JCB Song

JCB Song

This is a great song "bouncing my bum like berserk" and the "I'm so glad I'm not in school Boss." line make it a home ed anthem for me. When we head off out for the day, colliding (not literally) with the school run (hard not to as our road is being dug up again and leaving the access road is pretty tricky) it is the importance of the connection and togetherness that reminds me what this is all about.

We have had such a fabulous sparkly, strewing morning in Brighton I am really not sure where to begin telling you about it. In fact things turned around pretty rapidly after I hit publish on yesterday's blog post. Sometimes just the act of writing it down is all it takes to sort out your thoughts and clear your head. Etienne's (5) morning reluctance to read which my brain translated into significance far beyond was turned around when he finished Peter and Jane 3a in bed with The Daddy One. All three smalls were crashed out pretty early so we watched a film, a great mid week treat, called Taken and it was fabulous. Sort of a gritty, more urban, James Bond with lots of Audi car chases. Luc Besson (my best film director) loves his Audis. Not the kind of Bond movie that will be shown on Boxing Day afternoon but enough stunts and tricks to take you mind off the everyday. I really miss that lovefilm app on facebook, it was great to see the films friends had enjoyed. It has been under development for like a year or something now.

Anyway back to today, determined to have a stress free sparkly Day The Daddy One and I did a little pre-trip research and decided I would be best of parking outside the Booth Museum then a double decker bus ride down the hill to The Brighton Toy Museum. We had considered a return to Hove Museum but we have seen the robots there twice now so I thought the toy museum might tie in with Sapphire's (7) History of Dolls (specifically Barbie's) project but as it turned out there were no dolls there but still, it was great. Anyway I digress.

The trio adored the bus ride down the hill, especially the steep bends of Terminus Road, but we arrived just before the museum was open so we decided to pay a visit to the Lego Store first. My Paternal Grandmother always used to say that "The sun always shines on the righteous" I have no idea what that really means but I think we were righteous today because the staff in the Lego shop were AMAZING. We were the only customers, these things remind me how much we do adore home ed, and Et struck up a conversation about the mysterious identity of the new green ninja and asked the shop assistant if they thought it was Nya or Lord Garmadon and that was it, short story long, ten minutes later we left the shop clutching free Lego sets, ninjago hologram masks and several magazines. It is our week for customer service. From the Lego store we went to the Brighton Toy Museum which is under the railway arches, it cost £10 for the four of us and was excellent, an extra 10p saw the vintage Disney puppets dance and the boys really enjoyed the epic train tracks. I would say a visit is a must if you have a railway fan in your gang (don't go this Saturday though it is closed for a private function) but the fact it is right under the train station makes it very convenient. S would have liked to stay and do some sketching but the boys were hungry so we headed back up the hill, part walking, part bus, a second ray of sunshine when the bus driver let the children ride for free!

We had lunch at the (very windy) park, by which time we had noticed that Booth Museum which was to be our final destination is closed on Thursdays, but no matter, we can go back. Then some sixth form students approached and asked if they could film and ask about our family Internet policy and attitudes to the children going on line. The children seemed keen (and intrigued by the giant furry microphone) so I said okay.

In the interview I explained that our children have free access to the Internet on a variety of devices around the home and out and about if they need to fact check, I mentioned that they were home educated and Sapphire chipped in with how she likes KS2 bytesize (this time it was okay working with children and animals) and how, ironically, they were probably less bothered about the web now than back when we had tried to restrict screen time and that the web was a fabulous resource for home educators.

They were media studies students, really polite and friendly, they said the interview was great and so I told them I used to be on TV and about my experiences with Tony Blair's media trainer.

In Other News

• Sapphire read Roman Mystery 14 The Beggar of Volibilis on the 40 or so mile round trip.
• We drove off route to have a better look at Bramber Castle on the way home and will go back there soon.

• Et asked loads of questions about the logistics of graffiti painting whilst we were driving on the A27. I think we might be buying some aerosal paints.

• If the title track wasn't jazzy enough for you am loving this too

We will simply gloss over the fact that within 5 minutes of arriving home to a perfectly clean house several rooms had been comprehensively trashed and instead focus on going outside in the sunshine to do some skipping.