Who’s Normal Anyway?

We went to Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse museum today because some home ed families on the local list said they were going along. Admittedly I left it a bit late in posting that we were going to go along, but we didn’t manage to meet up with them or spot anyone likely looking. Perhaps something came up and they didn’t go - plans for meeting home ed kids socially foiled again!

Despite that we had a brilliant day. I accosted a mum with 2 young boys at the entrance waiting for the place to open, thinking they might be one of the families who was meeting up, but they weren’t. We got chatting though and I found out about the museums pass so I got one of those. Her boys and M both headed straight for the adventure playground and enjoyed running about together so we went round the farm section together too.

The playground was newly built, all wooden and really fabulous. There were climbing structures and chutes, swings, all sorts to clamber and play on. We could have stayed the whole day in just that part as far as M was concerned.

The farm was interesting. M and his new pals had a go at milking bucket cows, we met some huge farm horses and followed a trail next to the beck. In the kitchen someone was demonstrating old fashioned farmhouse baking on the range - might have to find a hot cross bun recipe and make some myself.

We had a tasty and good value lunch in the cafe and then spent another good hour in the playground after the other family had left. M found plenty of kids to play with. He said he’d enjoyed it but was sad he’d made friends but won’t see them again. I don’t think he’s lacking in the friend-making department - he can be pretty silly and also hold a grudge if he thinks he’s been wronged but generally he finds people to play with if they’re not already all ganged together. It’s just a shame they are never children who are local or at a social HE group where he can build lasting friendships.

On Saturday we did manage to meet up with Tech and family. We ummed and arred about where to meet up so that we would be least likely to catch any lingering tummy bug germs (fingers crossed we got away with it!) and disturb B & D as they were still ill and decided to visit Skipton Castle. We met up in the car park and the heavens opened, it felt like everything was conspiring against us meeting up.

So not to be deterred we went off to find a cafe and tried to keep a rein on the big kids who were rather excited about meeting up. Don’t think we shocked too many people in the department store, though I’m not sure what they made of me taking L into a toilet stall nappyless in the loos.

The rain stopped and we decided all M, C & D wanted to do was race around and chatter so why pay to go in to the castle when we could hang out in the play park instead, so that’s what we did for the rest of the afternoon. It was lovely to see them and catch up. Afterwards we drove to the in laws’ for a Chinese takeaway and then to my mum’s to sleep.

On Sunday we packed up plants and fish tank and drove home. As we got close to home a police car came up behind me so I was keeping an eye on him and sticking to the speed limit. I overtook a car and then the police car came past and level with me and put his lights on. I nearly died! I slowed down to drop back behind him but they weren’t gesturing at me or anything and then I spotted there was a piece of plastic billowing in the wind from the central reservation, so they were actually stopping to remove that. Phew!

This week I’ve been working on a Wild West project with M because he said he wanted to learn all about it. I was going to do a page about what we’ve done with lots of links, but there is some kind of error in the page template for posting pages that makes the text go into the side bar and I haven’t the time or inclination to fiddle with it further and try and decipher the style sheet etc. I’ll do it as a regular post once I’ve finished writing it instead.

On Tuesday my mum and sister came down for a flying visit to check out our new house. It was great to see them and show them round. M was hyper as usual - he gets so excited when they are here and loves to monopolise his auntie’s attention. L suddenyl discovered he loves ginger biscuits and it was nice to see him actually holding something and having a go at eating it for a change. Generally he thinks food is for throwing on the floor - whole knew meaning for “clearing your plate”.

Yesterday afternoon once they’d set off home again we visited the library and Tesco. In the evening A packed because he’s away up north today and tomorrow to meet some people he’s going to be liaising with at work. I swear the reason they are so busy at work is that they spend more time in meetings planning what they need to do or off on courses or jollies out to places that they never have time to do any actual work!

Right, off to sort out some washing and then I’ll blog today, barring wakeful children.