NotSheep

We’ve been doing lots of skool this week. There hasn’t been much of it done over the past few weeks – too many other things distracting all of us – so the kids and I sat down and had a chat and came up with a plan. It’s surprising how much they can get done when they get stuck in. After so many years of home-educating, I should be used to this, but still, I’m always surprised.

So lots of busy-busy-around-the-table. Barney’s been revising and doing practice papers, and being frustratingly inconsistent with it. He’s also in trouble for breaking an unrelated agreement with us, the details of which I’m not going into here, but suffice to say that he will not have much to do, other than revision, for the foreseeable future.

Yesterday was our monthly home-ed group meetup – for the first time since we started meeting, we didn’t get a bright sunny day. In fact we got quite the opposite: a dull, grey day during which the precipitation veered between light showers and pelting rain. I was first to arrive at the hall and waited around for a while for B, who opens the hall up for us. When a couple of other families arrived, I sent him a text-message to see if he’d forgotten about us, but had no reply. The children were all running about in the playground and we were standing around in the car-park, but then the rain started in earnest, and some of us took shelter in Gloria. I now know that we can fit about 17 people into Gloria without any trouble at all. The middle bit – the bit between the two facing rows of seats – was the most full, and it was cosy rather than comfortable but there was room for more across the front seats and the children in the back (actually in it and also under the huge rear gate) had plenty of room for jumping about

I tried B again, with no success, then found a different phone number to try – one I’d received a text-message from a few weeks ago. I rang that, even though I didn’t know whose number it was, and the woman who answered said she’d try to get hold of B, then ring me back. We sat in Gloria and waited…

As we waited, a police-car pulled into the car-park and came to a stop a few metres from Gloria. We all thought “crikey!” or variations thereof, and I got out to explain why there were 17ish of us sitting in a Caravelle in a car-park next to a locked-up community centre. But they weren’t bothered about Gloria and her contents – they wanted to know who owned the car parked next to mine, as a car similar to it had taken off when they’d tried to stop it earlier! It was my friend A’s car, so I told them that, and that she was in my car sheltering from the rain, and I opened the door of my car to tell her what was going on. Her face was a picture when I asked if she’d been running from the police again. Fortunately all it took to clear her name was for the police to radio the car-registration through and get it checked. Nothing like a bit of excitement to start the day

I had a call back to say that B had indeed forgotten about us coming, but that she (I still don’t know her name!) had keys, and could one of us collect them – so A did that, and then we figured out how to get the alarm off and the shutters up and the games room open, etc. We had no major activity plans this month – one of the boys was willing to do some chess coaching, but as the kids seemed to be entertaining themselves perfectly well without the need for anyone to organise them, we let them get on with it. It’s been lovely to watch the friendships among the kids grow over the last few months – those who’ve been coming regularly come in, spot someone they know, and before you know it there are several little groups doing a variety of things in different parts of the room. I also noticed that when new kids arrive, they’re instantly welcomed into those little groups – there’s no clique-y-ness at all. From memory, I think we had about seven or eight families yesterday, and about 27 kids – which I think is good for a group that’s only met four times – especially when it covers a fairly wide area (some of the families travel over an hour, either driving or on public transport). Not only that, but since we got this group started, some more local groups have started meeting too – it really seems to have pushed people into activity that just wasn’t there before

After much playing and talking and eating and other fun, we got the place cleaned up and locked up and I took the keys back to whence they’d come. Our intention then was to head home, but the prospect of a drive across the city in rush-hour traffic was unappealing, so instead I phoned a friend who lives locally and asked if she was available for an hour or two, and if she thought it might be possible for me to scrounge a cup of tea or two – she had been about to start writing a report for work, but seemed more than willing to have it postponed so we spent the next couple of hours socialising even more. We finally made it home after 7, having done the journey in a very reasonable 30 minutes, rather than the hour-or-more it would have taken at 4 p.m.

Today…well, if I can muster the energy, we’ll go swimming later, but first there’ll be more practice papers for Barney. Less than a week to go – let’s hope he finds his thinking-head soon