WE HAVE NO MOTIVATION

Hi all, yes I know it's been ages!  We don't seem to have any motivation at the moment.  Everyday is a struggle to get anything done or planned.  I know that this is just a lull, but it's beginning to worry me.

Callum has definitely turned into a teen or at least a preteen.  He's reading every night (which isn't a bad thing) until about 11pm, but that means he isn't getting up until 9am, sometimes 10am.  Again, this isn't a real problem as we aren't having to get ready for school, but it does mean that by the time we are up and ready it's verging on lunchtime!  The weather hasn't helped either as it's been so miserable that that affects my moods and I've been having more headaches and having a general feeling of blurgh!

So what have we done?  Well, we've still been going to ice skating and the Faversham meetings and Callum has still be doing trampolining.  He's now somersaulting!  Did six this week, with 4 of those in a row!  Go Callum!

Last weekend we held a charity tea party in aid of the Blue Cross (animals) and managed to raise just over £100.  Callum helped make a few of the cakes and posted invites to the neighbours.  He also helped clean up the house in readiness for our guests.  So I suppose we could class that as life skills, haha.

Sunday we went off to the local Flower Festival at Cozenton and bought some veg and fruit plants for the garden and some alpines for Callum's little sink garden.  It needs digging out and redoing, so that is something I'd like to get done before the weekend if the weather stays dry.

Monday this week we went off to London with his sister, Terri, to visit an art exhibition in Somerset House.  We are supposed to be looking at colour and light and The Courtauld Gallery had a Mondrian/Nicholson exhibition on, so I thought that would be a good one to visit as Mondrian (and Nicholson) used blocks of colour.  Callum really enjoyed it, in fact he also enjoyed having a look at the other exhibitions that were on, "I liked seeing the different ways of painting" he told me on Wednesday when we were doing a write up to go in our folder.  In fact, he even said he would like to go and visit some other galleries!

Callum's own version of Mondrian

Afterwards we then walked back towards Waterloo East and went off to the Imperial War Museum for a couple of hours.  Had totally forgotten how much of it there was and we have decided another visit is necessary.  We only managed one floor and the main hall.

Callum with his sister, Terri

Just about reach!

As I've already said we had trampolining on Tuesday and yesterday Terri visited us again and they had a little art lesson on creating pictures in the style of Mondrian or Nicholson (see Callum's above).

Today, it's overcast again, I have a headache and Callum is in his pjs on the Wii.  Tomorrow is the ice skating meet and we have Mini Beast Hunting and Tree Identification Walk at the weekend.

Hopefully we will feel more motivated next week.  Not so out and about which means we might be able to get some experiments done and some more maths.

Cya

OOOO A BIT OF SUNSHINE

Hiya
Just a shorty, yeah right, to catch up over last weekend.

Friday we went off to London, meeting up with friends on the train, to go on Duck Tours with a small group of home edders.  We booked the whole 'boat' which was lovely.  Anyone not knowing what Duck Tours are about can check the picture below.  It's a WWII 'duck' which was using in the D-Day landings and has been modified by putting in seats, a roof and roll down plastic windows.  The tour starts off on land and then enters the River Thames by the side of MI6, travels up to the Houses of Parliment, comes back down and then re enters the road.  Tour lasted about 1.5hrs and Callum loved it, especially the River Thames bit.

Callum next to Desdemona our 'duck'

Our guide was lovely and very funny.  And we didn't just get facts and figures, but some extra information such as the reason 10 Downing Street, most railings in London and London cabs are black dates from when Queen Victoria was in mourning for Prince Albert and they were painted black our of respect.

Saturday Callum spent the day at home whilst I had a girlie day out in wet and windy Margate visiting the Turner Gallery and the Museum.  May take Callum there another time if there was an exhibition on he may be interested in, but to be honest I think he would prefer the larger galleries in London where there is more to see.

Sunday was a lazy day.

Today, we had a doctor's appointment to see if we can get some Occupational Therapy sessions for Callum as he is now saying that it hurts his collar and shoulder to write.  We remembered last week, after discussing his pain, that he had fallen from a swing whilst on holiday when he was about 4 and had suffered a suspected cracked collar bone.  We are being referred to CAS(?) where they will have a look at him, discuss his problems and take it from there as to whether he will need OT or Physiotherapy.

After that we came home, had some lunch and wrote up our Duck Tours.  Then maths!  Estimating weights and measures today; bit easy, but I could tell Callum wasn't really in the mood.  Went well.....

Whilst sitting and having a cuppa a bit later the electrics kept shorting out!  Hmmmm, went around switching everything off, rebooted electrics and then switched back on what was necessary.  No, shorted again.  No reason that we could think off; nothing had suddenly been switched on or off and TV and computer wasn't doing anything silly with updates.  On Phil's return we went through everything individually having had the electrics short out twice more.  Discovered that the plug socket that the washing machine was plugged into was full of water...eeeek!  Wall wasn't damp, so couldn't understand where water had come from until we realised that the iron was on top of the worktop laying down.  Oooops, Callum had forgotten to stand it up again after his weighing session and the water had leaked out from the steam reservoir, gone over the worktop, down the gap by the wall and into the socket.  Oh well, lesson learnt about the fuse box, water and electricity no mixing and about being a little more careful about putting things away.  Could have been worse.  All fixed now!

Cya

WOW, WHAT HAPPENED TO LAST MONTH

Well, hello there. Just realised that I haven't posted since the start of the summer hols. Oooops!!! So here's a quick update of what we did:

Archeology Dig at Tower Bridge - found animal bones and pottery;
Orienteering at Capstone Park with friends - didn't get lost, but walked miles;
Foraging with friends for damsons, blackberries, cherry plums and red clover;
Photo exhibition and some bands at a local pub;
Cinema trip to see Zookeeper with friends;
Swimming with best mate;
Margate with best mate;
More bands at a local pub with friends;
Beer festival at another local pub;
Medieval Merriment Festival at Rochester Castle;
Model Exhibition at local Royal Engineers Museum, and
Various play dates with various people.

Plus, of course, the normal shopping, chilling, playing on computer/Wii/Playstation.

PHEW!!! Glad we are back to home ed, it might be quieter - haha

HIGH SPEED TRAINS AND THE O2

Have just had a fab day out with Callum going to London's O2. We decided to try the High Speed link instead of going the normal London Bridge/Jubilee line to North Greenwich. It was a little more expensive, but it was sooooooo worth it!

Callum loved the train and it was nice to have some different scenery to look at. The train was almost empty and got to Stratford Int in less than 1/2hr. In fact, we caught the train at 10.50am and arrived at the O2 at 12.15pm! 1hr and 20mins for train, bus replacement and tube! Not bad going! The station was empty, staff and builders were very helpful with directions and we got the rail replacement bus through the building site that will be the Olympic Village easily. The tube was almost empty too and, of course, once out of North Greenwich you are on top of the O2itself. The only downside was the huge, open air escalator at Stratford Int. Callum really doesn't like long escalators or heights, so this combination was his worst nightmare. He did fantastic though. Closed his eyes and listened for my instructions. Typically, we found a lift on the way home!!!

Even the O2 was pretty empty! Was expecting it to be heaving due to school hols, but obviously not.

Callum really enjoyed the exhibition as did I. It was very well presented and didn't glamorise anything or dramatise either. It was well laid out and presented and had lots of human stories. The date, which I had completely unrealised, was a poignant one as it was 99years yesterday that it happened. A lot of things brought tears to my eyes and even Callum was affected on occasion.

A particular exhibit was the 'iceberg'. They had an iceberg that you could touch and feel how cold it would have been to land in the waters with a notice saying that most died of hypothermia rather than drowning. Callum was quite taken by this one and I think feeling the cold made it 'real'. He was very solemn afterwards.

Another thing that some may find offensive, but I found very interesting and seemed to make people think was the boarding pass that you were given at the beginning. Each is a real member of the crew/passenger and it gives the class they were travelling in a little background story. At the end of the exhibit is a list of all those that survived and those that were lost and it was interesting to see how many teens and children were interested to see whether 'they' had survived or died. Some of their reactions were quite emotional. They had got a connection with their delegated person and were overjoyed to discover a survival and very sad to discover a death. Some may feel that this lessens the meaning by making it dramatic, but I liked the fact that they had felt something for their person, however small.

The gift shop, however, was awful. There was so much tat in there it was rather offensive. Who wants a snow globe with a Titanic in it for God's sake or a recipe book of the food that would have been served. Then there were throws and T-shirts. It all seemed a bit disrespectful to me! We did buy the guide book (see above) and a fridge magnet (Callum collects one from every place we go) and we bought a poster of the deck layout for educational reasons. Prices were extortionate and I'm glad that I'd taken my debit card.

Afterwards we had a cocoa cappuccino (very yummy) in Starbucks and Callum managed to spill about half of his all over his hand, the table, the chair and the floor. I was more worried about his hand, he was more worried about the chair. None of the staff were worried at all and quickly came to the rescue, even taking Callum off to run his hand under cold water. Needless to say I ended up given him the rest of my drink as it still had lots of froth (which is basically all Callum wants it for - haha).

Journey back was just as good as journey there. Train was fuller, but there were still seats and no-one standing. Caught the 3.25pm train at Stratford and arrived home by 4.20pm. Less than an hour. It will definitely be an option we will take in the future.

BUSY, BUSY THEN BLERGH!

Hi all

We are still alive, although no so sure on the well. For some unknown reason we haven't been brilliant for a couple of weeks. I'm sure it's just the winter bugs going round, but we are fine one minute, then feel shite, then well, then shite, then well and so on. To be honest I'm getting a bit fed up with it! We are now on daily doses of Echinacea and Vitamin C which does seem to be helping. Callum however, is going into hibernation mode and I'm not far off joining him. Oh well, might get some work done! Hehe.

Anyway. The rest of October was taken up by preparing for our Halloween party. This year's theme was Pumpkins and Skeletons. So, I thought it would be a good idea to start off in the living room as a funeral parlour and then out through the door into the dining room which was the graveyard. The parlour was dedicated to the pumpkin king and so had a brown/orange alter cloth with a twiggy/orange flower cross, pumpkin stained glass window and of course a pumpkin hollowed out as Jack from Nightmare before Christmas. We had lots of candles and a large yellow throw to tie in colours and a Jack blanket hung up to cover the DVD shelves.

The dining room was covered in black bin liners and I made card 'gravestones' for the chairs and made a card statue to cover my unit in an attempt to make a statue.

I then made a skeleton out of card and laid him on the table. The idea being that the food would represent body bits and would be placed on the skeleton in their respective places.

So: prawn and tuna in mayo (prawns used to line bowl) upturned became brains; hard boiled eggs cut in half and painted with edible food colouring became eye balls; a dish of sweetcorn with red pepper strips around the outside became lips and teeth. Placed on the skull.

Celery, carrot and cucumber strips were arm bones. Rolls cut into heart shapes = heart (obviously); hot dogs cut into strips, cooked and mixed with BBQ sauce = intestines. Guacamole = bile dip; tomato sauce = blood; hummus = cholesterol. Then cheese pastry cut into bone shapes were the legs. I also did bowls of lettuce with marmite 'snails' (puff pastry spread with marmite and rolled up) and slime stuffed beetles (dates stuffed with cream cheese and walnuts, coloured green with edible colouring).

Pudding was worms in green jelly (brown jelly worms arranged in half filled bowl of green jelly, another layer placed on top, left to set and more jelly worms strategically placed on top and poked in). Dessicated coconut coloured green and sprinkled on as grass. Plus a variety of ghoulishly iced cakes care of A Zombie Ate My Cupcake by Lily Vanilli (brains, gravestones and mummies) + a concoction of popcorn, M&Ms and melted marshmallows which tasted fine, but looked remarkably like vomit - coooooool!!! Unfortunately, the food got devoured before I got to take photos - hey ho! Must remember to be quicker next time.

Games were equally ghoulish with spider web 'dart board; musical gravestones; pass the coffin; balloon relay; scary story (blindfolded children, one spooky narrator (my daughter) and various bits and bobs to represent the dead man in the story's body bits = suitably freaked out kids); bobbing for worms (more jelly worms in squirty cream and having to be removed without using hands - very messy) and, of course, bobbing for apples! Callum loves bobbing for apples and there is always a bit of family rivallry going on between him and his 22yr old sister! She just beat him this year by 1 second. Watch out Terri, he'll beat you next time!

Callum joined in for the majority of the games this year. I think age has helped and that he has been included in the arranging and ideas. He wouldn't do the scary story though, but one game out of seven isn't bad! He also loved having the trick or treaters at the door (I give out cakes, not sweets or money) and he even wore his costume (see above). All in all a successful and fun party - well I thought so anyway, haha!

The following day we had to go up the high street and Callum took great delight in spotting all the cake cases or half eaten cakes, commenting "one of ours" at every one he saw!

Our next big event was last weekend. We had tickets for Top Gear Live with MPH Show at Earls Court on November 5th. Was a long day, but worth every penny. On booking the tickets way back in whenever I discovered that (in the small print) a carer could go free. I had to fill in an onscreen form and one of the ticket sales team rang the following day to find out more details. To be honest I wasn't holding out much hope as I assumed it would be more for the wheelchair bound rather than ASD Spectrum, but on explaining Callum's problem he stated that we were indeed entitled to a free ticket. This meant that the money I'd put aside for the show would now get me an upgrade to Gold tickets! Am soooooo glad I took that advantage.

The Top Gear show itself was brilliant. Lots of stunt driving, the boys doing silly stuff, etc, etc. At one point during the Cool Wall section Richard Hammond and Jeremy Clarkson came up into the audience and were literally standing in front of us. I was extremely happy and Callum's face was amazing. They also made his day as they did car football which is always his favourite section in the series on TV. He said to me for ages afterwards that it didn't seem real and that he felt like he'd watched the TV prog in 3D. Took him days before it set in that he'd seen it for real.

The MPH show was brilliant too. Loads of cars on show, loads of stalls, lots of stuff to do, but not many places to sit down and it was extremely busy. This is where having the gold tickets came into its own. We were allowed access to a special area where there were tables and chairs and a separate place for drinks and eating. It meant that everytime Callum felt overwhelmed we had somewhere to take him that was quieter and he was able to calm down. Best parts of the show for Callum were the Bugatti Veyron (yep it was really there) - he took loads of photos on his DSi, the Lambogini (don't ask me which one) and the Peel P50. He actually got persuaded to have his photo taken in that one and hopefully that will be coming in the post soon.

We picked up Tshirts, free magazines, posters, pencils and other bits and bobs, so he came home a rather happy, but tired, little chappy. Would definitely go again and would definitely go for Gold (might even upgrade to Platinum).

The following day we went to a firework display and on the Sunday we had our own at home. Callum actually had sparklers this time and went outside!!! Best thing I did this year was buy proper ear defenders for kids. Edx Kids, bright red. Callum loves them. I bought them for Top Gear as the sales guy said it would be noisy and they worked. He wears them for everything now if he feels it may be too much. It has meant he has been able to join in so much more over past couple of weekends, I wish I'd bought them before although I'm not sure if he would have worn them before.

Anyway, since then, as I've already said, we've been a bit up and down healthy wise, but we are getting there. Needed the rest though - haha.

Cya

EXCUSE ME? DID I HEAR YOU CORRECTLY - THIS WEEK PART 2

Hiya

Part 2 of this past week.

After Monday's rather eventful and excessive walking day, Tuesday was spent doing 'lessons' at home.

We had a good sort out of our project and had a brilliant discussion that went off on so many directions! It started off with naming oceans and discussing currents. We talked about the Southern Ocean and how, because there is little to no land mass, the waves can get really large and the currents really strong (remembered from when Ellen Macarther was on Top Gear - useful programme in a strange way). We then talked about the Gulf Stream and what would happen if the Greenland ice cap melts and how it would affect the Stream (Global Warming). Callum used our recent hot and cold water experiment as a way of explaining (rather coherently actually) and then he spotted the sheet which listed the various chemical make ups of the oceans. This led us to drag out the periodic table and start looking things up, which led on to chemistry in general and finally we dragged out the chemistry set and did some experiments on soluble and insoluble materials.

I love home educating! Whenever a conversation/lesson like that one happens I always sit back and wonder if it would have been allowed to develop like that in school - my answer is always 'probably not'!

Wednesday was up to London for a visit to the Aquarium. Train journey ran smoothly and we didn't get lost!!!

Had to walk past the London Eye which Callum stated emphatically that he would never ever go on! Way to high and way to big! As had bought our Aquarium tickets in advance we went straight in only to be encountered by a school group! Eek! Callum not good with school groups as previously mentioned. Headed straight to the lift, got in and pressed the down button before anyone else, except me, could get in! Oh well, never mind!

The Aquarium was really good and Callum had a great time even though we had to manoeuvre our way around the school kids occasionally. He had a one-to-one talk with the guy at the rock pools (unintentional I might add, but no-one else there), he got to hold a crab and stroke a starfish! Then more one-to-one when he went to feed the rays! Lovely Australian guy stood with him and showed him all the different types of ray and explained how they ate, etc. Brilliant stroke of luck! We did get a bit lost because of my incompetent map reading with an 'I told you so' from Callum when he was proved right (hmmm, smartarse moment of the day me thinks)! Went through gift shop and bought our required fridge magnet and an ICE CREAM TRUCK!!!!!! Ok, not exactly fish orientated but it was rather cute and Callum doesn't have one in his immense collection of cars!

Had lunch by the river outside! Big Ben chimed perfectly - much to Callum's amusement and weather was beautiful. Callum remarked that he wouldn't mind going on one of the cruise boats on the opposite side of the river to us. As we weren't running to any schedule, I said 'why not' as long as he didn't mind walking over the bridge and waiting in an almost definite queue!

Off we went and decided that a little round trip up to the Tower of London and back would be enough, so joined the much smaller queue for an obviously less touristy boat and I managed to get 1/3 off even though wasn't entitled to it. Lady at counter asked if I had a travel card and I said that I hadn't as I hadn't needed one. Don't know whether it was my stick or the fact that I mentioned Callum's DLA letter, but she let us have the 1/3 off anyway - lovely lady!!

Had to wait a bit for the boat and Callum did get a bit annoyed as it was supposed to leave at 3.30pm and didn't start letting us on until 3.40pm. He raced upstairs and grabbed seats at the front! Was very excited and said he'd love to go under Tower Bridge. Anyway, boat turned round and off we went. The trip was really nice AND we went under Tower Bridge which was probably the highlight of Callum's day!

Back on dry land he announced that he'd had enough but that he had to admit that there was lots and lots to see in London and that perhaps we should come back and do the tour bus next time!!! Hang on! Did I just hear you correctly Callum? You want to come BACK TO LONDON!!! This is the kid that a couple of weeks ago was freaking out about going to London for The Deep Exhibition! I think I'm finally getting through to him. Must admit, the fact that it was just me and him and no time schedule probably helped.

Decided to walk to Charing Cross as at least we may get a chance of getting a seat on the train home as we'd be one of the group first getting on. Walked up past The Old War Office (where I used to have to go to get my wages when I worked with the MOD) and on up to Trafalgar Square! Thought Callum was going to wet himself with excitement! No he wasn't excited about Nelson's Column or the huge lions, he was excited as he could see the fountains!!! Water again - he's obsessed! Thought he'd freak because of the mad traffic, but he thought it was hilarious how the cabs and buses beeped each other and started making up conversations for them - bless! Spent ages playing with the water and getting soaked by the spray and then headed for the station. Here Callum did freak!! He really can't cope with rush hour (or rush 5 hrs as it seems to start at 2pm and go on till about 7pm nowadays), but I stayed calm, gave precise instructions and made him hold my hand. We got onto the platform and the train without a fuss and got seats straight away - result!

Back home we both collapsed again after another long day - I am so going to ache by the end of this week!

Anyway, part 3 tomorrow!
Cya