Bustling.

So, the laptop sits useless while I faff, really must send it back before the warranty runs out. Upshot, blogging grounded to a halt. I reckon a bit of a catch up is in order, let's see:

M came to visit end of February, a particularly fun day was the day we went to the Maritime museum down at the docks. The Titanic exhibition is excellent, all the kids enjoyed it, and Rye has since announced he's going to be a deep sea diver/explorer when he's grown up and bring the rest of the Titanic up, then he'll become an Astronought.

This is the docks, and the strange looking building over there is the Museum of Liverpool. Rye and me have only just finished exploring the World Museum, and there's still things to see and do, thus we have been once to the Museum of Liverpool and seen a tiny, tiny fraction of it. We plan to remedy this.

M's visit sadly, ended on a low note, the children came down with a sickness bug, and so we quarantined ourselves in my flat, 2 adults and 4 children in my small flat - we were soon driving each other crackers, and a couple of the kids made a break for it a couple of times and had to be brought back in from the garden.

March, crocheted, attended home ed activities, and of course we had a fire for the Equinox, upon which I poured magic, turning the flames turquoise and green.

I cut Rye's hair:

Ooh we went to see Avengers, Age of Ultron at the IMAX cinema. Wow, and Oooh queasy. Too much, I'll stick with normal screens I think.

Afterwards we had ate out, and Rye was given a balloon.

Lots more crochet, exploring, I have started a science club, which is going well.

I bought some water beads that proved an instant hit with Rye and his RH friends.

Ooh working on a collaborative blanket for a 3yr old, which I must finish - I got busy with commissions and had to put it to one side. I've just got the ribbons to add now.

Summer in the parks has begun, with the various fairs and events. This was the Victorian fair, which Rye and the RH kids enjoyed. And a wonderful warm day after the long cold and wet stretch of weather we had.

Rye had his friend over for a sleep over, so naturally I made an indulgent breakfast: pineapple pancakes with chocolate sauce.

The weather sadly returned to wet and cold, still it didn't stop us having a grand time at Sefton Park with our RH friends.

Another birthday has come and gone for me. Lovely few days, out for lunch with Rye, then celebrating later with my housemates, followed by a BBQ at the weekend.

Lunch was lovely, we took a leisurely bike ride over to Lark Lane, and we decided to eat at the Moon and Pea. Gosh, it was tasty! I had Caesar salad, which was scrumptious, and Rye had banana and maple syrup pancakes. Dessert wasn't as great, though Rye certainly was impressed with his banana split, ( tho it was only banana with squirty cream chocolate sprinkles and caramel sauce drizzled over), my carrot cake was sickly, the cream cheese that horrid fake, too sweet, coats your mouth in fat, type frosting. Despite dessert deficiencies, the Moon and Peas has become our favourite cafe. It was so much fun to eat lunch, while sitting on a comfy sofa, and playing Guess Who.

Birthday BBQ - housemates deciding to stack logs - no idea why. Mind pity I didn't get photos of them then trying to stand on a log, then adding another log without getting off...hilarious, particularly as Adel was doing really well, but then one of the children came over and pretended to push him, Adel lost concentration and failed his attempt.

Oh, I've also been making these beautiful lilies, these ones are for a hand fasting, I've since made a few more, just so pretty. I started off following a pattern, but it was fidly, so I ended up designing my own.

Life at RH is busy, I now run an Art & Craft club, the first one was yesterday, as well as Science club, and one of my housemates is a yoga teacher, so she's now teaching family yoga to home ed families, as well as teaching adult yoga on other evenings. I've been partaking of the yoga, oh my world, my front thigh muscles and abdominal muscles - ouch!! Rediscovering muscles apart, it has been lovely to have the yoga in the garden, and afterwards sit around chilling.

Rye has joined Cubs, and is loving it, last night was his second time. First time I went with Anstey and her kids, luckily Rye and T could join in that evening, so we sat in a park and waited for them, hehe, and her eldest got stuck in the baby swings - of course we didn't mock...much.

I saw a friend post a fab photo, on Instagram, that looked dinosuars were in her living room being fed by her son; naturally I had to find the app. I found 2, one makes it look like dinosaurs are moving around you, when you look through the camera app, the next lets one impose dinosaurs into a photo... Well how could I resist:

Dinosaurs even in our house meeting:

And Rye's room is awash with them!

And of course, more hooking - with dinos too!

Despite the distraction, I did manage to complete a wedding gift commission, a wall hanging:

Liverpudlians familiar with the gates to Princes Park will recognise the central motif. The piece is based on the gates, with the added elements of using the colours of a local suffragette, and the namesake of our house, plus adding in flora, and as the bride is facing some difficult challenges, I wanted the piece to be meditative and peaceful.

And, once the flat is tidy I will be hooking this cute dragon



 

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Woooooosh...

that's the sound of me blowing the dust off my blog.

Lots of catching up to do, eh.

Life is busy, Rye is growing up far too fast, and I have even more grey hair!

Life has been dominated by setting up a creative space for me to work in, home education and life in a commune.

Once I have finished sorting through my supplies and yarn I will post photos of my new space.  I'm very pleased with it, and the view from my desk is stunning!  (This view is actually from where I sit to drink my morning coffee, but I can see it too from my desk)

Home Education - well, as there is wont to be, I wobbled viciously and fell into the trap of trying to teach and impose learning on Rye.  Unmitigated disaster!  Thank the Gods, I realised the error of my ways and backed off.  This includes the near constant arguments and frustrations over screen time, and the re-realisation that my job is to provide Rye with opportunities - or to use the unschooling term, to "strew".  

That led me to acceptance of Rye's screen time, which, I have to say, is a huge issue for me.  Personally, I don't see how Minecraft, at least the way Rye uses it, is educational, and it feels weak to tell myself that Rye implementing things he's learned about the game from you tube videos in his "world" is "learning".

 I chaff at the hours he wants to spend watching said videos, or playing minecraft and other games, when I feel he should be outside playing, exploring his environment, climbing trees, helping in the garden and with the animals, going on adventures with his friends, riding his bike.  And when he's not doing that, exploring the wide range of books available to him, asking me to make amazing creative structures with him, play educational board games, explore scientific themes and do experiments, exploring the amazing art galleries and museums available to him...

Well, actually, it's not that he isn't, it's that I feel he should be doing MORE.  And I realised this has come from a place of fear.  Fear that his reading will never become fluent, or his handwriting legible and beautiful, fear that he will not have sufficient knowledge, learning, lifeskills... (it's not like he's living in a socially conscious co-operative, where we are all involved in social change...oh wait...)   This led to the cognizance that for some daft reason I've been expecting Rye to be pretty much like me.

Pratt!

How has it taken me so long to get my head around the fact we are different, he experiences things differently to me.  I loathe, detest and despise computer games, horrible time eating, soul gobbling machinations of wastefulness.  My son finds them wonderful, imagination stretching vehicles of fun, he and his friends pour over their screens, cackling at whatever  building they have just blown up, or zombies mowed down by increasingly upgraded vehicles...  shudder  and through his own investigation he's also watched numerous you tube videos on the solar system, on various scientific laws, animals that capture his interest...and yeah ok, a lot of spoof rubbish that has  me rolling my eyes.  But that is all ok.  I've just been a tad dim of late.

He's not a big fan of reading - um, yeah, partly because I pushed a bit too hard to try and "teach" him to read - yet he doesn't refuse to have a book read to him, and he often pops on an audio book to listen to while playing in his room, or at bedtime...so who am I to say he doesn't love books - he simply chooses to experience them in a different way.  In fact as I sit here typing, it occurs to me that Rye even enjoys reading to me - when, and it's a biggy, when I back off and let him decide when he's had enough - rather than insisting his finish the book...  yeah, I know, lost my way rather significantly!

So, back to blogging, I think it will help me to keep centered and to truly see the learning that is happening around me... for instance, today, sat in the cafe having breakfast and we started talking about forces and motion...ok I'll allow that my son's mind does rather perplex me at times;

"Mum, babies are a force when they come out..."  um, not quite, son.  How talking about "tug of war" as an example of forces - both balanced and unequal, led to that gem, I have no idea.  He did know the Earth is a big magnet, that magnetism is another type of force and gravity is a pulling force, so I shan't worry too much.

I'll be blogging about other areas of our/my life too.  My blog would not be my blog without crochet posts, baking, juices...so yeah I'm back.... besides, Rye is growing up so fast, and these days I'm lucky to get more than a couple photos for the entire month.

Lets have a look at what I have for March;

We made a kite from willow sticks, plastic bag and my crochet cotton for the Fly Kites Not Drones international event on the Equinox.

Eating snacks after Sports for Fun, where he played hockey, basketball and badminton.

Pizza Hut after a workshop at the World Museum on Spiders and Scorpions and other creepy crawlies, and afterwards he insisted on going and looking around the World Museum's bug section.
And last week, we visited the Maritime Museum and he participated in a workshop on Endangered animals and smuggling, which he really enjoyed, and again afterwards he wanted to look around the museum.

Today we have, as I mentioned, discussed Forces and Motion, and we've watched a few you tube videos on Newtons Laws of Motion, watched some cool experiments and decided which ones we want to do ourselves, we've been shopping and Rye decided to use some of his pocket money to buy a water gun, and by the sound of it, he's now on Minecraft.

Autonomous, interested led learning is back on the agenda!  We are back!

Yay!

Forest School, Cathedral and Hooky.

Woke to a glorious day, beautiful blue skies and warm sunshine; a clear invitation to venture down to the allotments for Forest School.

 Fire was built, sticks found, there was planting, running around, poking, exploring, tree climbing; wonderful time.  I even got a little hooky in!

Ooh and while Rye was at his dad's yesterday I popped out to the bank and saw this:

One of the cathedrals.  Isn't it weird; a kind of spaceship crown.  I must say I much prefer the old grand cathedrals.  Still, it is very dramatic.

As I've mentioned, RH House is a bit drafty, and my feet aren't kindly disposed to drafts, so hooking up a pair of socks seemed in order.  In the past I've just hooked a tube, which I've then added ribbing to.  This time I decided to have a go at the heel.  I used a free pattern from Ravelry - Crochet Socks by Marleen Hartog.  A very simply way of creating the heel.  A note to beginners - this is a translated pattern, and it's really more of a guide on how to create the socks, rather than a stitch by stitch pattern.  It is easy enough, but it does assume you can make adjustments as required yourself.
Anyhoos, these are the socks I made; using the yarn Sarah from Arwen Makes sent me as a house warming gift.  Wool with bamboo, wonderfully soft and warm.

I've got nearly a full ball left; so I think I shall see if I can get another pair made for Rye.
The back of the commissioned cloak is finished too, so just the two side/front panels and the hood to go.  It's hooking up much, much quicker than anticipated.

In other news, we have a busy few days to look forward to.  On the Liverpool HE list someone has organised a discount at a place called Underwater Street which apparently is a big indoor space with craft spaces, dance/music spaces, water play spaces, climbing wall, a real car to paint and play in etc... sounds a fab place, and then come the weekend I really want to finish off the unpacking, and with any luck the big rug I've ordered for Rye's room (£40 from Merchant chandler, bargain!),  will have arrived by then too, so I can really sort his room for him, and make it a nice space to hang out in.

Museum of Liverpool.

Saturday, Clare and Chris invited Rye and myself to join them for vegan brunch in town, and then
to mosey on to the Museum of Liverpool.  So, we did.
I have to say I was incredibly suprised just how "eggy" scrambled tofu is.  I'm not generally
a big tofu fan, but I did like that!

Rye loved playing on the various bits of ship dotted around the Docks.
I foresee many an afternoon spent down at the Docks exploring.

The Museum of Liverpool was great, we only saw a very small part of it.  Rye was entranced by
The Lion, a steam engine and watched several of the short films, while chatting to an
elderly gentleman, sat next to us.
We also went into the children's play area, there was a model of the river, with the docks,
cars going through the tunnel (if you turned the twizzly thing.. which of course, Rye did) and water to play with.  Happy as Larry!

A fair bit of walking was done, at least for me... and I was very excited that I was on my feet for hours, and walked the approx mile, from the pub/cafe we ate our vegan brunch, to the museum... admittedly my feet and knee hurt quite a bit once we arrived, nonetheless I did it.  I'm looking forward to increasing my fitness levels more and more.  Mind, after the museum, I was gasping for a drink, my feet burning and knee aching, so I opted for a taxi back home.... to be greeted with vegan buns with chocolate icing.

My initial wobble about setting foot outside of the grounds of Rose Howey, firmly squashed.

Just a quickie, because I am so tired.
Yesterday, Thursday, had a leaving party at my friends house and she baked me this outstanding cake,

The bell tent cake underneath is a rainbow cake. The layers slice together with jam and butter cream.  The base cake is my favourite, a coffee and walnut cake, which was delicious.  The Berlingo van was a chocolate cake. The detail that my friend went into was stunning.  The van had on the side a silhouette of a witch on a broomstick.  Just fabulous!

It was such a lovely party, and Rye and all the other children had such a fun time. I am really going to miss all our friends down here.

By the evening time, it was just me and two of my best friends. We cracked opened the cider and spent it a joyful evening laughing and joking.  Cue a very late evening and a very tired morning being woken up excruciatingly early by the children.

And now there is three sleeps and I will be in Liverpool. There is a bitter sweet joy, on one hand I am really excited at the next chapter in our lives. On the other hand I feel really really sad at leaving our amazing friends and connections we have made here. And also I haven't lived this long in one place since leaving the farm that I grew up on.

Also Rye's best friend is a precocious four year old who is gorgeous he is a lovely little boy. And he is so sad that Rye is moving away.  The past week or two he keeps coming up to me and give me cuddles and then telling me very seriously how is going to miss Rye and that he is very sad because Rye is his best friend. It is rather heart wrenching. Also the reality of the move is beginning to become very real for Rye. He is suddenly realising that he's not going to be seeing his friends down here very often. So while he is excited about going to Liverpool and seeing the friends again that he made there, he is conflicted. 

With that in mind I have booked train tickets to come back down at Yule for a few days.  Amazingly cheap, only £35 return for Rye and me.   And my friends do have plans to come up and visit next year.

Anyway, really need to go and get some kip. For ages it has felt like moving day was so far away, and then suddenly it's speeded up crept up on me and then there's only two days now. And I look around and I think ARRRGGGHHH.

T'will be fine, by Monday evening, Rye and me will be in Liverpool, and beginning a new life...