Wight Weirdos

The Gibson Family Blog

So What Do You Do?

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Sometimes people ask “So if you don’t do lessons, what do you do?”

A couple of weeks ago I decided to keep diary of a week with Jonathan (11) but only got half way through before I forgot. So here instead is just one day – Friday. This is not particularly a typical day but most days aren’t!

We start with a late rise (Thursdays have a late night activity) and rush out of the house as Martin and I need to get to an appointment at the bank. Ruth and Jonathan stay in the car and listen to the radio/read.

Rush into Lidl to buy Ruth some new boots.

Off to ice skating, Jonathan hasn’t been for the whole year and Ruth has maybe been once, we’re going today as we have other things to do in Ryde so makes the petrol costs worthwhile. Jonathan enjoyed meeting up with a friend he doesn’t see often enough and despite the fact that this pic just has Jonathan and Ruth in it we met up with quite a few other HErs there – they were just later than us!

After 3 hours spent in the ice rink, and lots of knitting in the very cold cafe for me, it’s time to go on to a friend’s house for lunch and continuing with some mosaics. We got completely drenched on the way and ended up crafting in an assortment of borrowed clothes!

Coming home with a stack of crafting stuff so we can continue at home we are stuck in lots of traffic. We still manage to get home just in time for Ruth to grab some tea and head out to volunteer at a local YFC kids club and then off to Catalyst.

Jonathan had tea and then we listened to 3 chapters of Harry Potter while he made giant cookies, started outlining his plaster of Paris leaves and then continued to practice drawing dragon heads.

 So we don’t break any of this down into subjects, we tend to view things more holistically, but if you were to do so we fairly obviously have:

Art

PE

English (Harry Potter, reading in the car, lots of discussion about everything)

Home Economics

We also have lots of hidden subjects – either because we have dealt with them conversationally through the day or because they are not immediately obvious – here are a couple as examples:

Maths – our meeting in the morning was about out mortgage – so in the car we had a discussion about debt and percentage interest, Jonathan was dealing with weights and conversions in his cooking, we covered everyday maths in money and timetables and I’m sure more that I can’t remember.

Music – while doing the crafting we were treated to some acoustic guitar music and discussed styles of music, as they did somewhat critically in the car while listening to a lot of 80s dance music (I just enjoyed the reminiscence).

For those of you who actually know us and wonder what Rebekah was doing all day, she is typically out all day on a Friday too with Foodbank warehouse in the morning, volunteering at church in the afternoon and off to Catalyst in the evening so we only have the most fleeting of conversations with her as the day passes – in fact I’d gone to bed before she got home last night!

So there is a day in our lives and what we actually do, another day might and probably would look completely different.

Autumn Baking

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We were inspired to make some blackberry shortbread when we saw pictures on the Home Baked blog, however ours were nowhere near as pretty as hers and we felt they needed a little more sugar, but it was a good excuse for Jonathan to have a go with the piping bag and a good use for a handful of autumn blackberries!

When I asked Jonathan what he would like to bake he said a spiders web cake, we had followed a recipe for one before but couldn’t find it so we used Mary Berry’s chocolate version of the Victoria sandwich, our made up version of ganache and some cheap Aldi white chocolate for the web and spider!

 

I have been using up the apples in the garden. We have had loads and my old jam jars are all full of chutneys and jam, I have been trying to make Andy Hamilton’s Sort Of Cider and I have made three different apple cakes, Devon apple cake, polenta apple cake and my mum’s grated apple cake. The Devon one is a really easy yummy everyday type cake and I think I have made 8 so far this year and will be making more to take to church on Sunday too. The polenta one is an adaptation of this lovely raspberry cake recipe, I’ve just used thin slices of apple instead of the raspberries, this is great for Martin who is trying to avoid wheat and is definitely the best straightforward gluten free cake recipe I have used, we use fine cornmeal instead of standard polenta and it tastes lovely! My mum’s recipe takes a bit more work, kneading the dough, grating it and cooking the apples but it is definitely my favourite (it would be my inheritance track, if I was choosing food rather than records!) and here is a pic of it!

We haven’t made any bread for ages so I was pleased that my Paul Hollywood based cob loaf turned out well.

Our bagels unfortunately were not as good, I think I made the dough too soft so they sort of shriveled in the boiling water rather than puffing up!

  

Fort Vic Foray – August 2013

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Jonathan and I had a fabulous time at the Fort Victoria Foray yesterday.

We were there right from the start so had time to have a go at everything we wanted to do. Jonathan was probably at the older end of the age that these type of events are organised for and said there wasn’t too much that he wanted to do that he hadn’t done before – however we love Fort Victoria so it wasn’t hard to fill the day.

After a quick story about how the sea became salty with Sue Bailey Story Teller we headed off on a tree ID walk – it was a bit early so we were the only people on it which was great as we got lots of personal attention and we definitely picked up a few tips.

Next we had a quick wander down to the beach where we tried rock pooling without rock pools with Gift To Nature – it involved looking under loads of seaweed to find various creatures: fish, crabs, anemones etc. We only managed the anemones but others found more. As we were hungry we decided to find a quiet spot for some lunch and ended up perched behind the Aquarium. Then we popped in to have a look round – we love the aquarium and on this occasion saw the infamous weaver fish and a large cuttlefish.

 Had another look around all the stalls and Jonathan made a badge with the Wildlife Trust to add to his collection. Next off to the woods to have a look at the Forrest School area and make a clay face on a tree.

 

We started watching the Lifeboat displays but then went off to look at the new woodland trail.

We were not quite the only ones on the walk this time but very nearly. It was good to have a look at the new paths and also to see some of the work done by Ruth and Rebekah with the rangers and The Learning Zone a few years ago. We also got to see some of the musical items in the wood and learn how to tell the age of an oak tree without cutting it down (rule of thumb is measure 1m up and then measure around the trunk in centimeters – halve that number and you have a ball park age – the one we measured was about 100 years old).

 

 Time for an ice cream and while Jonathan was scoffing it I was watching the beautiful bees and butterflies on the buddleia behind the cafe

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A bit of assisting with some kite flying, as well as a couple of HE conversations and a chat about Jonathan’s interest in animation, and it was time to pack up and head on home.