NotSheep

Lots of the links in this post lead to posts which are now private because they contain photos (and I only keep those posts public for two or three weeks after publishing them). So log in, or else…well, or else you won’t be able to see them.

When I started this review, I thought it had been a quieter year than 2006. Now that I’ve spent half a day writing it, I understand why I’m so tired. I think I should go and lie down for a year or two.

The beginning of 2007 found us - well me, anyway - trying to come to terms with the imminent loss of Barney and Henry. The latter sulked for several days after I booked the flights, and the former had a meltdown during which he expressed his doubts and fears and began to understand that courage is not about a lack of fear, but about doing something despite your fears. We made a list of things we wanted to do before the big boys left, and started with a trip to Ecos and another to the Folk and Transport Museum, where we explored both inside and outside, despite the wild windy weather. We saw the marvellous Titanic exhibition and had a ride in a flight simulator. We discovered that our activities were going to be seriously affected by our local leisure centre closing for two years. I got tough on Henry over his maths, which suddenly improved dramatically, and we rounded off the month with a trip to the bowling alley.

February began with a home-ed trip to a Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust property and I noted how much boys like sticks (big ones in particular) and felt relieved that Jack did not repeat his escapade of our previous visit. The “wild” theme continued with a visit to a wildlife rescue centre and we checked one more activity off our to-do-before-they-go list when we spent an afternoon tie-dying t-shirts, with fab results. Toby ended up on antibiotics - the first time any of my kids has had them for over nine years - due to infected nailbeds on a finger and thumb; I also got an infection but managed to clear it with lots of soaking. Freddy and Jack and I went on a trip to the local marina with Beavers. We all went to visit the Palace Stables and St Patrick’s Trian. Arrangements for Barney to attend Henry’s school in France were made. We visited a wildlife reserve with a friend of ours who ran the place until recently - he was a wonderful guide Toby got his first haircut, and the rest of the boys attended Chinese New Year celebrations. We spent a day with some other home-ed families at an aquarium and rescue centre, followed by hours in what was probably the worst traffic jam ever seen around these parts - but we just managed to join the rest of the Beavers for a visit to the police station, where I was handcuffed (but only briefly ). We returned to the Folk Museum, since the weather on our last visit had driven us indoors fairly quickly. And Toby turned into BatBaby.

March found me trying to pretend that Barney and Henry’s departure wasn’t less than two weeks away. We visited the science centre again and we went bowling again and visited the Castle again. George and Freddy had an argument about who was going to be first in the dentist’s chair, and we went to not one, but two museums in one day - the first telling the story of the linen industry, the second a small local museum which had a special display of Japanese artifacts. Henry had an, um, interesting visit to a local school, to speak with the class of one of the Scouts and he complimented both my French and my ability to teach maths I took Barney and Henry to the Ulster-American Folk Park, where they discovered (re-discovered, in Barney’s case) the story of the Irish settlers in America and got fed pancakes fresh from the griddle. Scratchy took all the boys to the science centre to meet The Titan.

And then they were gone…

Scratchy went with them, they had a great few days, and Barney decided to stay (not that there’d ever been much doubt). I spent a few days with friends before going to collect Scratchy at the airport (and missing him), then coming home to celebrate Jack’s fifth birthday with cake and yet another trip to the science centre. We cleaned up the garden, explored Mind Maps, and I was rescued by one of the Beavers’ dads when I got a flat tyre. And Barney, still in France, had a brief illness, which made everything more difficult for everybody.

Wow…all that and we’re only up to the beginning of April!

Barney recovered, we all got some time outdoors and Freddy and George earned their ju-jitsu orange and yellow belts respectively. I returned a bit of electronics kit, then had to go and get it back when I discovered I’d actually returned something else entirely. Scratchy took George, Freddy and Jack to the science centre while I took Toby to his first speech therapy assessment. Easter was celebrated with much chocolate and a visit to the seaside. The boys helped prepare for two new arrivals who also brought many visitors, and Barney continued to enjoy his time in Europe. Later in the month, my laptop started misbehaving and we’d a couple of difficult phone-calls with Barney. We continued our gardening efforts - little did we know that summer would never actually arrive. George and I attended the Cubs’ District Sports Night and Barney cycled around the French countryside.

In May, I took delivery of a replacement laptop, we got lots of new badges, Jack was happy and we discovered a Dalek in the garden. Barney started to sound more cheery and went to the beach, and the rest of us had a party for Freddy’s 8th birthday and took the dogs to the forest. George went to Centenary Cub Camp and I took the Beavers to the same location for a Centenary Beaver Day.

In June we started with a playground day with other home-ed families and George acted all grown-up while I was ill. We had another home-ed outing - this time to the zoo - and the pups continued to grow like weeds. We took advantage of a sunny weekend with a trip to the coast, a picnic lunch on the beach and a visit to our friends at their caravan. Barney, meanwhile, was enjoying the South of France. Jack showed off his knowledge of anatomy. We took off for a few days at the caravan, during which we watched the deck being completed and I took the older boys to the Giant’s Causeway and the Rope Bridge. We decided to stay over the weekend too, and we spent most of our last day in the surf and the sand. Once home, Toby fell downstairs, George had a birthday party, we talked to Barney and returned to the caravan with an extra pup - the sister of our pups, who was being adopted by our friends.

We started the second half of the year by running away again - back to the caravan, on a moment’s notice. On our return, we called Barney, only to discover that his French papa had been in a bicycle accident. The next few days were worrying for all of us, as he had surgery twice and was in an artificial coma for over a week. When he finally came around, things started looking much better, but it was decided that in view of how long his recovery was expected to take and the fact that his wife would be spending a lot of time at the hospital, it was best for Barney to come home a bit early and perhaps return for a few weeks next summer. In the meantime, we prepared for a visit from four teenaged Japanese boys - Scouts, en route to the International Jamboree. Their arrival came with a bit of a surprise: they spoke no English. This complicated things slightly, but we managed by drawing, pointing, showing photographs… we took them to the castle, ten-pin bowling, and, along with the rest of their group and ours, to the Rope Bridge and the Giant’s Causeway. During that outing I had a fascinating conversation about education with a teacher. The lack of words-in-common didn’t prevent the teens and my own children from getting on like a house on fire, though, and we even started a little cottage industry in origami. We are very glad we volunteered for this; if you ever get such an opportunity, take it! Just two days after leaving our Japanese teens to one airport, I was on the way to a different airport to collect my own almost-teenaged son.

And on to August - the latter bit of the summer that never was. We started by gathering early in the morning with other Scouts from our District to mark exactly one hundred years since the beginning of the camp that started the whole Scouting movement. I got a brand new camera, we had more of those great conversations that make you wonder why you ever buy workbooks, Toby turned two and Barney and George attended the world’s smallest drama group. We all went to a friend’s birthday party, then came home and got ready for bed - only to have our bedtime plans dramatically interrupted when the car - the one that had been sitting in the drive, in the rain, not running, for over 24 hours - burst into flames. We had another day-trip to the caravan, Cassie got sick and then better again, and Jack wondered if we owned a magic carpet. We decided the local indoor playground really wasn’t worth the bother (or the money) and spent a couple of days with friends we don’t see often enough. We walked dogs, met some Germans and spotted some seals, we cut children’s hair, Barney played tennis and Jack didn’t do Kindergym. Toby did rather well for birthday presents and was cute, as usual.

September brought puttering and putering, attempts to purchase a new refrigerator, yet another week in the caravan, during which the dogs ran away and back, the door cut Tobys’ thumb, Jack learned to ride without stabilisers and we rode bicycles on the beach. Barney joined me and the other Scouting adults of our group in cleaning out the hall in preparation for a new roof and we attended the wonderful Last Night of the Proms. We got back into our usual routines of studying and activities and we knocked our Beavers numbers up over 20. We made playdough, wrote letters to Santa(!), squeezed in a few more days in the caravan before the summer-that-never-started came to an end. I got scabby knees and the boys all switched bicycles. We got lovely letters from one of our Japanese Scouts and his mother, one of our car tyres died (exploded?) and Barney went to Scout Camp - as did Scratchy, having finally filled in his form to become a Leader.

October brought our first real preview of teenage mood-swings, funny noises which took the one remaining car out of service for a week and cost us a small fortune - and then more, a month of no Scouts (because of the roof replacement), moans about socks, another science centre visit, a day at the zoo with hundreds of Beavers, dogs helping redecorate and National Schools Film Week, during which we saw Tales from Earthsea (largely because I hadn’t realised it was manga) and Arthur and the Invisibles. We had another science centre visit, another visit to the castle, lots of sickies around the house (including me), and dressing up for Hallowe’en.

In November I continued to feel very rough, Toby improved his flirting skills and was dismissed by the paediatric cardiologist, Jack was invested into Beavers and Freddy swam up from Beavers to Cubs. Barney turned into a teenager - we celebrated with a day at the science centre and the bowling alley.

December - visits to the dentist and the mechanic, Freddy’s Investiture into Cubs, the local pantomime, the purchase and installation of a Christmas tree, an announcement to the world, cookie-baking, gift-wrapping, and balloons and face-painting at Ikea. We had our Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve, which worked very well on all counts, especially the one that let me laze about on Christmas Day. And, of course, there was Christmas Day itself, after which we hibernated until 2008.

Barney wants to try to squeeze in another exchange before he turns 14 and is too old for one. George isn’t going anywhere; he’s not ready for six months anywhere else, and he knows it - but he wants to be matched for a one-way exchange. Freddy is counting the days to his ninth birthday so that he’s old enough too.

Seems my children are fairly unanimous in their feelings about the whole experience.

I’m glad we did it too, and am more than willing to do it again; I hope we get the chance. 2008 is looking like being a busy year for us. Anyone got a decent minibus they’d like to donate?

Applications for exchanges starting next September (2008/09 exchanges) should be going in soon. Do you have a child who’s interested, or do you want to learn more? If you want to chat with me about it, you can use the Contact Form or leave a comment.

For the first time this week, I was actually awake and functional all day long - certainly moreso than yesterday, which was largely spent almost-horizontal. George and Barney did go to Cubs and Scouts respectively in the evening, though George’s friend R didn’t make it, since he had too much homework. He’s in his last year of primary school, and his mum (a nursery teacher) spoke to his teacher, who told her that two hours a night is about right for that age. Astonishing.

Cubs and Scouts went well, apparently, and nobody brought any badges home to be sewn on, which is just as well since most of the last lot aren’t sewn on yet.

This morning George cleaned up the kitchen after breakfast (muttering all the time - he mutters a lot) while the others did their jobs around the house. Barney seemed particularly helpful this morning; the reason for that became clear later

By lunchtime George and Freddy had done some maths and Barney had worked through quite a bit of his French textbook; it’s mostly just refresher for him right now, but he’ll soon be at the same point as George (who’d gone ahead while Barney was away). I’m not sure how it’s going to work - maybe they’ll work together, or maybe Barney, not needing to absorb the vocabulary and structure, will forge ahead - but we’ll work it out when we get there. When Freddy went off to investigate what we could have for lunch, he reported back that there was nothing to eat. I was a bit disbelieving, and sure enough, investigation revealed a wide variety of options in the Big New Fridge alone, before even opening the cupboards. Lunch was more or less a fend-for-yourself affair; Barney was the last to eat and I had to laugh as he walked into the kitchen and announced, “Right, hand over the bread and nobody gets hurt!”

Scratchy did some errands for me at lunchtime - a shower and shower-rail that I hope will work in the boys’ bathroom (it’s too long for a standard curtain-pole) and a copy of Anne Frank’s Diary, since Barney and George are going to do a project on it. We’re reading Carrie’s War at the minute, then we’ll have a brief look at life in Europe during WWII, then read Anne Frank together.

Lunch over, I checked the post and discovered the renewal forms for the car insurance - for the car that went up in flames about a month ago. I rang the broker and reminded them that the vehicle wasn’t really in an insurable state any more…

After that I did some German with Barney while George finished his maths before we read some more of Carrie’s War. During the rest of the afternoon I realised that it’s almost a year since Henry arrived with us - this time last year we were moving furniture in preparation for his family coming. I also had most of my Christmas shopping done - it didn’t quite work out in the end, of course, due to Henry’s arrival, but it was still a sight more than I’ve done this year. I must speak to Scratchy and see when he can take a day off so that I can disappear to the shops - I don’t shop on weekends if I can possibly help it.

I noticed this morning that George was scratching his head in a sort of manic fashion, so thought a nit-check might be in order. On entering the kids’ bathroom, however, I was confronted by a huge spider - in the bath, so no immediate panic, but too big to wash down the plughole, so not leaving the bath usable - at least not if you’re me. I checked George’s head in the master bathroom instead, and the result of that was that everybody else got checked too. Trust me, sometimes negative is better than positive. And I’d certainly have preferred five negatives in a row to the five positives I got

While I was checking Barney, I realised how grown-up he’s becoming. He’s taller, his shoulders are broadening and becoming more muscular…and he told me he’s starting to get a bit interested in girls. Not that any girl will ever be good enough for him, of course He also asked if he could go to the youth-club tonight - aha! that explains the excessive helpfulness all day! Unfortunately when he went to walk C this evening and swung by his friend N’s house, he discovered that the youth-club isn’t on tonight. Why, he doesn’t know, because he didn’t think to ask. Is it just too early in the term? Is it cancelled for evermore? Is it running every night except Thusdays now? The mystery remains… and Barney’s had a shower for nothing

To explain some of the previous post: 2007 sees not just the Centenary of Scouting, but also the 21st World Jamboree, which will be held in Essex. It has long been tradition that Scouts attending a Jamboree in a country which is not their own travel via another country which is more local to it, staying a few days in that country beforehand, and they are hosted by volunteer families during that time. This is called Home Hospitality, or HoHo.

Swedish and Japanese Scouts will be arriving here this week; our District is one of those selected to host Scouts from Japan. Each participating family usually hosts two Scouts (or two Leaders), and we were going to be hosting two boys, aged 15 and 17 - until this week, when a parent in one of the other host families broke her leg. Since we have room and so many children that we no longer notice a few extras ;-), we offered to host a second pair. And so we have two 15-year-olds, and two 17-year-olds, coming to us from Tuesday to Friday.

(Asking if we could help, the District Commissioner said to me, “I’ve got a little problem.” “Are you sure,” I asked, “that it’s the kind of thing you want to discuss with me?” “Oh,” he replied, “I didn’t think anybody had noticed that.” LOL)

Barney will just miss them; he’s probably going to be returning next Sunday. We asked him yesterday if he wanted someone to go to collect him from France, or if he was happy to take the flight alone, and initially he very definitely said he didn’t want to fly alone, but this morning he told us he had thought about it some more, and that he just wanted to do whatever was easiest for his French family, and that would be for him to fly on his own. I know it’s not really what he wants, and I hope it’s not too difficult for him. I offered to send him a copy of HP7 so he could read it during the flight and make the time go faster, and he eagerly accepted the offer, so I’ll have to get one packaged and posted first thing on Monday.

I’ve now read most of it twice, having finished my first reading in the early hours of Wednesday George is nearly at the end too, he started at about 9 o’clock this morning. He didn’t even read all day - he, Freddy and Jack were off at a birthday party for the boy next door for most of the afternoon. It was very weird to be in the house with Toby fast asleep and the others all gone

Speaking of Toby, he had a hearing test yesterday; he doesn’t use any words consistently yet and the paediatrician wanted it done because it’s what they’d usually do for a child his age who wasn’t talking. I thought it was a waste of time; I knew his hearing was fine, and we already knew why his speech is delayed - but in the interests of appearing cooperative I agreed. He passed the test with flying colours; at least the paed had the grace to say “Well, Mum was right and I was wrong - as I knew she would be!” I do feel his speech needs some encouragement though, so I phoned the speech therapist this week and asked her to see him again soon (she was going to re-assess him next April); she’s sending out an appointment. She offered us a cancellation for next Wednesday, but I think I might be slightly busy then

After the test we went to visit the local butcher, as we do every Friday. My dogs are on a prey-model diet and he provides the food. He keeps a great big bucket with a lid in his walk-in refrigerator, and he puts anything he can’t sell into it: ststuff thatuff that didn’t sell, stuff that he’d never sell, stuff where the cutting went wrong, etc. We get everything from whole chickens to beef heart, and the dogs love it. Once a week I go in with another great big bucket with a lid, and he dumps everything from his into mine. Most weeks it’s about what the dogs eat in a week; sometimes it’s a bit more, sometimes a bit less, but it seems to balance out well, and if we’re ever short (which doesn’t happen often), I throw in whatever happens to be on sale at the supermarket. I take my bucket home and freeze the contents in portions of approximately what the dogs will eat in a day, then every evening I take out one container to thaw overnight. It’s a great diet for the dogs, with loads of benefits for them and us - not least of which is that it costs us nothing. I do usually buy something from the butcher when I go in to collect it, but everything he sells is so good that it’s not exactly a hardship

Yesterday Freddy asked if he could go in with me when I collected the dogs’ food “just to see what it’s like”. (Freddy and Scratchy are the reasons I’m not a vegetarian.) He had a look around and said, “Can I buy something? I’ve got my money with me.” I agreed, and eventually he settled on pork-and-chili sausages. The butcher says he doesn’t get many eight-year-old boys in asking for pork-and-chili sausages. He also gave Freddy lollipops for him and his brothers, so we got about nine days’ worth of food for the dogs, four lollipops and about ten prize-winning sausages, all for the low cost of £1.90, which Freddy paid anyway

Barney’s coming home. We don’t know exactly when, but it will be within the next week or two.

and

His exchange dad is going to be in hospital for three or four months, and his exchange mum is travelling to the hospital most days to be with him. It’s about a three-hour round-trip, so between time spent at the hospital and time spent on the road, she hasn’t a lot of time at home - and she’s exhausted. She feels it would be better if Barney came home now, perhaps returning to them for a couple of months next summer, when X will, we hope, be fully recovered, or close to it.

We’re not completely surprised by this; we’d said right from the day of the accident that we would completely understand if she felt that having Barney there was too much, and that we would go along with whatever she felt was best. I spoke to A this morning, and then talked to Barney and explained what was happening; he cried, not wanting to come home yet. He feels that the problems he and Henry have had in the last few months were finally resolving, and he’d promised his friends in his French school that he’d see them in September. I reminded him that he’ll still be able to talk to them on MSN, that he can invite any of them to visit, that he’ll be able to return to France for visits, etc., and he came around a bit, though he was still upset about the exchange coming to a premature end.

Obviously this isn’t how anyone wanted the exchange to go, and the timing isn’t good, in that Barney seems to have settled in better recently, but of course his French family has to do what is best for them right now. And Barney will benefit far more from a few weeks next year when the family can be doing things than he would from a few weeks of sitting around playing on a Playstation now. And there are other benefits: he’ll be here for Toby’s second birthday, which he’d been sorry about missing, and he’ll get to read HP7 sooner rather than later (though I’m pretty certain I’ve read it already ;-))

And of course I am delighted that we’ll be seeing him soon!

And icebergs and tips and all that… I’ve got four teenage boys from Japan arriving on Tuesday… if Barney gets back before Friday, there’ll be some musical bedrooms going on

We just had an email to say that X is okay

He’s no longer sedated, he’s off the respirator, he can move his limbs and he remembers everything up until the day of the accident. We are all so happy to hear this news!

An update on X: he is still under sedation, and that will continue until at least Friday or Saturday. His condition is stable and there has been no further bleeding since Sunday; however his brain is swollen and for the last two days the hospital has had to treat him for fever.

We are thinking of them all, and hope there will be more positive news soon.

There isn’t much more news on X yet; he had more bleeding during the night and had to have further surgery as a result, but as of lunchtime today, his condition was stable. We hope there will be good news soon.

Back here, Scratchy took George, Freddy and Jack to the science centre, where there was a pirate-mask-making event going on. The event seems to have been fairly minimal, but there’s plenty more to do there so they had a good time anyway. Unfortunately he forgot to take the camera.

I stayed at home and spent the afternoon clearing out the garage. This seems to be a regular chore here; apart from all the skateboards, basketballs, footballs, bicycles, baseball gloves and other toys sporting goods, we often go in and out of the house through the side door and so it houses most of our shoes, welly-boots, etc. Then there are the cooler-bags, two large filing cabinets, gardening things (rake, spade, lawnmower etc) and a variety of other objects. Part of the garage is also our utility room, with a sink, cupboards, a huge chest freezer, a tumble-drier and the world’s biggest washing machine. And when it rains - as it seems to have been doing almost incessantly recently - laundry is also hung up to dry in there. So all in all, our garage is a well-used space. We have talked about converting it into living space - but if we ever do that, we will have to build another garage onto the side of the house before we start. We were given a tall cupboard - the kind schools and offices often use for storing supplies - and it has been sitting on its side in the front of the garage for the last few weeks, because it’s too tall to allow the garage door to close over it. Today we finally got it moved to the back of the garage, put it upright, and filled it with a variety of things from around the garage. I also stacked some of the bicycles which aren’t regularly-used in a sort-of-upright manner - I’d like to get hooks up so we could hang them, but for now this will do. It’s amazing what a difference it has made. There’s enough space in the back bit - the utility area - so that everything is easily-accessible and there’s plenty of space for hanging laundry - and at the front, the bicycles can be wheeled in and out without making the rest of the contents fall over. Any bets on how long it will last?

Toby stayed with me and helped by sweeping the floor - repeatedly and determinedly, until it was time to put the bicycles back, at which point I had to wrestle the broom from him. He’s very charming at the minute - although there was a moment of exception to his charm this afternoon when he walked up to me and bit me on the thigh Hurt like hockey-sticks too.

We telephoned Barney in France about lunchtime; he sounds a bit brighter, but we had to cut our call short, to keep their phone-line clear. It seems that X, his “French father”, went out on his bicycle this morning and didn’t return when expected. Barney told us he’d had a slight accident and had gone to hospital because he’d fainted, but during the call A, his “French mother”, returned from the hospital and told us more. X fell off his bike - A thinks he might have fainted while riding - and banged his head. Apparently he has a fractured skull, and there was quite a lot of bleeding, and he was taken by helicopter to a larger hospital because he urgently needed blood drained from around his brain

We’ve been thinking of them all day, and will be phoning tomorrow morning. Please send good vibes or whatever you do.

Update at 9 p.m.
X has had surgery which apparently went well, but the doctor does not want to say much about the prognosis yet. X is being kept sedated - induced coma - for 48 hours. A is going to the hospital on Monday. Her mother is visiting (has been there a few days) so at least she doesn’t have to worry about leaving the children. The next 48 hours will be very long for them all.

We had a really difficult telephone call with Barney today

He looks happy in the photos, and he says things are fine 75% of the time, but there are still issues, some of which I suspect are due to how different he is from Henry. Barney is not a very demonstrative person, and tends to be more of an observer, and I think perhaps that makes Henry’s parents feel he isn’t trying to join in as much as he could. It sounds as though there are also some problems with the relationship between the two boys, and that’s making things hard too, especially now they have finished school for the summer. It sounds like the low times are very low, and he cried quite a lot on the phone. He doesn’t feel able to tell his French parents how he feels, so he’s holding it all in. The person who runs the exchange organisation says that if he had met Barney prior to the exchange, he would have matched him with someone different - I think this was the first time he arranged an exchange without meeting everyone involved, and he feels that was the wrong thing to do. It’s not that the exchange is a disaster, just that Barney might have been happier with a boy more like himself. We sent an application for George a few weeks ago - just for a one-way exchange, with a French child coming here - and I know we said that about Barney, but there was no possibility of George going anywhere for six months - but he has not been matched with anyone this year, I think partly because of the organiser’s feelings that it would have been better to meet Barney beforehand. Unfortunately the organisers didn’t come here this year, and between Cub Camps and various other commitments, we weren’t able to fit a trip to England on the weekend when they were there. George is disappointed, but perhaps next year or the year after something will work for him.

Now I really am counting down the days until Barney’s return - about 76 of them left, which is about 75 more than I’d like

Apart from the phone-call…today was busy. In the morning I went to collect a pup who was part of the same litter as our two - not for us, but for friends who have been looking for a dog. This one needed to be re-homed, and when I telephoned them about her, it took about three seconds for them to say “Yes!” They are the friends who have the caravan we stayed in last week, and they are up there for the weekend, so we said we’d collect and deliver So before lunch we went back with C and A to visit their mum - whose owner was awestruck at the size of C - and after lunch we loaded up the car - two adults, four children, three four-month-old puppies - and headed north. My friend J and her eight-year-old son M were there - M didn’t know about the pup until we arrived, and it took about five minutes of us all saying “She’s yours, you get to keep her!” before it finally sank in, and then there was a lot of grinning His eleven-year-old brother knew, because he’d been listening in the telephone conversation this morning, but K (husband/dad) hadn’t been told…he was working on a residential programme about half an hour away. We had a walk on the beach, during which both Freddy and Jack walked into the ocean fully-clothed (don’t ask, I don’t know), but we juggled what clothing remained available and borrowed a bit more from our friends. After dinner we all headed over to K’s residential, to introduce his new family member - he was delighted, as we’d known he would be, since a) they’d been looking for a pup and b) he’s rather keen on ours It was very amusing to watch him walking towards us; we could see him mentally counting dogs as he approached

They’re staying in the caravan until Tuesday evening and have offered us the use of it from then until Friday. I’m very tempted…

One year ago today, we received an information pack from the exchange organisation. I wrote:

Speaking of French, we got an information pack from En Famille, who arrange exchanges between French families and families in other countries. It looks interesting, but I have some serious reservations about sending Barney to live with a family in France for six months, never mind George, who is, according to the organisation, at the best age for an exchange. I wish they’d do shorter exchanges, or slightly less stringent ones (the children aren’t allowed to take mobile phones nor any books in their own language, for example). I really doubt we’d send any of them on such an exchange, though we might look into having a French child here.

Wow.

I miss Barney.

And that would have been a good thing this morning, because Toby fell down the stairs in our house

I don’t know how far he fell, because I didn’t see it happen. He’s been going up and down stairs on his own for a while now, but I still try to be sort of aware of his whereabouts… I obviously wasn’t on the ball this morning though. I heard the clunk-clunk-clunk as he toppled, and found him lying on the floor at the bottom - which is ceramic tiles. He cried for a bit, then nursed for a bit, but seems okay. I expect he’ll have a couple of impressive bumps on his head though.

George has also been injured today, having fallen off his bicycle at the bottom of the street. He and Freddy walked the pups, then came back and swopped the dogs for their bicycles. A few minutes later, Freddy came rushing back to tell me that George was lying on the ground and couldn’t walk. Well, given George’s dramatic tendencies, I didn’t panic too much over the “couldn’t walk” bit, and sure enough when I went down to rescue him, he was perfectly able to stand up and walk home. He’s bashed his knee - no cuts, but he’ll have a fine set of bruises.

Otherwise… laundry, laundry, laundry…

We telephoned Barney when we got home last night; he sounds cheerful and well. School finished there on Friday, so he now has the whole summer off, then he’ll have a week or two back in school before he returns to us. I asked if he was glad school had finished for the summer; he said he liked school better than being at home. But when I asked if that meant he’d want to go to school when he gets back here, he was quite firm in his opinion that home-education was better still

I was so tempted to re-pack our bags and go back for another few days away… but my friend J has been to collect the keys to the caravan now, so I suppose I’ll just have to cope with real life for a while

I don’t think anyone is going to make it to ju-jitsu tonight; we’re all still tired and I think an early night would benefit all of us.

*peeks cautiously out from under the blankets*

I am (I hope) emerging from the fug. Temperature right now is near-normal; this morning it was nearly 101 and yesterday I made 102. I’ve spent the last two days in bed - managing to miss both the last Beavers meeting of the year (yesterday) and the group barbecue, which is for all the Scouts, Cubs and Beavers, and which is happening as I write - I’m about able to sit up and type, but definitely not up to staying upright long enough to do anything drastic like getting dressed. Our neighbour J, whose son M goes to Beavers with Freddy, took Freddy, George, M and R from across the road (who goes to Cubs with George) and is picking them up too. I haven’t even been downstairs since Monday. I haven’t even seen my dogs

George’s bout with this lasted only a day (Saturday) and he’s been fine since - which is fortunate, because I’ve been relying heavily on him this week. He’s kept everyone fed and watered, kept an eye on Toby for me, and generally been fantastic. Freddy has helped, and Jack has been generally cooperative - well, moreso than usual. I think perhaps being the oldest brother has been good for George; it’s made him more confident, it seems. They’ve all been great though. I have really great kids

And speaking of that… if Barney stays exactly six months in France, we’ve only 100 more days to go. Not that I’m counting or anything. Oh no. Not counting. Truly. I told the computer to do it for me, so I don’t have to.

Nearly a week since my last post; I don’t think my poor blog has been so neglected since my internet connection was AWOL…

I’m rubbish at updates; I can never remember what we did. So, things I know about this week, in no particular order:

We had a playground-day with other home-educating families on Thursday. Scratchy had the day off (he had to take day before the end of the month) so it was far more relaxing than usual for me. There were a couple of families I’d never met before; it’s always good to meet a few new people. George and Freddy spent some time on the flying-fox ride, working out, along with some other children, what the optimum number of people on it at one time was - the goal being to make it go as fast and as far as possible. That’ll be physics covered for this week then

Yesterday we got out in the sun and planted some more veg. The only thing that we’ve planted so far that’s ready for harvesting is the rocket, which is doing very well. The baby carrots might be ready too; I don’t know because I can’t see them. The same applies to the broccoli. Should have thought about that when we were choosing what to plant

We phoned Barney last night; he sounds settled. It’s reassuring to hear him sounding so well. He’s looking forward to the summer holidays - he’s only got three more weeks of school left.

Toby’s been sick all week; running a fever and very, very clingy. He seems better now, but yesterday Jack started showing signs of it, and today George and I have been stricken. George is very stoic when he’s ill, which is a striking contrast to how he deals with far more minor troubles, many of which get the full-blown this-is-the-worst-life-ever treatment. He spent nearly all of today in bed, and so did I, though I did manage to get the dogs out for a walk for 40 minutes or so. I’ve been very tired all week, perhaps because I was coming down with this; I fell asleep in the car on the way home from Cub Camp last Sunday, which should probably have been a warning that I needed to take it easy for a few days - or maybe I got sick because I was tired, rather than the other way about. Either way, it’s been a difficult week. Maybe next week will be better and I’ll be able to write something cheerier.

In replying to an email from a friend yesterday, I realised that I hadn’t mentioned our most recent telephone call with Barney. In fact there’s quite a lot I haven’t mentioned, though admittedly most of it is of the “got up, fed kids, walked dogs, tidied kitchen…” variety, so it probably isn’t really worth going back over all of that. So instead I’ll just try to note a few of the things that are either worth mention, or that I might want to remember.

So. Telephone to Barney last weekend was good. He wasn’t sounding quite as chipper as he had the previous weekend, but he still sounds positive and happy, and although he says he misses us, he does seem to be settling well. He said that he actually finds it easier to speak French than English now, which is wonderful, because it means he’s allowing himself to be immersed, if you see what I mean. A few weeks before Henry left, we asked him what the French word for something was and he couldn’t remember - and it really is best if the child can temporarily “forget” their native language, so I’m very pleased to hear that Barney is on his way there. The two boys have also been seated separately in most of their classes at school now - although the exchange organisation recommends that the children are in different classes if possible, Barney and Henry were apparently seated together, which wasn’t good for either of them. Barney also mentioned having done fairly badly in tests in geography and history class… I think/hope that this is because it’s a) about France and b) in French - otherwise maybe we’re not doing such a good job as we thought

Jack started this week sick; turning five has not made him a less annoying patient. He just continually wails at the top of his voice; it’s as though he thinks you’ll forget he’s sick if he doesn’t loudly remind you every 30 seconds or so. I’m afraid my tolerance for this wanes fairly quickly. That he coughs all over me constantly doesn’t make me any more patient - and as expected, I came down with whatever this (no doubt non-specific viral) illness is: first signs on Wednesday, total hide-under-the-covers time by early Thursday morning. I spent yesterday doing the absolute minimum required to keep the children and the house under control - well, not quite, I did read the whole of Flight of the Doves to the boys. But I’m not sure there’ll be much done today. I could just stay in bed and read blogs all day; I might even get to catch up if I read fast and don’t pause to leave comments. I haven’t really read any blogs at all since getting the new laptop set up, because by the time I got my opml file moved over, there were a couple of thousand unread items… not that being behind with things is stopping me from adding to my look-into-this list - I see Merry is twittering and I thought I might give that a go. I can’t actually think how it would be useful, but that’s never stopped me before

George and Freddy chose not to go to ju-jitsu on Monday, but did make it to Beavers and Cubs. We took the Beavers out onto the local green and set up a “sports centre”; something we’d scheduled for a few weeks ago, but then it rained every Tuesday evening until this week. Was very glad we’d done it on Tuesday when I saw the weather on Wednesday. This year being the centenary of Scouting, there have been a couple of television programmes about about it this week and I will admit that I very much enjoyed those. That our esteemed Prime Minister was, in the words of his wife, “not a Scout or anything useful like that” seems to me to be a very good argument for joining the organisation

We called Barney this morning; first I’d a chat with his French maman, who feels things are improving. She says he’s still a bit reserved at times, but that’s just Barney - he’s quite a self-contained person (gets it from me, obviously… stop sniggering). He had to call us back though, because he was - shock! - in the shower! I don’t know what they’re doing to my son over there, but I like it

We also received a “report” this week from the guy who runs En Famille; he spoke with Barney last weekend (they have regular points when they get in touch, as well as being available any time they’re needed). It sounded more positive than we’d expected too.

When Barney called us back he sounded so much better than he has in the last few weeks - far brighter, far more like himself. His French is improving quickly; in fact he even had trouble remembering to say “for” instead of “pour” while he was talking to me But the main thing is that he just sounded normal - even trying to wind me up. He chatted briefly to all his brothers, mostly about how to achieve certain levels on computer games He told Scratchy about going to the movies and told him the title of the movie in French - so quickly that Scratchy couldn’t understand it. He said it was weird to have both his sets of parents talking to each other - it’s great that he feels that he has two sets of parents Scratchy asked him about school vs home-ed again, and he still thinks he’d prefer to be home-educated when he returns - but we’re not going to ask him about that again for a while, we don’t want it to seem like a big deal.

The most difficult part for Henry was the second month, and things just got better from that point on; I’m hoping the same is true for Barney. He’ll have been away for two months next weekend - one-third of the way through his time in France. I know there will still be times when it’s difficult, when he’s down, when he wishes he was back here - but I think, and hope, that he’s turned that corner.

I’m just so glad to hear him sounding cheery again

In lieu of a proper post, since I haven’t got one written, and it’s been a while.

Freddy: This exchange isn’t much fun for me
Me: What do you mean?
Freddy: It’s no fun with Barney away. I have nobody to have Pokemon battles with.
Me: Oh. So you miss him?
Freddy: Yes.
George: I even miss him teasing me. Freddy sometimes tries to tease me to make me feel better, but it’s not the same.

George: It’s burning out here!
Freddy: It’s so hot and it’s not even summer!
George: That’s because of global warming.
Freddy: Yes, it’s getting hotter
George: And the polar caps are melting
Freddy: And that’s making the sea-levels rise…but it won’t cover this country.

There was a deal that they could watch a movie if they had their rooms tidy, laundry put away, teeth cleaned and pyjamas on by a certain time. I warned them that they had one minute left.
Freddy: Waaaaahhhhh!
George: Freddy, don’t give up!

Only those who know George and Freddy and who know that Freddy is the sensible one (yes, really) will understand my reaction to that one.

Proper blogging will resume, uh, sometime soon.

We spoke to Barney on the phone this morning. Although he said things were okay, he still sounds low, and we’ve had an email this evening telling us that he’s withdrawn and does not show enthusiasm for things the family is doing, and does not seem to be trying to speak French. I know Barney is a perfectionist; he doesn’t like to do things unless he’s confident he can do them right, and I also get the feeling he’s holding his feelings in - perhaps he thinks if he opens up it will be too much for him, or for someone else, to cope with.

I’ve been looking at my blog posts from back in October, when Henry had been here about the same length of time that Barney has been in France; certainly this was the most difficult part of his time here for us, and I think for him too. So maybe the timing is part of it too - but it’s not going to improve if he isn’t making an effort.

Maybe we should have done Wife Swap instead; dancing on a bar couldn’t be as hard as this

It’s been a quiet week; we’re not going far from home because the pups aren’t old enough (or trained enough) to go anywhere yet. The boys have done some of their usual routine activities: George and Jack came with Freddy and me to Beavers and we all planted sunflower seeds in peat pots and the Beavers took them home with them, and on Wednesday George had Cubs. It still seems much too quiet without the extra running-about that we did with Barney and Henry.

C&A (the dogs! LOL) are doing really well; despite being only seven weeks old and having just been here a week, their only accidents are now when they don’t have access to outside, and they are getting better at using the bit of the garden we’ve set aside as their spot - otherwise known as “the trading post”, because if they do their stuff there, they get to trade it for a treat Everyone says they’re gorgeous - even people who are not at all into animals keep gushing over them… and I counted back to work out when they were born, and discovered that they share my birthday, a fact which excited me far more than is reasonable for a grown woman

My laptop is not behaving; it keeps giving me a scary-sounding message about a cooling system error, so I’ve backed everything up and Scratchy has been experimenting with it. He thinks it’s an OS-related problem; if he’s right it’s good because it means the laptop doesn’t have to disappear for a week for expensive repairs, but it’s bad because it might mean re-installing everything. At least I do regular backups now, so if I do have to re-install from scratch, it’s not such a big deal - just time-consuming, really. If it turns out Scratchy’s wrong… well, anybody know a good deal on a very compact notebook pc?

No Barney, no Henry, possibly no laptop for a bit… lucky I’ve got those pups to keep me busy really

It’s been a month since Barney and Henry left.

I thought it would be difficult at first, but get easier. So far, it’s been quite the opposite. I’m getting used to the house not being so busy, but I’m missing Barney more than ever. We’d never been apart for more than two nights in a row until now. The last month has been the longest in my life.

Henry’s birthday was earlier this week; I wrote a “happy birthday” post the day before, and saved it with the next day’s date so it would post on the right day. Except that I didn’t; I somehow managed to set the date to May instead of April, so it didn’t show up. So… my apologies, and belated birthday wishes to Henry! I feel even more disorganised since I didn’t get to the post office to post his birthday card last week either, and then they were closed until Wednesday, so his card was sent late too - though since they’re away in Germany this week, he won’t get it until they get back anyway.

The pups are keeping us busy; they’re very funny and really remarkably good for their age. They were a bit unsure of things on Wednesday, but yesterday they were much more settled. We spent most of the day outside, mowing the grass and tidying the garden and the space around the house, and the pups had a great time frolicking on the grass. The boys did too

My children are full of chocolate and it’s only 20 past 9…

While they were getting dressed and cleaning their teeth, the Easter Bunny set up an Easter Egg Hunt in the garden and a trail through the conservatory to lead them to it

Their reaction was so worth a few minutes traipsing through the wet grass (I’m sure the Easter Bunny would agree ;-))

We’re off to visit friends later - they’ve a caravan on the coast, which they’ve very kindly said we can borrow sometimes. Since they’re schoolies (both kids in school and dad’s a teacher), we can use it during term-times. I haven’t stayed in a caravan since I was about four years old though, so we’ll see how we feel after the first go Today’s just a visit to make sure we can find it and to see how it all works - and to see our friends too, of course

We spoke to Barney yesterday morning; he sounds a little better but still quite flat. He was tired after the long drive last night, which is probably part of it, but he also says he’s bored. I hope the next couple of weeks improves things for him.

Scratchy had today off - it’s not a public holiday here (we get Monday and Tuesday instead) but Toby had an appointment for a speech therapy assessment. Although he’s only 20 months, speech delays are often associated with his condition, so when we received the diagnosis, we requested an assessment for two reasons: one, to give us a chance to speak with someone who could give us suggestions for how we could help him, and two, to get us on the waiting-list for actual speech therapy, rather than waiting until he was two or three years old and then having to wait for months. The assessment took nearly six months to come through, so that seems to have been a wise move.

Right now Toby has a few sounds that sound like words but not any real words. He does use lots of appropriate intonation though, and copies much of what he sees, and these are good signs. I can see his speech developing; it’s just a bit late. He understands everything we say, and a delay in itself doesn’t worry me; he won’t be going to nursery school, so it’s not a big deal if he’s not speaking clearly by the age that would usually start (which is three, here).

The appointment went well, although Toby slept through most of it The speech therapist was positive and pleasant and agreed with me when I had a moan about their pre-assessment form (which you post back to them before you get an appointment) being non-breastfeeding-friendly - questions like, “Does your child still take a bottle? If not, when did he/she stop?” - I see the need for the questions but feel they could be phrased in a way that doesn’t normalise formula-feeding. Anyway, I digress… the SLT gave us lots of information and suggestions about what we could do, and said she felt Toby was doing everything he needed to be doing, and that lots of children this age don’t have any “English words”, so she wasn’t particularly concerned. She’s suggested that she assesses him again in a year (though is happy to see us sooner if we feel it would be useful) - and since we’ve had the initial assessment, we shouldn’t have to wait more than a couple of weeks for an appointment. So we got exactly what we wanted out of this appointment

In the meantime, Scratchy took George, Freddy and Jack to W5, where there were lots of extra activities laid on because of Easter, including “The Great Eggscape: Barnyard Breakout”, in which they got small egg-shaped toys along the lines of Mr Potato Head, had to build their creature, and then raced them in Lego Racers. They all had a great time; however there are no photos (a first: a W5 visit and no pics!) because Scratchy forgot to take the camera and I forgot to remind him. He did have his phone, but a) it takes lousy photos and b) its battery was dead, so you’ll just have to use your imagination

This evening Barney and his French family will be driving north about 700 km to visit his “French grandmother”, and then on Monday they’ll drive another 400 km to visit his “German grandmother”, who lives near Frankfurt. What an international child: grandmothers in France, Germany, Ireland and Canada - and that last one originally from China! This week has been better for him than last week was (thank goodness), and I think this trip (and some time off school) is good timing for him. We’ll be talking to him tomorrow, so I’ll update then

An email from France this morning tells us that Barney was giggling with Henry and his sister in their room this morning - and that Barney was giggling the loudest of the lot

We’ve spent most of the morning outside; I’ve washed all the downstairs windows, including the conservatory, and stared at the upstairs windows, partly wondering how to get them cleaned and partly hoping the power of my stare will make the dirt fall off Jack and Toby took a bucket of soapy water and washed the last of the patio chairs - a chore started yesterday by George, Freddy, Jack and friend R. R stayed over last night too; they were all asleep surprisingly early, though that didn’t start the morning from starting with a meltdown for George, followed an hour or two later by R deciding to go home because I told him off for having a super-soaker - full of water - upstairs on the landing. Freddy and George followed him, had lunch at his house, and I can now hear the three voices through the open window and, if I look out, can just see their heads appearing and disappearing over the hedge as they jump on the trampoline.

I do like this time of year; everything is waking up from the winter and it’s so nice to start living partly outside again. My plants are coming on too: I now have the shoots of several basil plants and about three tomato plants and a lettuce. Every time I look at my tray, I find another little shoot of something. Scratchy says staring at them doesn’t work, but I think the evidence shows otherwise

Scratchy has gone all soft and seems prepared to let me have nearly anything I want at the minute. Suggestions for things I should go for should be left in the comments

We just spoke with Barney on the phone. He’s still got a headache, though he feels slightly better than before, and he sounds so down I think this is the beginning of the hardest part of the exchange: the novelty has worn off, nobody’s speaking your own language to you anymore, the next few months are stretching out ahead of you… he didn’t cry during the call, but I’m sure he did when it was finished (and he’s not the only one)

Wahey, we have our first teensy green shoot - the basil. I’m ridiculously pleased about this; as someone who has a thumb of - what’s opposite green on the colour-wheel? - anyway, I’m traditionally the kiss of death to anything involving leaves and soil. As I mentioned before, a couple of last year’s plants are growing back too: one of the strawberry plants and - well, anyone know what this is? Are the two shoots even the same plant? Can you tell what an expert I am?

We went to the library this morning, then ran some errands in town and I treated the boys to lunch at McJunk. The woman behind me in the line looked familiar, and when she started talking to me, I realised why - we met her on our way to the library one day over a year ago and got chatting. She was there with her kids because they’d just finished school for the day - as had the entire school down the street, and I think most of it was there buying burgers - argh. I really must start paying more attention to the schools’ dates.

Have just picked up an email from France (again). Barney’s still unwell and stayed home from school today. He’s been withdrawn and uncommunicative for the last couple of days too - maybe that’s because he’s ill, or maybe he’s ill because of stress? I just want to jump on a plane and go and hug him

I have spent this week exhausted. I couldn’t work out why, until a friend mentioned the clocks changing. That’s why I’m a wreck! I’m going to sleep at the “old” time (because that’s when my body wants to sleep) but I’m getting up at the “new” time (because that’s when the day starts). No wonder I’m yawning!

*rolls eyes at self for not figuring this out sooner*

The last couple of days have been spent getting back into the swing of normal life - partly because we couldn’t go anywhere while my car had the spare wheel on, partly because we (the boys and me) really needed to get “back to normal”. George had Cubs last night, but otherwise we’ve been homebirds. Freddy and George have been doing some French and some stuff on weather and some other stuff on the Romans and have, this morning, started learning German - because they wanted to. Jack is working on learning to read and write, and that’s coming along nicely. Toby tried to wrestle my watering-can from me, and when I found him a toy one in the garage, demanded that it be filled with water, so I let him play with it in the bath.

It appears that someone inadvertently started a rumour on a local email list that I was pregnant, but it’s actually someone else with the same name

Have just had an email from France to say Barney isn’t well - headache and throwing up

Only about 180 days to go.