking very down in the mouth as we left and told us that ’something always goes wrong on NFSW’. However we really enjoyed it – right up Daniel’s street with wonderfully animated dragons. The schoolkids kept laughing loudly at strange moments, like when someone died or was hurt – it seemed like a peer pressure thing to me as one would start and then it went round the crowd. Our kids were slightly baffled at it – Charlotte claims she doesn’t remember what school was like… (I’m sure she does really). The teachers were busy playing with their mobiles and chatting throughout the film

We visited Provost Skene’s House afterwards. They had a good display of some of the finds from a recent excavation of a St. Nicholas Kirk - bones diagnosed with allsorts of nasties.

I loved the benches in there when I was a child, by Robert “Mouse” Thompson. Was interested to see they still make them and got rather excited, thinking they would be nice for the house… until I saw the price list

Just done a good bit of festive shopping at the book people… also ordered a good sounding grammar set. Prices more in our range

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seem to be a lot of these reports around at the mo…

Anxiety ‘haunts primary schools’

Half of children theft victims as mentioned in comments

and the somewhat ridiculous Boring breaks lead to bullying - yes, why didn’t we all see it before? Some chairs arranged in a certain way and better swings will ’stamp out bullying in all it’s forms’. I’m so glad we have such paragons of intelligence and virtue in the Department for Children, Schools and Families…

and in complete contrast… we just watched We Don’t Go to School  on Teachers TV – unfortunately it’s not online yet but is repeated tonight at 10pm  and then 2am in the morning on the TV channel. What a great programme, felt myself welling up once or twice. It looks at several familes and how they go about HE and also talks to adults who were home edded and parents whose children are now grown. If you get a chance to see it, take it :D So nice that it didn’t have the usual school rep coming out and saying “but our schools are just spiffing – I don’t have any experience of home ed but it must be bad, look how wonderful schools are, excuse me while I just replace my blindfold and earplugs (LEA issue – proven to reduce instances of bullying to0 if used correctly, all the time)”.

We have a little houseguest just now - our friend Lynda’s dog Candy. Toby and her are getting along very well, she doesn’t boss him around now she’s in his home instead and they’re playing nicely :) Have failed to get any good pics of them as they don’t sit still for long but:

 and here’s a lovely bottle I found in a shed here covered in dirt – cleaned up so nicely I doubt it is authentically old but it’s gorgeous anyway

Read through our leaflets picked up at the Abbey only to notice in horror that they all said 20p on them! Did give a donation that we worked out should almost cover the cost of these but, whoops! Off to watch some Cadfael… hopefully he won’t be knocking at the door to investigate a theft anytime soon

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