Sunday 11 December 2011
This last month...
We've moved into Cara the caravan, and tried to settle in. I think it would work if we had just one more room, and the awning worked as we hoped. We had intended to do all our cooking in the awning, and have space for playing, and hoped to eat out there instead. We've got heat out there, but the condensation has been a problem- it drips constantly (unless its frozen!). We stopped trying to cook out there (that only made it worse) and the girls aren't too keen to play out there much if we're not cooking. DH has been busy working on the leak along the side of the caravan ( in the awning) so although he'd had that to deal with, it hasn't affected things too badly.
As it is, that's meant the caravan living space has also been our cooking, eating and bed space. Not great.
DH and the girls have settled in but I haven't.I think part of my issue with it has been that I'm the one out at work four days, without daylight eithe end.
After a bad day, involving a night of no sleep with a screamy child, I explained my feelings *very clearly* and after discussions we have given our tenants notice- we can have our own house again 4th March. That is a long way off, and coping ideas in the short term we've had include me having odd nights in a hotel close to work.
We're also not managing to cook food as we would usually- DH has had a busy week, but I realise that yesterday I managed to make a quick coleslaw in my parents kitchen, which just seems too difficult in the caravan. So I'm not inclined to cook, something I would do a bit more of, and for other reasons we've just not managed to eat as well- something that is bothering us. No chance of home made mincepies this year, even though I have seen the mincemeat I made last year.
We're having a night at my parents, and it feels luxurious to have the choice of a bath or a shower ( I really, really miss a bath), a kitchen with surfaces to use for cooking, and space to just be quiet on my own for a while- or the girls to be busy playing in another room. That's not mentioning the delicious meal Mum made for us all- fabulous!
I feel its been a really useful experiment-we know DH and the girls enjoy the caravan, and I would probably be ok with a dry awning space. If we were on our own land we could build temporary shelter around the caravan to solve a lot of problems, but we're on a caravan site and limited by that. I think this is an idea for summer- but a ppositive thing from this is that it has also got me to accept that moving to our old house is an acceptable choice. Moving there will give us a home, most importantly (to me, anyway!) but that also we can try to sell it again. We've reduced our belongings, so it hopefully won't be too cluttered, and we can really work on clarifying where we want to be for the longer term.
Our travels have shown us so many places seem better for growing our own food than windy wintery Yorkshire- but we need to find what really will suit us. So many adventures still ahead.....
There is one other thing that's on the cards, but until we've had chance to discuss it with a few more folks I won't say more right now.
I'll finish up with an apology- Christmas is hardly happening at our place. This year Christmas cards will be a miracle, and I've not got any shopping done. I have tried to delegate to DH- which hasn't really worked.
Normally Christmas starts straight after Big One's birthday, but I've really not been up to facing it. So, dear friends, we still love you but won't be showing it with gifts or cards this year. If we see you you'll get a big hug. If we don't see you, you might get an email if you're very lucky!
Thursday 10 November 2011
Birthday Girl
A very special day, and even more special as a new little girl has today as her birthday- welcome baby Heather! And happy birthday grown up Rach as well!
Saturday 5 November 2011
Textile exhibition
Friday 4 November 2011
We have a pitch!
We're really happy about the living space we'll have, so just another week of getting moved in.
We had a quick trip to collect our Suma order this morning-we've not been for about 7 months but its such an interesting place to call into-the folk we meet seem happy in their work,helpful, and we get good,mostly organic, wholesale priced food. Fab!
This weekend DHs parents are running a textiles exhibition and sale, so we'll be busy hopefully helping, and I intend to buy loads of raffle tickets as the patchwork quilt Mum-in-law has designed and made is stunning!
Next week has a birthday in it, so time not at work must be spent planning and preparing, and a few trips out and about are planned.
I'm not entirely sure when we'll be properly moving, but its getting exciting seeing we've got somewhere real to go to!
Sunday 30 October 2011
Just another Busy Day
We have bought our home-to-be, a very lovely (and huge) caravan. We're just waiting for the pitch to be finished at the campsite, and hopefully that will be this week.
I'm spending most of my week working for a living, which is still enjoyable, and the novelty of getting paid happened last week- a very nice experience!
We had a trip to Leeds City Museum, which was so interesting Big One wants to return for her birthday treat- even more than she wants to go to yoga. There is a yoga class starting up, with the first one on her birthday which was just what she wanted to do- until recently. We'll see how things settle down before making a definate re-organisation I think.
We've been to the Square Chapel today, which prompted the girls to repeat the performance when we got home for their grandparents. They did all right- for the first 2 minutes, anyway!
We're planning to help at a Craft Exhibition at St Peters, Crosshills (near Skipton) this weekend- and, somehow, start to move into the caravan. Fingers crossed it all magically comes together!
The bits I forgot
We've also managed to catch up with friends who are dear but rarely near these days (Pizza Hut has its uses!), and I've been unsuccessfully attempting to crochet a shawl. I've gone back to the start yet again, and I'm on my third pattern. I'm trying to crochet- the knitted ones don't appeal the same way, but I think using laceweight yarn is just proving very tricky for me, let alone following a pattern. I think I'll try one more week, and then go back to small projects. I've not got the patience for big things either!
A quick snap of the family with 'Cara'. Her previous family named her, and the girls love the name, as well as the bunks!
Sunday 16 October 2011
Pics from a walk
Forest school
On our walk on Saturday we found a cave...
Busy weekend
Today has been busier in the kitchen- 4 loaves sourdough bread,4.5 jars apple pickle and 11 jars apple butter.
This afternoon we got to the Square Chapel and saw a performance called 'Turned Out Nice Again' which was perfect for the girls. Both girls are easily scared by performances (and TV- octonaughts is too scary) so today was a first- they both stayed for all of it! Well, apart from a toilet trip. No scary loud bits or dark bits, gentle audience participation and lots of singing, dancing and physical humour. I loved seeing them both enjoy the show.
Friday 14 October 2011
Learning to knit
Right, must round up the troops for Forest School!
Tuesday 11 October 2011
Autumn crafts
Sunday 9 October 2011
A 'weekend'
My parents went on their travels, and hopefully they'll have a lovely few weeks away. DH and I have had time to talk, and have clearer ideas for our plans for the future, including how we'd like home ed to work for us.
We realise to make sure it happens, at least initially, we need time set aside to make sure we can follow where Big One leads. This week my parents have been upset about her learning to read (and HE in general), and I've realised that part of that (at least) is that this week Big One has decided to be interested in it, AND wants to do it with my mum (her favourite person, and knew she was going away). The arguements haven't been nice, but I (we) really hope things will be different when my parents return.
Not least because we've found the caravan we want to buy! DH is doing some tow training soon, so we've arranged to buy and collect it in a fortnight. Its just what we want, with a huge awning and sounds like lots of extras...but we forgot to take pics, so that'll have to wait until it really is ours.
In the meantime, I've been enjoying my bit of home ed. This morning we were in the kitchen so Big One made chocolate meringues with grandmas heavy handmixer (been to find ours in storage- it has a stand so little people can do it), then tuna fishcakes which went so fast I only got a pic of the last one, and the rest of this weeks bread. I hoped to get some cookies made for work, but that'll have to keep till next week.
Later we'll do some making with some pretty leaves from our walk in the woods today. I haven't been there for about 20 years, so it was lovely to share with my family somewhere I went to back when I helped out with Brownies! Scary how time flies...
Posted from my phone- please excuse the typos.
Friday 7 October 2011
Scrumptious Sourdough
Friday 30 September 2011
See the bouquet?
Its not every day I make a bouquet- I think this is the one and only. Lucky me, it features on the cover of a magazine! Mike and Petra were married at The Mother Magazine camp which we were at in the summer.
Thursday 29 September 2011
The last few weeks
We have had a wonderfully fabulous end to WWOOFing with 2 weeks at Lower Shaw Farm in Swindon. We all decided we wanted to return to our first host for the end of our trip, and I'm really glad we all agreed.
The girls loved the company, the playing but especially the animals, and we adults enjoyed, um, the same! We were only planning on being there 10 days, but Andrea said we could stay for her birthday celebrations, so we did.
While we were there, there was a Women's creativity weekend that I was a participant for, so DH and the girls had two days playing out, and generally keeping a low profile. I think that was a bit of a challenge at times, but I really appreciated the chance to try out new things.
I've been busy recommending LSF as a destination for families- we've had such a wonderful time and looking forward to planning a return visit next year.
We've returned to home base in Huddersfield, staying with my parents for a few months. We've started settling in, but that isn't going so well.
My parents have various holidays planned, so the idea was we'd be housesitting with a few weeks overlap. However, my parents are not supportive of home educating. In fact, they are anti-home educating and feel we are depriving Big One of a suitable education. She should be spending more time with children her own age (the slightly older home ed kids she chooses to play with are not suitable) and she should be made to sit down and read, write and do numbers.
That isn't what we want for her, and we don't want to have any conversation we're having about the girls turned into 'if she went to school/she should go to school' etc. Thankfully my parents feel it isn't going well- my mum especially is suffering seeing how 'deprived' Big One is. We are both quite firm on our opinions, but my mum isn't great at communicating around the issue and is feeling ill. My Dad quite agrees with her, but can talk to us about it.
This has helped us a bit, and DH and I realise that a lot of our issues with school education ( apart from starting too early) are about discipline, or the lack of it.
Anyway, to avoid a serious rift we've been asked to leave, and thinking about it DH and I are relieved. We thought it'd a be a struggle to share living space with these strong disagreements, and thought it'd be us saying we had to leave soon. This also means we haven't the choices we were trying to work through- I haven't the proof of income to rent anywhere, our tenants would need 8 weeks notice (and we don't want to live there) and that leaves buying a caravan as the way to go.
My parents go away for a few weeks in just over 1 weeks time, so fingers crossed we can manage this coming week.
Tuesday 27 September 2011
Home baking
Thursday 22 September 2011
Crafty moment
Thursday 15 September 2011
On to our Final WWOOF
Big One on the tyre swing |
Maggie and Charlie at Lower Shaw Farm |
Little One on the Rope Swing |
Julie has kindly just given me some pictures she has taken, so all images (unless I get organised and will label suitably) are thanks to Julie- I'm trying hard to place these pictures in the post, and it just isn't working for me. Its the girls bedtime, and I simply cannot do this for longer. Apologies for the random pics....
The Rooms at LSF |
The veg garden and re-covered polytunnel at LSF |
Avebury- WWOOFers trip out |
DH and the girls at Avebury |
Tuesday 6 September 2011
Woodland Opportunity in Kent
We've been sad to hear the couple who were living in the wood,starting to work it this summer are being pulled in different directions.
The wood has mains water installed this year, and there's a caravan, tree bog and several shelters, probably a shower - we haven't been there for a few month so don't know how far the plans got before things changed.
We WWOOFed there earlier in the year, and the owners would ideally like a couple to be there for a longer term. If we lived locally we'd definitely be up to going to help on a daily basis, but unfortunately we can't.
Its beautiful. There's a small area of conifers that need felling first, but its mostly chestnut IIRC. The access road in the wood is a bit of a challenge, but you can also walk in from a main road nearby.
Get in touch if you're interested, and I'll pass your details onto the owner.
Sunday 4 September 2011
Saturday 3 September 2011
Final Camp
Our budget has gone completely to pot, and to put it bluntly, we've run out of money. We have money due in next week, but until then we're watching the pennies. I was wondering how we got in this situation- because it really has snuck up on us!
However, with a few hundred extra pounds for tires to pass the MOT, a few hundred pounds of lovely things like a kelly kettle, some interesting books and Austrian scythe(before these extra costs came to light!), another few hundred pounds for a replacement fan for the van, another £500 for extra storage for the stuff we didn't sell (our mistake-we forgot the 6 months would be up before we returned), and an extra 2 weeks campsite fees (yes, another £200) for not going back to a WWOOF host. With extra time not working we've done more driving around Scotland, which has been another four hundred pounds not included in our budget. I thought we had a pretty healthy contingency fund of about £1000 ( when our entire budget was only £4000)- but all our extras have got to nearer £2000. Oh well. Thankfully we've had tenants in the house and at the moment we'd be really stuck without that income.
Tomorrow we pack up and head to visit family for a few days- a relative has been diagnosed with breast cancer and gets some results this week, so we want to be around for them. We have our final WWOOFing 10 days at Lower Shaw Farm, our first ever hosts,after that, and we're really looking forward to it. They have somewhere for us all to stay, so that's how tonight is our last proper tent night. Sob!
Friday 2 September 2011
Tuesday 30 August 2011
Holiday time
N and J also very kindly let us use their caravan while we sorted out all our kit from the mud- giving us oppertunity to unpack the van and have a bit of a sort-through as well. We all happily squeezed into a 2-berth 40 (ish) year old caravan, and it has us really looking forward to a caravan of our own (with enough beds for us all!). We had about 3 nights in there, and especially enjoyed sitting at a table (without an audience for the girls to play up to/other people around for them to watch).
Moving back into our tent was like coming home though, and we appreciated the nice short grass, level ground and generally fabulous camping place N & J have for us- even a couple of nicely spaced trees nearby so DH's hammock got an airing ( for the girls to play in, of course!).
I managed to finally fasten together some of the squares I've been crocheting. No plan or design, just squares Big One picked out of the book for me to crochet, in the yarn mother-in-law gave me ( along with book, hook and scissors!) for Christmas. One dolly size snuggle blanket. I've even adapted the design of a couple of squares to do what I want! I'm not too keen on the counting bit of following patterns- I still find it hard to figure out what constitutes a row, but squares seem a nice forgiving way to get on, and I like small things to do and complete, rather than a huge project that I forget where I'm at with- while we're travelling at least! Pic appeared in a previous post.
Previous posts have beach and McDuff aquarium pics, so I won't say much more, except we really had a great time.
Its taken me so long to finish this post, we've had another holiday, this time near Loch Ness. We stayed in Cannich, a lovely campsite but a bit midgy and very damp. The Loch Ness exhibition was really great, and the visit to the Isle of Skye was beautiful, though a long drive. A friend from back home made a 20 mile detour to visit us, and it was really, really lovely seeing them- just too short a visit!
We'll definately be holidaying up the west coast again. Ben Nevis on the drive down was shrouded in clouds, and Fort William looked worth another visit ( seeing as we just drove through). We almost met up with Wondering Wanderers, but they had to work so we'll manage that another time.
The Premier Inn that was our home last night is the newest we've been to- an even larger room than normal ( not that usual rooms are small), air conditioning, and smaller wardrobey shelves thing that's great for the girls to play in. We weren't sure about buying a meal, but when the pub had an all-you-can-eat chinese buffet, well, we did and it was a nice change.
Right, must get packed up so we can get to our next campsite for midday, and then enjoy grandparents visiting this afternoon.
We're realising our time on the road is coming to an end, but we've still got a bit more fun to have first!