So we had all day Saturday and Sunday morning to ourselves to fully relax in.  We had been feeling pretty stressed again, particularly Martin and a grabbed afternoon in the pub the previous Saturday had only highlighted to us that we had moved away from the ideas of including plenty of idleness in our lives and were heading towards manic over business and ineffective activity yet again.

So when we got into the car to head out on Saturday morning and the track playing in the car was Needed A Day Like This by the lovely Paul Bell we really felt we were doing the right thing.

No alarms today
No phones to ring I’m just…
Waking up with the sun and my love
No work today
No bills to pay
It’s just you and me my love.
And today, the world just melts away

I needed a day like this
I needed a day like this

No demands
And no firm plans
We’ve got all the time in the world my love
No plots to hatch
No trains to catch
It’s just you and me my love
And today, the world just melts away
And today, the world just melts away

We had lunch at the always tasty Chale Green Stores  and then headed out towards Sandown and our hotel.  We were passing the Botanic gardens and decided to stop there for an afternoon walk.

There were brilliant colours and amazing textures and we relaxed, chatted and took photos.

We headed to the hotel (Melville Hall)  where there were two unexpected bonuses – a four poster bed in the room and much more impressively an outdoor hot tub. We nipped straight into the hot tub (it was closing shortly) and lay in the hot water watching the stars gradually come out and feeling very very relaxed! We didn’t feel in need of a restaurant meal and it was a nice evening so despite the time of year we headed out to eat fish and chips on the beach.  Back to the bar for a drink and a couple of games of crib (only a couple we won one each and weren’t going to risk marital disharmony by playing another).

We were very impressed that the hotel room also had proper wine glasses and more importantly a tea pot!

We headed down to Quarr Abbey for morning tea and cake and after an exceptioanlly long wait got a very attractive set of drinks and a somewhat disappointing slice of shortbread.  Nerissa assures me that their cakes are lovely though so we’lll have to go back and try again another day!

So we were happily relaxed when we got back to the kids and determined to make sure we had some time each month when we spent at least an afternoon to ourselves just relaxing with no agenda.

We got back to Quarr and enjoyed listening to the pigs squealing.

You look around

find some fungi

Yell “fungi” at the top of your voice and a crowd comes running

and Sue tells us what it is we’ve found.

We didn’t find an awful lot at Parkhurst.

Then as we neared the end we found a few more interesting things, and then just as we were about to head back to the cars some one spotted a huge fly agraic, then they spotted more, and more.  there were loads and loads of them, it was like entering fairyland.

I started using these boots for the  Isle of Wight walking festival. There are apparently over 600 walks to choose from over the course of two weeks led by all sorts of people some by organisations and many by just ordinary members of the public who want to share a favourite walk with others.  It’s a brilliant thing and we have enjoyed many walks over the years we have been here.

Cream-spot Tiger moth

Martin has been leading a few walks in the walking festival, all drawn from a new walks booklet he has been involved in developing.  Yesterday we took Jonathan along with us (girls too blistered from Walk the Wight) and did a brilliant walk starting at  Mottistone heading down the coastal path to Brook  and past the Longstone back to the car park.  There were fantastic views of Freshwater Bay throughout.  We saw a Cream-spot Tiger moth and Martin told us about some of the conservation based farming that was going on. As well as this though we also had the “no school today” question.

Martin at the front said he had 3 lots of the conversation, Jonathan said he had 5 lots.  Martin mentioned he was asked about exams (Jonathan is 9 and looks young for his age – how worried do you need to be about exams at that age!) and “doesn’t he miss out on seeing his friends?”

I was trying to bring up the back and had time for a more lengthy conversations about HE.  I just had the one conversation though.  We did the standard questions:

Exams  -  ”well the girls have got a few already and we only need the ones they need to get where they want to go”  ”Actually finding somewhere to sit exams if you want to do them is the most difficult part of HEing  if you as me”

Socialisation: – “They’ve got lots of friends and get together to do various activities.   ” “There’s a HE group on the Island with about 70 families in it”   “They go to clubs” “socialising with a group of 30 children the same age doesn’t seem very natural to me”     “The girls did Walk the Wight on Saturday with a group of teens ranging from 18 down to 13″

Being checked up on – “Local Authorities tend to interpret the law in a variety of ways – we send them a report once a year”

Then there was actually an interesting question:

“So what would you consider to be success, how would you feel you had succeeded?”

So I guess I should have gone on about my educational philosophy blah blah.  But I just said “I’d want them to end up doing something that they felt happy and content doing.”  If I was considering it in more detail for a written answer I’m sure I would have had far more to say and would have phrased it slightly better – I’m not really so interested in what they end up doing but that in their lives they feel contented and happy – but actually for me that it the most important thing.

Then there is the phone call!

The one from the kids which says “We’re all wet, we’re coming home at 10.30″  as I wasn’t on the phone to them I could say the words in my head not just think them it went something like “what do you mean they’re coming home early, we’re supposed to be having a relaxed day together – grrrrr grrrrr grrrrr”.  So in no time I have gone from completely chilled and relaxed and wondering where we should walk and lunch to feeling disappointed agitated and wondering how I can manage my disappointed feeling and not let it ruin the whole day (this was not really successful have felt edgy and grumpy most of the day).

Anyway we decide we should get up and at least enjoy breakfast in peace and by ourselves.

They seem to be taking longer than we expected to come home so we at least got some of our conversing done.

When the girls come home they’ve gained two Dawsons (we have Jonathan coming back later with other Dawsons)  This makes no difference to us as by the time we’ve got our own girls back a few other kids (who seem very at home here – in fact Caleb often walks in and great martin with “Hello Daddy”) msake no difference really.

We then deal with muddy clothes and children and Ruth starts with her usual baking.

More Dawsons arrive with Jonathan and to my relief his car seat!

Tea and good conversations follow and then Dawsons all leave.

Rebekah can’t decide whether to cycle to the swimming pool or not.  Rain decides her so we all decide to do a bit of house/van work and the Ali is going to come over.

I’ve volunteered to do an extra Sunday Funday at church tomorrow so I’ve been making play dough and Jonathan is choosing a Veggie Tales DVD

I made some lovely poffertjes – just as they are ready Thorne handily turns up.

You eat them traditionally with icing sugar and butter but I rather like chocolate spread and Baileys!

Kids play demons, I escape to blog and try and feel happy by listening to strange Radio 4 plays and Martin continues on the van.

At some point I will need to kick out extra kids and eat dinner but for now I am enjoying living with radio 4 and ignoring everyone else!

So aside from my sniping at everyone the day has been OK, even pretty good in places  - but  not what we had planned.  I’m not good at appreciating what has come about if it’s different to what I had been expected but after the poffertjes I definitely started to feel better!

I say we but once again it was me and Jonathan the girls were busy with English classes, working on band stuff and messing about at Cowes beach:

So Jonathan and I headed out to Ryde to do the Venerable Oaks Histree walk.  After a typically late HE start we set off – a small and slightly unusual group –  there were no girls at all and a higher adult to child ratio than usual too.

We walk down paths round the back of Binstead that I had never been down.  When we got past Pucker Copse we should have found a “Veteran Oak….well loved”  However what we actually found was a huge oak which had fallen over.  This gave the children a fantastic place to play.

After we had spent long enough playing and eating bourbon biscuits (the staple diet of HE outings – their vegan so OK for everyone except the wheat free!) we moved on towards Quarr.

We walked along Coronation Lane down the row of poplar trees and noticed the large clumps of mistletoe mentioned in the tree trail.

We had some great views along this part of the walk, across the Solent to the mainland

and saw some of the Quarr Abbey horses and ponies.

We carried on ladies walk stopping to discus the stone idol on the the archway to the church yard and look at the strangely shaped oak besides what was the infirmary chapel.

We finished off the walk and headed home.  A very late lunch for me and Jonathan and then more Big Toe Books and Hama beads for Jonathan and blogging for me!

Another good day here – and the weather was fantastic and spotting snow drops and daffodils out in the sunshine really made my heart glad

So this month has been spent largely spent focusing on getting the girls through the exams.  They both has the last of their maths exams and Rebekah had her iGCSE English as well.

The house got covered in post it notes for revision.

This is not as straight forward a process as it is for those in school – or even HErs on the mainland.

We are using an exam centre in Portsmouth where they and the HE group over there that organise it have been very helpful.  What is not helpful is when you have to get across there in storms and the worse flooding the Island has seen for 10 years.  We only just got our hover in time and the crossing was dire!

This set of exams involved 3 crossings and one set of invigilating for me – so it works out both time and money consuming.  However they all seemed happy with the exams and now we just wait for the results.

The post exam celebration was a walk from Freshwater to Shanklin with the maths students and many of their friends.

Ruth spent the start of the month visiting London with Jane, Jonathan and my mum – she had a wonderful time doing theme parks, shopping and shows – so she relaxed well before the exams.  Now they have finished she doesn’t quite know what to do with herself - it’s almost like she needs deschooling!  She even went to a English class voluntarily last week.

Rebekah has been studying very  hard for the English (she only started in September so it will be very interesting to see how she does).   She is going to do the Tour De Trigs next weekend with a couple of friends so they have been practising night time navigating!

The boys under a bridge (or maybe a tree) on one of the practice walks.

She also went on her first lone journey beyond London and travelled far up north to visit Liese, Nathan and Elliot in Darlington – the coach Journey only took 12 hours!

Jonathan has been enjoying circus skills and has been practising hard at home with staff, poi and diablo.  I think it’s probably very good for his co-ordination. And more to the point he is loving it.

I don’t feel like I have regained my Thursdays other things have crept in to take the place of maths – last week it was wonderful though.  A few of us went over to the beach huts in the freezing wind and sat in side and chatted and ate and played cards and read about half of Romeo and Juliet together.  We knew the stove had heated the place up when we could no longer see our breath.  It was lovely!

So November is pretty much gone now and we are into the season of Advent – hurrah!

In the midst of this we had this lovely Saturday evening at our friends’ beach hut and then slept over in another beach hut.  So we woke up on Sunday morning to fantastic view over fields and the sea.

Being us we didn’t have the whole morning to ourselves, Martin was going off to work at the Wolverton Manor Show and we were going to join him later.  But we didn’t have to rush to get up and the kids all stayed asleep and we experienced a moment of peace and tranquillity that had a profound effect on me.  Why didn’t I have more mornings when I felt like this, why were we always rushing about on a Sunday instead of relaxing and feeling peaceful and having enough time to enjoy each other company?

The peace and tranquillity is obviously enhanced by cups of tea

So having established that this was my best Sunday morning for months (even if after these pics Martin went off to WMS and I was left cleaning the tent that a load of smelly teenagers had been sleeping in for a week) did we do anything to change our lives?  No of course we didn’t we carried on regardless.

Stress carried on building up.

Then shortly afterwards I read an article in the New Wine magazine (I don’t usually read it as I find it too charisimaticly evangelical for my tastes these days, but it was free so hey!) while sitting on the loo (all the best reading goes on there.  I usually even read Martin’s Third Sector magazine which is seriously boring – although this month pictured an almost nude picture of Mark Forster who used to swim at Copthall where I used to teach swimming – and the BBC focus Magazine is the overall preferred magazine by most people in the house).

I picked out an article by Michele Guinness who is really interesting.  She was writing about the sabbatical that she was having in France with her husband and how they were going to do up a house in France.  The content of the article was mostly focused on the fact that they had decided to not work on the house on Sundays but to have a day of rest instead. She wasn’t happy with this decision at first as she felt it was just shirking on the DIY but says that as Sundays were spent cycling through countryside and having leisurely meals she came round to the idea very quickly.

Now I know it’s not rocket science but it suddenly struck me that this was just what we needed.  One day a week to be a day for resting, for playing , for fun and not for work.  A day to be different than the rest.  You’d think as a Christian with the heritage of  a Sabbath day I could have twigged a bit earlier.  So I pointed Martin in the direction of the magazine article and he agreed.

So how were we going to keep Sunday’s different?

Well they needed to be fun – when the girls were younger we wanted to make Sunday’s the best day in the week and we used to have gisbit day (biscuit day -but Rebekah couldn’t say it), when we could have tea and biscuits for breakfast before church – now we go to a fabulous church that has tea (and rather nice filter coffee) and biscuits (or cakes, sausage rolls, bacon rolls etc – depending on who is doing the teas) before church  so we don’t need to do that any more.

Also we had memories of friends who hadn’t been allowed to play with anything other than a Noah’s Ark toy on a Sunday which all sounded a bit grim.

So we decided to ban the computer (with an exception for the iPlayer if we are watching together and music) mostly to stop me and Martin from disappearing into facebook land and to make it time when we could all do what we wanted but with a focus generally on being together.  No DIY or general housework (cooking and dished excepting).  No Work!  But always remembering that “the Sabbath was made for man not man for the Sabbath”.  So these are not rules but guidelines to help us to have a proper day of rest

So what have we done since deciding this?

We’ve gone on a fungal foray with friends, where we surprised ourselves by actually finding something other than little brown jobbies.

c

We’ve gone on walks, long and short and all together and in smaller groups.

We have watched videos and played games.

We’ve napped in bed and on the slouch (mostly that’s just me).

But mostly we just have a proper day off, we don’t go shopping and we don’t work and we do spend time doing what we feel like doing and doing things together.  Last week we all gardened except Rebekah who made scones instead – everyone was happy.  Then she went off to a recorder concert while I napped and read chick-lit on the sofa and martin and Jonathan played carcassone.   Oh and we usually watch Top Gear when it’s on too!

I can’t begin to describe what a difference this simple change has made in our lives, I look forward to Sundays hugely now – sometimes things don’t work out perfectly, when we are on some sort of duty at church we don’t have quite such a relaxed start  (I can be known to be yelling at everyone to find every pair of scissors in the house and the packet of  split-pins which surely must be in the blue box in the cupboard as I haven’t fully prepared for Sunday funday), but not starting church until 11am means we don’t have to rush too much – but overall everyone looks forward to Sundays and it seems to  give everyone permission to just chill out and have a day off.

We think Sundays are super

]]> http://wightweirdos.co.uk/ww/2010/03/our-super-sundays/feed/ 2 http://wightweirdos.co.uk/ww/2008/11/fossils-on-the-isle-of-wights-sw-coast/ http://wightweirdos.co.uk/ww/2008/11/fossils-on-the-isle-of-wights-sw-coast/#comments Sat, 15 Nov 2008 23:03:00 +0000 Martin http://79.170.40.181/wightweirdos.co.uk/ww/?p=71 The South West coast of the Island is famed for its fossils. We arranged a work outing to take a look with a local expert. Unfortunately something went wrong and we managed to be in a different place to our expert at the appointed hour. Having driven all that way we figured we might as well take a wander anyway, and Ian managed to discover this footprint, which he believes to have been left by an Iguanodon (I am an Iguanodon Ignoramus I’m afraid, so I will bow to his superior fossil knowledge!). There were more prints, but this one was amazingly defined.

Photo courtesy of Ian Boyd

Once that was out of the way we got down to the serious matter of playing on the beach and trying to find innovative ways of falling into Grange Chine. I’ll try and post some video footage next week.