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Yes...this is ALL about me, and mine. Marvellously self indulgent, feel free to tell me how splendid I am, leave comments, nice ones please, I have little kids and teenagers who can do the rude stuff. I am a grandma, to the glorious Joshua, I'm allowed to look frazzled and weary, I earned it. The older I get, the more I see that hanging on and being patient is worth it! They ( whoever 'they' are) are so right when they say you never know what is around the corner, it isn't always an articulated truck! It is vital to make the time for making memories, friends are the greatest treasure, I love mine. I am rich!

Friday, June 25, 2010

Sunshine...

Well, look at this! I have a blog still, who knew?
Life is ticking along and really, what more can we ask?
The weather ( yes, I am writing about the weather, I have no excuses) is outstanding, SO hot and sunny, day after day, endless sunshine and incredible temperatures. I so hope we have a great summer this year, the boys still have 4 weeks left of school, I can't wait for trips to the beach and parks, travel to Cornwall and further afield.
We have booked a caravan in Cornwall for when Isaac has a residential school trip, I can't imagine him going with a new teacher and a different set of kids right after he starts next school year, I know he will love the trip and all the activities, so we have booked a caravan close by so that if he finds sleeping away too much he can stay with us at night and we can take him back for the daily activities. I am so looking forward to exploring Cornwall with H and the boys, I don't think we will mind even if it is raining, there is so much to see and do in the area we will still have a great time.

H leaves the house at 5am every day and off he goes to dig and weed, tend and contemplate. He is, dare I say it, a crunchy hippie of the most devoted kind. I have yet to see him hug a tree but I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't pat the apple tree in an affectionate manner when he is alone at the allotment.
He plays this, in the kitchen, he does, personally it makes me want to be physically violent, I suspect my DNA is so broken that there is no hope, but he believes that listening to this will heal DNA, what happens when you have broken DNA is a mystery to me and I am loathe to find out, if I am anything to go by I would say that you become very cynical and bad tempered, hey ho, to each his own.


We continue to eat only organic, free range, delicious meat and this very morning, when we all went to the allotment together we ate fresh raspberries from the bush, the berries are all beginning to show, the tomatoes are starting to grow right along with our excitement.
We have told the school that from September we will be homeschooling Elijah.
OH MY GREAT AND SCARY LIFE!
He is so far behind and his teacher has done absolutely nothing to help him. I love the school he is in, they have been fine with Seth, fabulous with Isaac and have completely let Eli slip through the net. HE cannot concentrate and he will never have the time or attention in a class of 30+ children that he needs.
We plan, eventually to be homeschooling all the boys. Neither H nor I can face the idea of sending the boys to a public secondary school, we don't have the money for private education and we just cannot imagine sending Seth, Isaac and Eli into the pit that is secondary education these days.
I sat at the train station last week, waiting for Eli to come home from a school trip and I watched the teenagers from one of the local schools arrive to catch the train home. This group of kids weren't more than 13 or 14 yet it was impossible to tell whether they had come from school, though they had uniform of sorts, the skirts were rolled up to ridiculous heights, the shirts were tight and gaping across the boobs, it was the hair and make up that threw me somewhat. What in the world is going on with the schools, parents and kids these days, why in my day...... Whoops, forgot I wasn't quite 70 yet but really, why are these girls allowed to go to school with hair piled high, back combed, sprayed and teased to within an inch of their lives, what is going on when they have such thick make up that they look like little street walkers?
They draped themselves over the gangly loud mouthed boys and I just felt so sad that so young these kids are hurtling towards adulthood, way before they have the necessary coping skills.
On the other hand I watched a young boy of 15, home schooled, not involved with the seeming hard requirements of young teens in public schools, he sat with his dad, head on his dad's shoulder...a sight like that is almost never seen anymore, by 15 boys are supposed to be tough and worldly wise, interested in girls and video games and family, well family is stupid and 'parents don't know nothin'
Seth is almost 10 years old and already we see how his body shape is changing, his walk is different, he tends to use hand gestures rather than words, nods at his mates and in public will walk ahead of us. It intrigues me to see how adolescence is rearing it's head already and I would and will do anything to slow down the transition to teenage years for these boys.
I have been talking to Seth about his body, he has been asking more and more about the facts of life and it has been a pleasure to talk to him about these things, he is so interested and sensible and I so want him to stay that way, he laughs and says he can't believe I tell him these things and will talk to him about them and I explained that he needs to know these things and if I tell him he will learn the real facts and all the necessary background information, if I didn't talk to him about it all, he would hear from his friends talking and would most likely hear the wrong information. I hope he always feels OK with asking me, he waits until we are on our own and has said that he can't imagine his dad ever discussing such things with him.
I am sure he is right about that, it's almost worth telling him to ask H just to see what reaction we get! Bless his heart, H doesn't do talking and talking about intimacy to a child, well let's just say I can't see it happening!
Isaac, Elijah and I went to the opticians last week, upon arriving the receptionist asked the usual questions, checking address and phone numbers etc and then she asked " Are you all fit and well?" I replied that we were just as Elijah said " NO! He ( pointing at Isaac) has ASSpergers, what IS ASSpergers? Have I got ASSpergers? I wish I had ASSpergers" I looked at him with a dumbfounded expression and the receptionist said " Why do you wish you had Aspergers Eli?"
"Because I love saying that naughty bit at the beginning!"
This boy is delightful. I love the way his head works, we are excited to have him home and watch him learn and grow and hold onto his sweet and innocent self. I say innocent, whereas in fact he is body obsessed at the moment, every chance he gets to say a bad word, flash his backside or be rude, is grasped with both hands and every ounce of naughty is enjoyed to it's fullest.
I can't believe he is 7 next month, the older I get the faster time flies, I want to enjoy this time and wish I could hold it back for a while.
Childhood is such an important and precious time, I feel so strongly that we should try and keep it around for as long as possible, not waste a day of it.
I have been so irritable lately and I just don't know why, perhaps H has the right idea after all and walking away from medicines and chemicals and embracing the natural and clear is not such a crazy idea after all, perhaps I need to eat some greens and listen to that screeching some more...or not.

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Sunday, June 06, 2010

So....



I am just getting on with getting on.
H looks well, he has lost weight, has more energy, loves being up here on the allotment. My sister rents this ground and with her husband is growing beautiful vegetables and fruit, they both work full time and so they don't have much time to go and tend the plants, H has taken on some of the ground and goes up there every day, the boys go with him and together they spend hours digging and watering ( the boys spend most of the time climbing trees and chasing each other but it's outside and they are happy and healthy, perfect!)
I have found, with the worry of H not taking his medicine that, along with the others worries that would see me in the mad house, I just have to take things day to day, not dwell on it and try not to see disaster in every minute.
I bought a very cheap mobile phone and when H takes the boys on hikes or bike rides, I insist that one of them has the phone with them. H is stubborn but Isaac loves the phone so he has hit with him, at least, if the worst should happen I know the boys can call for help.
I am so excited about the fresh fruit and vegetables when they start to come in. We only ever eat organic, free range meat now, it costs 3-4 times as much as supermarket food but oh my goodness, what a difference.
I pay about £16 for a chicken, the funny thing is, raw it looks awful. It is solid, not squishy because there is no added water, it looks very dry and of course it is hand plucked so there are always more feather stubs! I was very wary when I fist cooked one of these chickens because it just looked so rough! My goodness, I have never tasted anything like it. Moist and tender, pure tasting and each chicken ( about 6lbs in weight) easily gives us 3 meals. The carcass makes the most delicious stock. The whole family loves the soup I make with the stock, add a couple of cans of creamed sweetcorn, some single cream and some of the meat and you have the most glorious soup to eat with some crusty bread.
Last week we bought some mutton and H loved it ! I cooked it in the slow cooker with onions and tinned tomatoes, when the meat was falling apart I made a curry sauce using the tomato and onion liquid the meat had cooked in. Heaven!
It took me a week and 2 different meals to decide that paying that much more for this meat is worth it. I will never buy meat from a supermarket again, the difference is so stark, so incredible that the thought of ever eating that watery, steroid pumped shop meat again is ridiculous. The boys eat every scrap, Seth especially loves the chicken. I feel I want to stand on a soap box and preach to people about eating free range, organic meat!
We eat much less meat than before, it is much more satisfying, you need much less on your plate to feel sustained. We eat meat perhaps 4 times a week, we buy sausages, minced pork, roasting joints, ribs and pork fillets from a friend who has a small holding, we also buy eggs from her, again the difference is amazing, dark orange yolks, beautiful tasting eggs. We buy beef and chicken from a farm about 4 miles away. Spending about £40 a week at the farm I buy 1 chicken, some mutton and ground beef, I also buy great bread and jam from the shop along with some fresh vegetables ( until we have our own!!) I spend about £30 every 2 week on the pork. I do have a fairly full freezer now though so won't need to buy any meat for at least a month.
I really recommend going this route if you can, once you try and taste the difference you won't want to go back to the wishy washy stuff of before!
*Stepping off soap box*
I am just in heaven with the weather we are having at the moment, oh such heat! Such sunshine! Such heavenly days of relaxation and untidy house! Really, does anyone clean and scrub when the weather is like this? The boys are doing really well tidying up after themselves and earning computer time, laundry is done and dried outside but ironing? I think not!
Living in England we can never be sure how long the sun will last, why waste an hour of it to vacuum and tidy when we could be at the water park or beach?
Car boot sales have been fabulous, it seems people don't mind sitting out in the heat selling their trash as other people's treasure! We have found sales 3 days a week and H and I love wandering around and finding bargains.
Life is OK, sometimes it's fabulous, sometimes it feels so hard I would love to crawl into bed and stay there. The best thing is to keep getting on with getting on. That's good enough for now.

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