at Findhorn

A home ed trip as in bygone days Much hilarity ensued throughout…

approaching Pluscarden Abbey

sunshine on the Abbey

the girls

 2007 trip comparison

Abbey cat

Nature Sanctuary at Findhorn

inside

even the toilets have wings

links: The Findhorn Foundation and Pluscarden Abbey

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girls playing chess

Visited the Lewis Chessmen at Aberdeen Art Gallery (other Scottish tour dates) – they are beautiful

wall of album covers, some of which I still have!

A Storm Trooper surrounded by Star Wars shoes

 though I really can’t see Jabba the Hut wearing the green basketball boots that have been named for him…

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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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early evening sun on the loch

Below, a beautifully animated talk by Ken Robinson:

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This is a site we used quite a bit back at the more curriculified beginning of home education – a quick blog search reveals the first mention of it almost exactly 5 years ago! From the Guardian, it covers the whole national curriculum, primary and secondary and does have some really interesting bits and ways of presenting things. The Barbican Library are now paying the (somewhat hefty I seem to remember) subscription for all home educated children  

Learn Premium 

username: barbican

password: guardian

a picture from around that time, 2005

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Reading The Artist’s Way just now (after hearing about it on making it up), faithfully doing my morning pages, 3 pages of early morning scrawlings, uncensored beautiful brain drain, and recovering my creativity, dealing with my blurts of negativity and realising where they originated… very powerful stuff :) 

I have experienced these sorts of connections through art before – dancing and writing. When writing a teen novel about ballet it naturally morphed into a piece on anorexia, pinpointing causal moments and situations in a totally new way for me, like joining up the dots. It is healing. The process was possibly helped along by doing a lot of ballet and watching Pineapple Dance Studios, bringing back more memories. I used to take the odd class there and I attended dance college with the gorgeous Louie Spence

Anyway, to move on from my own personal artistic fun to yours! We are giving away a book. Any book we have ever mentioned on the blog, or on our book page, fiction page, or kids books sections – home education page, aspies and byothermeans included too. Of course it does not have to be about creativity – you can have the Artist’s Way if you like but if you’d rather have a parenting title, a cookbook, a kids storybook, a novel, a gardening guide… choose away. The competition is open to everyone, I will not be judging it but will read the entries to the rest of the family, not telling them the names of the entrants. This means real life friends need not feel they shouldn’t enter and people who have never commented before are equally as welcome and likely to win.

SO, just comment on this post saying what book you would like and maybe why? Link to the blog post or page where it can be found (don’t worry if you don’t know how to do this, I’ll add it for you). Tell us a little bit to grab our attention – why is this book what you need or want? Did you like that post where we mentioned it? Do you just want a nice late summer read? Need something to put under that wobbly table leg? Anything goes Be creative Competition closes at noon on Sunday 15th August, a winner will be chosen and informed shortly after, and I will procure the book for them from Amazon

Competition now closed – Congratulations to Mel, Nikki and Maria

daft photos of 15 year old selves not required (though might be amusing!!)

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at the forge, casting pewter

A Medieval event at Archaeolink with the Historic Saltire Society. The Smith was full of information, showing us the melting down of various rocks to extract and mix the metals.

belt buckle, ready so fast

medieval blind date!

reenactment of the siege of Aberdeen Castle

weaponry

back further in time - Roman marching camp and a somewhat androgynous wicker person

Celtic Bog Goddess

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dunes

Had a wonderful afternoon with friends, sea swimming and boogie boarding – walking over dunes beforehand. Then another busy day yesterday at a home ed group viking re-enactment workshop (associated with the Dufftown Heritage Festival this weekend), also visiting Balvenie Castle and Banff Museum (which is exactly as I remember it as a child, slightly disturbing). 

had picnic by the river Deveron in Huntly

Balvenie Castle door

looking down to hall

window

club with spikes

bits and pieces

battling vikings

Saw some of the lovely t-shirts made by one of the families in the group being beautifully modelled – they have home ed, breast feeding, Pictish and Celtic designs (Charlotte has the Celtic tree one). They have bags too

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Peregrine Wildwatch Centre

Wonderful place this, great home ed group event there

quarry face where the nest is

red squirrel

female peregrine in tree - she was making a lot of noise!

fast

building a hide

impression of a caterpillar called Bob

best friends

a few more pics in our home education set on flickr

and a short video of the squirrels below, much topical talking in background…

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iris by pond, cleavers among

 a very mellow listen: Deltadream - based on the ancient lost Solfeggio frequency “Ut”, a tone linked with releasing guilt and fear, the shorter track there is a free download.  

mellow and cooling eat: minted noodle soup

books weve been mellowing out to in the sun: Named of the Dragon, a gentle mystery, writers, Arthurian and Tudor themes; The Other Half Lives, from Sophie Hannah, the best of her psychological thrillers I’ve read so far and Ask Mother Nature, another nature spirity book responsible for me feeling happy about all the chickweed growing in with the lettuce now

chickweed helps retain water in the soil and is a nice inclusion in salads

bridge over totally calm waters

 Had a nice time with some more pilgrims to the house, this time the grandson of the man who built it. We all learned much from each other – apparently the roof used to be covered in solar panels, was the first house up here to have them…  no trace of them now… hopefully one day we’ll have them again

borage buds, soon time for blue stars and berries in the smoothies

fully open

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