Drains!

We hit our first hiccup today without J and the biggies. The dishwasher stopped working. Thankfully, Jemima has practised unblocking it often, under Julian's expert tuition, so she fixed it.

Then we realised that the problem was worse than that, the drain outside the kitchen (which the dishwasher and the washing machine both drain into) was blocked.

Ouch, rather an unpleasant job to fix, but we got it done eventually. It turned out that (don't ask me how!) one of J's tape measures was in the drain. Once we recovered that, the rest was relatively simple.

Whew, glad we managed to sort it. I wouldn't have minded hand washing dishes (outside :-)) but really really needed to get the washing machine working.

Tuesday

Fifth day without the top half of the family. . . we're coping! It is hotter in England than in Grand Rapids right now, which isn't very fair, since they have air conditioning and we don't.

The children went to the Camp this afternoon - Julian drove them up there; he said it looks lovely and seems to be very well organised.

I'll have to wait till Friday to get much news from them, though Julian is going to drive up to see them on Thursday, all being well.

Alexander left on Friday morning, and rang me from Heathrow to say he'd forgotten to take a spare camera battery. So we rushed out to post it on Friday morning, to the hotel in Grand Rapids. It arrived this morning, in time for him to take it to Camp - that is fast!


Henry, sunshine and ice lollies; below JoE with his new sunspecs

And a water fight in the garden :-)

Days One and Two

We are on Day Two without Julian or the four older children. So far, so good. It was a bit hectic with my coming back from hospital with Julius so near the time they left for the US - but we're doing ok.

It is very warm here and the children are very out of routine. We've not done a lot the last couple of days, but hopefully on Monday we will back to lessons as usual.


One of J's clients sent Julius some Lego in hospital, and that has kept the children amused for hours. They've also been playing PC games, watching videos and playing in the garden (but NOT climbing trees!)

It is very warm here - almost too warm. Julius is doing great, I make sure he rests more than usual, and keep an eye on him while he's playing (no rowdy games for six - eight weeks) - and he wears sunglasses when we're out!

Safely home

We were discharged this evening, with instructions to keep an eye on him and not let him bump his head for a month or two (no football) (and definitely no tree climbing)

Julian, Alex, Const, Rupert and LJ leave for Grand Rapids, Michigan at 0430 tomorrow, God willing.

It has been a hectic few days, but I am very grateful for all the prayers from friends, and from the friends of friends, people I've never met or who don't know us. It is very enheartening to have so much support.

Julius is doing fine. A friend sent him two large boxes of Lego that arrived this afternoon in hospital, and he has been up, playing with them at home until 10pm, when I finally got him into a bath, and then tucked up and off to sleep.

Poor quality pics because I didn't have my camera :-) this was taken with CRR's phone.

Newsflash

Am in Kings College Hospital with Julius who fell out of a tree on Monday. He had a black eye, but was fine. Till on Wednesday he suddenly had two black eyes and was sick. I was sure he was fine, cos he's been running around, playing, doing lessons etc as normal; but took him to our local casualty dept to check him out.

They thought he was fine, but they did a CT scan just in case. I saw the scan results. . .I can't read scans but I know that both sides of the brain are meant to look the same: they didn't.

He has a fracture on the right hand side of his head, and our local hospital transferred us by ambulance to Kings since they have a neurosurgery dept. They thought then that he'd need emergency brain surgery. We were very thankful when they finally said no, he only needs observation.

All his obs have been fine so far, we are waiting and praying. Julius is colouring in, and eating and would like to stay in hospital for a week. I'd like to get home once we are sure he's ok.

Will update later or on Facebook

Wednesday

Haven't updated this for a few days. My laptop crashed again on Monday morning. But now that I know why, it only took me a couple of hours to fix, and I hope I can prevent it recurring. Whenever my system tries to update with Vista SP1, it crashes.

For some unknown reason, it tries to do this every Sunday night. . hence my laptop is dead on Monday mornings.

But so far, so good, I think I have it up and running; and more importantly, I think I can avoid it happening again.

Also, we recently had our broadband upgraded (for free, I just phoned and complained how slow it was!) by BT from 2 to 6.5 mb; so our internet is quite a bit faster.

We also have an older NTL (now Virgin) modem, which isn't very reliable, so I rang them to complain, and they sent a new modem and also upped our broadband to 10 mb. This helps keep speeds up since we now have eight laptops and sometimes they are all online at the same time, esp in the evenings.

We got new fairly dinky laptops for Joseph and Jemima recently - they are 10.5 inches I think, but do everything that a normal laptop does (though they need an external CD drive).

They are really neat and portable, and quite robust - they are made especially for children/students.

More birthday photos

These are some pictures from Alexander's birthday celebrations. Saturday had lovely weather, so the children had cake in the garden at supper time.

(Youngest looking up to oldest :-)

It wasn't easy (or possible!) to get a photo of everyone looking ok at the same time. .

Birthday

These are some pictures from Alexander's 18th birthday. He got a Dell Inspiron Laptop, as well as a car. (The latter was chocolate in case anyone was wondering!)

Max and Julius keeping an eye on things.

Opening presents


LJ, JE, Alexander and Max

Anni
Doesn't seem long since Alexander was 16 and starting work

nor since he was two yrs old. . .

In keeping with his wishes, we didn't make a big fuss over his 18th birthday; but he enjoyed his presents and chocolate cake in the garden.

French and Football

Every week some of the children go to a friend's house for French lessons; and also, Rupert teaches football to various younger children. These are some pics from the football lesson today.

I have a new camera, and although I thought it was the same as my old one (pretty much; it's a Nikon Coolpix S220, my old one was a Nikon Coolpix 7900), I'm not sure I have the hang of getting photos focussed correctly yet.

I enjoyed having some adult conversation (we tried not to focus on the Govt's "Home Education Review Report", which is not something to be cheerful about :-( and instead focussed on things for which we are thankful and happy)

My friend is expecting her first baby.

The little boys (Max and JuJu) had a great time. Max in particular was very keen on seeing Martin *and his scooter*, lol.

Tennis

Although Mary pointed out Ivana Trump (I'd never have known her), I didn't manage to get a photo. I did get some pics of the players, and we took lots of photos of each other.

Eating ice-cream

The sun was hot, and Anne got quite burnt. Though, as she pointed out, living in Glasgow means you don't get much chance to get sunburned, so one day a year isn't going to hurt.

Andy Murray warming up:

A photo of the club house - it is a lovely old building.

Two sets of sisters.

The Brazillian semi-finals team: Melo and Sa: they were really good. Marcelo Melo is six foot eight tall!

Andy Murray giving an interview after winning

Photos

Some from dinner: Anne, myself and Joanna.
Anne and I - fish in background

These were the desserts we ordered: one looks like a cricket ball. We initially thought it was a plastic casing (it had summer fruits dessert inside) but after Anne texted a pic to a friend he asked if it was edible, and we decided to try. I thought it might be wax, like the wax on Edam cheese, but it turned out to be raspberry/white chocolate - very edible indeed!

The next morning we got up late (well, I thought it was late, though I think Anne thought it was early) and went to the gym (http://www.virginactive.co.uk/Content_Intro.aspx) . Anne and Joanna went through a rigorous "Step Class" while I stayed in the cafe, drank coffee and made use of the free internet access.

Then we all went for a swim, sauna and steam room. It wasn't busy and we had the sauna and steam rooms all to ourselves. I hadn't had much breakfast and was quite worn out by the time we got back from the gym. .

Joanna made us a lovely lunch (was feeling too light headed to take a photo - grin you can tell how much exercise I normally do, when one gentle swim session knocked me out); then we headed out to Queens for the tennis.

Weekend

Had a great weekend. Busy but great. Met up with Joanna and Anne, and went out for dinner (along with Jo's niece, Stacey). Amazing restaurant," Yauatcha", with live fish by the bar (though they didn't spear them for us to eat :-) (http://www.yauatcha.com/)

Last time Anne was there Roger Moore was at the table next to them, but I didn't manage to spot anyone famous.

Then on Saturday we went to Queen's Tennis Club, where we met Mary (www.marymacleod.com) and watched the two men's semi's (tho the second one didn't last long, Andy Roddick called off injured); and the two doubles semi finals.

Great fun watching tennis in real life rather than on TV. It was beautiful weather - I managed to avoid sunburn, thanks to sunscreen and the hat which Mary lent me - and a good time was had by all.

Was happy to get home on Saturday evening, but tired. Pics in next post, to save me trying to get the layout right.

Sailing

The children had a sailing and kyaking day at Danson Park recently. It was a lovely warm day and I took all the little ones with me too. We met up with other home educating families and I took the boys to the playground before lunch.

Max with Martin. He was very keen on Martin's scooter, but Martin managed to evade him most of the time!

Max and Seb in the water jets


Feathers! We took some home an practised writing with "quills" a la Samuel Pepys (they'd been watching Magic Grandad and the Great Fire of London)

Back to normal

Life goes on, and we are pretty much back to normal. Many thanks for all the supportive messages (here, on FB, email, etc).

Yesterday was busy, I had a dental appointment (yes, another one. I think I am single handedly putting his children though university :-/ the amount we pay in dental fees); then Lucy was out for a couple of hours doing work experience as a mother's help (she loves it, works for a brilliant family with five children, six cats, two dogs, three (?) rabbits and lots of fish); and Constance was helping out a local family by collecting their son from school.

I've never done a "school run" - taken children to school or waited with the other moms at the school gates - one of the advantages of home schooling. Const seems to have taken to it fine, and is glad to be able to help out.

Today we got a letter from the police saying there was insufficient evidence to proceed (I guess it was a standard letter, since we'd already said we weren't going to) and offering us the "Victim Support" service (which I dont' think we'll use)

My laptop has some serious issues with Vista SP1, and has crashed several times in the last two weeks. I've gotten to the point where I am embarassed about asking people to resend me their email addresses. But in case anyone thinks I am ignoring them, I probably didn't get your email. Or maybe it arrived and my lap top ate it before I opened it. Sigh.

I don't check email on Sundays, and I noticed that a few emails came in, but by Monday morning my laptop was flashing the dreaded blue screen, and all was lost. Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but a little irritating.

On a positive note, I am now becoming quite proficient at reinstalling the operating system and drivers - something I knew nothing about a few weeks ago.

Sebastian with a new American t-shirt - NHL No. 81, Kessel

Unpleasant evening

No easy way to put this. No serious injuries were suffered, but yesterday evening Alexander, Rupert, Lucy and Jeremy were attacked by some youths while playing football in a park, minutes from our home. In broad daylight.

Joseph was also there and managed to run home to summon help. The police arrived and apprehended one of the youths.

The children were quite ferociously beaten about the head, and - but for the grace of God and their self defence training - could have been seriously hurt.

The attackers were perhaps part of some gang, as they stripped to the waist and made a definite and unprovoked attack on the children, while chanting some "slogan" (interspersed with the declared intent to kill).

The police suggested that Rupert (at least) be checked out for head injuries because of the nature of the blows he received, but we chose to wait and see, and today the children are recovering well. A bit bruised and shaken, but not injured.

Jeremy looks like his nose is broken, it has swollen quite a bit, but it is not painful enough to be broken, so given a few days he'll be back to normal, God willing.

Though on the other hand, they won't be back to normal. I don't think life is ever quite the same again after a group of strangers come up shouting that they are going to kill you, and then set about behaving as though they intend to batter you to death :-(

Since no serious injuries were sustained, no charges were pressed.

Psalm 7 v 1: O LORD my God, in thee do I put my trust: save me from all them that persecute me, and deliver me:

Edited to add that the decision not to press charges was ours. The police would have supported our decision if we had chosen to. But it was plain to us as well as to them that there was little to be gained by doing so. The children are grateful to the police for their handling of the issue.