Resilience

It often stuns me with how amazing human beings are, and how we have the ability to experience and express such a vast array of emotions, and to learn from these.  We are slowly easing back into our new 'term' and already we learning a huge lesson this week; that love, grief, anxiety and joy and a supportive environment can all lead to develop a strong sense of resilience. 

Bodhi, our beautiful, bouncy rescue dog is leaving us.  After much thought -  and not without huge efforts from all of us - we have had to make the painful decision to return him to Battersea.  Although Bodhi settled really well into our family (not easy with three energetic children around him all the time!), there had been a gradual decline in his socialisation skills over the past 6 weeks.  Bodhi would become very aggressive around other dogs (any dog, including friends), Bodhi was very anxious whenever someone new came into the home, and despite our best efforts to stop this, Bodhi was unable to control his excitement and would continue to nip the children.  What this meant, is that the children were unable to walk Bodhi due to his aggression, he would bark and bark and bark at friends coming into our home, and we were becoming increasingly concerned that he would (unwittingly) hurt a small child.

We consulted with a behaviour therapist and learnt that Bodhi was in an extreme state of anxiety; we implemented all the techniques advised and whilst there was a huge improvement, it was the concerns about his aggression with other dogs, his 'nipping', and the huge stress it was placing on us as a family  that culminated in our decision to return Bodhi.

So, back to our current lesson; building resilience in children was one of my objectives in my time managing the local sure-start centre.  There are lots of theories and evidence-based ways on achieving this and it's a multi-faceted approach; perhaps our gift from Bodhi has been the literal meaning of his name - the buddhist from enlightenment (this was a fluke, as we actually named him after Patrick Swayzes' character in 'Point Break') and he has awakened in us a sense of love - and suffering.

We are not thinking about replacing Bodhi at the moment as its all too raw; instead we will focus on all the good things Bodhi brought into our lives; all the things we can enjoy again (walks without worrying for his anxiety levels); and send out positive thoughts that he will be re-homed into a quiet(er) family, with a huge outdoor space for him to enjoy, and perhaps with lots of work, enable him to build his resilience to ease his anxiety.


angela x

Unravelling me

In March this year my mother died.

I wrote about her death and my loss in earlier blogs; about how hard it was at the time, and the realisation that I was affected more than I presumed I would be.

I had to put aside some of my grieving due to midwifery commitments; when you are caring for a woman in labour, you need to hold the emotional space around her (see my midwifery blog) and the birth space is not the time or place for your own emotions to fill this....

I have been off-call now since early July; slowly, I can feel some of the grief starting to release and bubble to the surface.  I know this because I have started to cry again; I am 'unravelling' - a phrase I have stolen from this insightful blogger.  It feels scary and raw, but really good to let go and miss my mother, to think about her, and to remember her with all my heart.

My tears are healing tears; my heart and soul feel strong and I am well.

Heart aches

Tears flow

Memories.  Loss. Missing you.

always. forever. 

love you mum.

angela xx

It's the simple things.....

For my birthday, a dear friend gave me a lovely wooden plaque with the following stencilled on to it:

"Enjoy the little things in life,for someday you will realize they were the big things".

As with all these beautiful quotes, we may read them and acknowledge them, but how do we apply them to life in this busy modern world we exist in?

This is something we have been thinking and talking about at home.  Daily over the past week or so, I have been taking pictures (either on my walk with the dog, or in the garden), trying to find beauty in the everyday moments around me.  This has helped me see that even though I hate living near the motorway, and would rather live somewhere more rural, there is still beauty and 'the little things' if you just take a moment to stop and notice.  I upload these to facebook to share with people (in the hope it may brighten their day); I'm not sure how much of a difference it makes, but taking the time to do this makes be feel more appreciative.  (If you have missed these, all that I have taken are at the end of this post.)

Talking about the simplifying life however, has got us exploring all sorts of 'bigger picture' ideas; one of which is rural living in a yurt! (If your not sure what a Yurt is, take a look at this fab website).  Lily has been working on a great project for yurt living, and she has researched and designed a great yurt home for us:

Yurt pods, costings, vegetable garden and copse.

The skills included in this research were:

• measuring the trampoline diameter.  This enabled Lily to visualise the size of a yurt pod and subsequently work out the living space we might need, including sleeping pods and a bathroom pod. 
• calculating the cost of each yurt and estimating a total projected cost (including foundations, mains connection etc.)
• researching a piece of land she would like to acquire through 'Rightmove' (ensuring it has its own water supply) and in an area we would like to live
• searched for and found a great youtube clip of a tour of a yurt home
• provided a full presentation of her findings over dinner!

Pretty cool autonomous learning covering Maths, IT, Analysis and Presentation Skills.  

We're not sure of course if these ideas will come to fruition, but we are in love with the notion of simple yurt living.  We are now planning some visits to yurt villages to see and experience what this might be like - an experience of learning in itself and great fun too hopefully.

When we take the time to stop and notice, it's truly amazing what we might find.

angela x

The view from our garden

The Thames at Shepperton Square

Runner bean flowers in the garden

Dappled sun light at camping

Raindrops on roses

Happy Sunflowers

Ripe blackberries for picking

Bzzzzzz..... luscious lavander

The Sun on the Thames

Woodland flowers on Esher common

Home Grown Happiness

Our little family has been on a roller coaster journery over the past 12 months, learning about homeed, learning about each other, learning to think (even more widely) outside of the main stream box;  I have been challanged beyond what I thought I was capable off, tired beyond belief on days, energised and revitalised on others.  These experiences have strengthened me - all of us - deeply.

Unexpectedly however, our home education journey has become more than opting out of state education in order to support our children; for many years we have danced around the edge of a more 'meaning-full' way of living, often asking ourselves the question 'is there more to life than this?'.  We have swayed between having nurturing, eco-strong, mindful approaches to life, and then back to a consumer driven, 4x4 driving (I do miss my ML a little though!), disposable life-style.   But something has changed - a road to Damascus moment perhaps - and we find ourselves not just dancing around the edge of living a mind-full life, but wishing to jump right on in to the dance floor and feel the music entirely!

So, like the butterflies I wrote about, we are slowly emerging from a chrysalis and thinking about our lives on a more concious level, and we have started on a process of change.  I have been hugely inspired by several things of late:

• an article in 'The Mother' entitled 'The Shadow Mother
• my time at The Mother Camp with my dearest, soulful, beautiful friend
• the book 'Women who run with Wolves'
• this amazing blog 'Rowdy Kittens' 
• the book 'The Life Organizer'  

You know you have struck a chord when something leaps of a page, grabs you and then - unexplainabley - causes you to cry, sob and release something that has been stuck, but you just didn't realise it.

"....accepting and embracing your quirky, dented, perfectly imperfect individual self".

Happiness is home-grown; it is found in the moments of quiet when your child is sleeping peacefully next to you.  It's in the morning walks when you take the time to notice the beauty that is under your nose.  It's in the repairing of a favourite t-shirt, the hand-made gifts, the stitches of the knitted baby hat, the eating of the chocolate courgette cake (made with love, using home grown vegetables).   It's in the warmth from the chiminea in the garden, whilst sitting under the stars.  It's in smile from the person you say good morning to - even though you don't know them.  It's in the sharing of a cup of tea with an old friend over the kitchen table.    Happiness does not come from money (just enough helps), or stuff (do I really need that), or shopping (is what your buying encouraging child labour), or watching other peoples lives on TV (reality 'stars' WTF?).  It does not come from living a life that makes you feel tired, that disconnects you from who you are, from your children, from your heart.

So, as we follow a a different path on our life journey, I hope to share our adventures with you.  We all have choices we can make (and I hope with my heart not to find myself judging others who make different choices to us),  but we dream we can find that there really is more to life than the modern worlds current approach.

Love angela xx

A year in the making.....

I have not blogged in a while, so my new promise to myself (and to you) is to start blogging more regularly!

A lot has been going on since my last update and I have so much I want to share that I'm not sure where to start.......  let's start with:

Sophie......
She was in school, then out of school, then in school, and then.... out of school!  Sophie rejoined us after the Summer Half-term break for a whole variety of reasons.  Although we are still all getting used to the change in dynamics (again) I am so pleased she is home and with us.  Sophie is now eating, sleeping, laughing and resting (and arguing with siblings but we shall skim over that bit), and has a renewed enthusiasm for learning.  We have decided to follow the GCSE option for her, so she will be studying for her Art (at a local adults college), Maths (with a tutor) and Biology (with me) GCSEs over the next 12 months.

New additions......

Bodhi

Out for a morning walk

As well as having Sophie back, we have 6 new additions to the Horler 'school'.  Bodhi is our rescue puppy from  Battersea , and arrived on the 9 June.  He has settled well, and of course gets lots of attention all day.  We have worked his walk into our unschooling day, so you may see us around the village between 9 and 10ish.  I love this time as I either have really interesting conversations with the children (I normally take one of them for 1-2-1 time), or I can have a short amount of thinking time-out for me.

The other 5 additions our a rescue chickens; Ben built a fantastic Chicken Pen and we brought a house on ebay for them.  We now have between 3 - 5 eggs a day so are completely self-sufficient with eggs!  Lily and Noah have taken on a lot of the day-to-day care of them and enjoy this immensely.

The Chucks!

Autonomous Education.....
I attended an autonomous education conference in July; although there were parts of the day I found frustrating and a little un-relevant to us as family, it completely restored my belief in autonomous education as the way forward for us!  I have noticed how much the children learn without me, and as knowledge is at their fingertips through the internet, libraries, stories etc, I am not sure that 'teaching' is relevant.  Children are not empty vessels waiting to be filled; they are amazing, individual, unique spirits who know what they want to learn about when they are inspired.  They have their own learning styles that do not always fit in with our modern view of 'learning', and we believe that they really, really do not need to have 10 GCSE's in a range of subjects that they will soon forget about once they have left school in order to get on with life. Through the autonomous route, learning is not in a 'neat linear' way, but in a random almost 'haphazard' way..... BUT they learn ALL THE TIME!  Even when they're not 'doing' something deemed as learning, they still learn!  A great book that helps you understand this The Unschooling Handbook - but you can google and find/see lots of different ways that families are learning together.


Reflection.....

A colourful meal and life!

We have been home-unschooling for a year now; I have learnt so much; about me, my children, life, love, saddness, patience, laughter, friends, fear, courage, rain (!), gardening to name a few. (Phew!).....  I would not change what we have done for a second, I love it and I love the adventure we are on.  Today I made a delicious meal of salads; it was full of colour, spice, flavours, home grown food, shop brought food; the children picked and chose what appealed most, they tasted something they weren't sure about, and we shared, laughed, grumbled and savoured - just like our unschooling life!

angela x

The VERY Hungry Caterpillar.....

 We have had a really busy couple of weeks doing LOTS of things! We have:

• Joined the Farnham Home Ed group
• Returned to Osterley for another visit (and birthday cream tea)
• Started Ice-Skating with a home-ed group on Friday afternoons
• Celebrated two birthdays (Ben & Noah's)
• Added to the vegetable plot in the garden
• Had several trips to the library
• Practised roller-skating skills
• Read
• Played
• Created Craft designs
• Introduced a new 'learning planner'
• Attended swimming lessons 
• Acquired a chicken coop (chickens to follow)
• Visited the V & A Museum for the Ball-gown Exhibition

and best of all.... studied our own 'Very Hungry Caterpillars!

We used a Insect Lore Butterfly Garden and sent off for our little caterpillar pot; 5 very little, very hungry caterpillars arrived and everyday we watched in amazement as they grew and grew and grew (just like the book!).  One morning we came down to find they were Pupae and last Friday we came down to find four beautiful butterflies - very exciting!!.  (Sadly, one little guy didn't make it.)

Little Caterpillar (yes the black thing in the window!)

A newly emerged caterpillar.....

Releasing the butterflies....

off they fly......

Exploring the outside

This one didn't make it....

We learnt so much and it was so interesting to see the transformation; pretty similar to the transformation I have seen in the children.....

When we first decided to home-ed, I read lots of books about autonomous learning, children led-learning and being a facilitator.  "Perfect!" I thought, sounds right up my street (less work the better); but I never felt we were getting 'there'.  If you read past blogs you will see (read) some of the journeys we have been on; many books talk about 'de-schooling', a period of transition where children have to become interested in LEARNING again.  When my children were little, the questions used to drive me mad, always asking about things, wanting to learn about how something works and so forth (hungry caterpillars?).  I hadn't realised until recently that they had stopped asking questions (pupae?); they were used to information being GIVEN to them, on a pre-set agenda, according to someone else's timetable.  After almost a year out of school, they have started asking questions again!!! They are starting to initiate their own time-table, and 'learning' has become far more organic.  And just like watching those butterflies - its really, really exciting!!  Even I have got the 'bug', and am reading 'Jane Eyre'... one of those 'dreaded' classics - purely for enjoyment.  Lily is teaching me piano and I am learning stuff that I had 'forgotten'.  

Phew..... I'm not sure how we used to fit school in!  

angela x

PS: its not all perfect... they still fight, argue, make mess and tire me out.  But its worth it!

Osterley Park and House

Last Friday saw a very rare day with it being me and just Lily; Noah was off to lego land with his uncle and cousin for a birthday treat.... leaving Lily and I with a day to ourselves!

We decided to visit Osterley House and Park, a National Trust Property near Isleworth.  If you know Isleworth at all, you would not normally expect to find something quite so beautiful in it's midst and Lily was quite doubtful as we headed across the A4........

We had a brilliant afternoon and there was so much to see and do.  You can borrow Ipod's for an interactive tour of the house, which brought the house and its history to life and helped us learn so much about the house and it's owners; we had interesting conversations about the class system, and would we be servants or ladies of the house? (servants sadly, much to Lily's disappointment!); we wondered what life would be like without running water and observed what a challenge that must have been; and we mused over the fashion of the period and enjoyed trying on some outfits.

Osterley House

Interactive Ipod

The Lady of the house!

   It is of course essential when visiting a national trust property to visit the cafe, so lunch was cream tea (yummy!).

Lunch!

A brilliant day out, covering history, sociology, geography, culture and food tech!

Angela x