Wight Weirdos

The Gibson Family Blog, also incorporating Maybe it Mutters

Jan
19

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Snow Day

Category: Family Tags: , , 1 Comment

Had a great day yesterday.

Out in the snow in the morning – hill opposite means easy access to hot tea and changes of socks. Jonathan, Ruth and I were sledging.

  

  

Martin went out to a meeting (which was cancelled) so took the opportunity to take a few snaps on the way back.

Rebekah took the bus to Foodbank and enjoyed the snow at Church On The Roundabout

  

 

I spent the rest of the day playing games and baking.

  

When Rebekah got home there was more snow playing.

  

 

Then dinner followed by more games – no one wanted me to take their photos!

  

The Snow started melting so I don’t think we’ll be having more days like this.

Dec
27

By

Christmas Time

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Some of our Christmas activities.

Martin and I went out for a Christmas meal, we went to The Taverners at Godshill, I’d never been before but it was lovely with lots of local food and I’d definitely go back again:

  

 

Making pomanders a few days before Christmas with some friends:

  

  

The we follow a pattern each year. My family comes over to visit the weekend before Christmas just a few days beforehand this year. It was only a quick visit but there was time to share dinner together and to exchange presents.

  

  

The day itself saw me up first – not the kids. So I got the breakfast ready and then everyone congregated in our room to open stockings together! Time for breakfast simple but nice – croissants and yoghurt and fruit and very very local honey from Sue Bailey. Rebekah reads us the note from Father Christmas and then it’s off to church where we were leading the singing and Martin took part in a strange ritual of finding the spiritual significance of many presents and Jonathan showed off his onesie!

  

  

After church we have our starter of dips and vegetables, then we open presents and then have our main meal (not a roast – this year Hairy Bikers Chicken Paprika). Then a game (ticket to Ride – although Ruth went and had a nap) then Christmas Doctor Who and Outnumbered and pudding. We do the same things more or less each year and everyone seems happy with it.

  

  

 Last day of celebrations for us on boxing day when Martin’s family come and visit. They were delayed by a missing ferry but we still managed to fit in lunch, a short walk, present exchange, game of cluedo and yummy dinner before they had to go back again.

Dec
8

By

Singing for fun

Category: Family, Home Education Tags: , , , , , , Leave a Comment

I am so far behind with blogging but really really want to put up these clips from our Sing For Fun group’s Christmas concert. We sang sea shanties:

Video 1 – John Kanakanaka

and Christmas carols:

Video 2 – Sweet Bells

Everyone seemed to have a great time and we exchanged 100s of cookies in the break – fantastic :-)

More detail might or might not come later!

Aug
6

By

Busy Week

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We’re just back from a mainland trip – as an aside when my children produce children of their own I want to opt for Granny Island as preferred name, talking about the mainland always makes me think of Katie Morag. There will be more detail later but here is an overview.

We started with Martin’s Dad’s retirement service and bun fight.

 Then a trip to Snowdonia with some HE friends.

Then back to Martin’s parents to help with their house move - Jonathan and I skived off to visit the Fishbourne Roman Villa instead.

 

Then Ruth, Jonathan and I dashed home and I dashed straight out again to the Lovely Lucy’s hen night.

Then Ruth and I spend a whole 5 hours on Friday making and icing cupcakes.

And then Saturday ended our week with Rick and Lucy’s wedding.

Apr
16

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Chill Sunday

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Some time ago we changed the style of our Sundays to be far more relaxed and family orientated. This has been brillaint for us making sure we get a proper day off and spend some time together.

This Sunday was a particularly nice one.

Martin and I woke up ridiculously early and mooched about listening to the radio and enjoying the sun in our living room and looking at the silhouette of the Easter Tree. We were taking the second part of the service at church for “Chill Sunday” but had done all the preparation so there wasn’t too much for us to do. So a lovely cuppa and bit of mooching kept us happy.

Church went well. We were having an experiment with something different. So I gave a short talk and then we split up into groups to have a go at activities linked to the fruit of the Spirit.

Martin took a group outside to plant fruit (well rhubarb and lavender but we’ll add some raspberries too).

 

Ruth took a group for art (I even let them use my Sharpie pens) and lots of people made little plaques of the fruit of the Spirit.

 

There was a tiny discussion group and all the while we had some lovely low key music going on that people could join in with and help themselves to communion. I felt it worked very well and people seemed to enjoy the variety of activities on offer as a bit of a change to the usual – although I did wonder what the few visitors we had made of it!

We even, coincidentally, had cushions on the floor which made our moving about a bit easier.

 

So even though we had been involved in organising things it all felt very relaxed and not stressful for us.

The rest of the day flowed happily too. We had a relaxed lunch, played Ticket To Ride and demons, Rebekah cooked dinner and made some biscuits with Jonathan and Jonathan wrote stories. We drank the wine and spent a long time in lively robust conversation, with lots of laughter. Poor Jonathan can’t quite manage to get a word in and gets a bit frustrated. He has taken to putting his hand up to get attention, it seems to work quite well as we do pause and listen to him.

I love the fact that we all spend lots of time just sitting round with a glass of wine and enjoying each others company. The girls said that they think that because we do that on a Sunday we are more inclined to chat more on other days.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Apr
9

By

Easter Sunday

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I couldn’t sleep so I got up early listened to the sunrise service on radio 4 and decorated the fire place area that we had cleared for Good Friday.

Paper flowers on the cross, fruit and sweets (in place of the beans in our sacrifice jar) on the mantle piece and some flowers.

  

   

I added the decorated eggs to the Easter tree and put a basket of decorated egg on the table.

  

We did have a few chocolate eggs too.

The eventually the others got up and we had some of the fruit with yoghurt for breakfast – yummy!

Then a trip to church where I was delighted to sing Thine Be The Glory – it is to Easter what Oh Come All Ye Faithful is to Christmas – an absolute necessity if you ask me! Jonathan got a chance to show off his cake based Easter Garden. He made the cake with Ruth, the cookie stone with Rebekah and the icing with me – he was really impressive with the icing bag as he’s never done that before – and Martin took the photo so we were all involved.

The weather was yucky so we didn’t go and do our egg rolling and instead went home and had a lovely leisurely afternoon eating and playing demons and Wizard and watching Bang Goes The Theory.

Apr
7

By

Good Friday

Category: Family, Idleness Tags: , , , , Leave a Comment

We had a really, really good Good Friday.

We started with an early (for us) morning and headed down to the church. Then we had an elicit exchange of dairy-free eggs and got ourselves sorted out for the Good Friday meditation we were taking.

We stole the script for the meditation based on the last words of Jesus from Kingdom Story

 

We ended with recording of the lovely Aled Jones (definitely getting middle aged, but he has such a lovely tone to his voice) singing Abide With Me (Martin’s favourite hymn) and this image that we took of the cross at St Benet’s Abbey on the Norfolk Broads.

Then we just had to hang about and prepare for being the final destination of the walk of witness, rearrange the chairs, butter some hot crossed buns, sort out the PA stuff, make some tea and coffee. But we had about 3 hours to do all this, Ruth took the little ones to the park, Rebekah and Jamie went for a coffee and we just pottled about in church, in quite an idle manner!

The walk of witness arrived, babies cried, songs were sung and lots of drinks and hot crossed buns were distributed.

Then we sat around for a long time with friends and coffee.

Next home.

Jonathan and I had cleared the area around the fire place and had made a cross from the sticks in the garden to put up.

 

I tidied up our cupboard surface with our Lent stuff on.

Jonathan updated our very behind lent lamb calendar

I put up the cross picture that I made.

I managed to find time to listen to the last instalment of the excellent Peoples Passiondrama on the iplayer. I read an article that said that religious broadcasting has almost disappeared around the Christian celebrations but I have to say that I have been very impressed with the variety, quantity and quality of the broadcasts relating to the passion on Radio 4 and Radio 4 Extra during Holy Week.

 

We also have an Easter tree that Ruth went out to pilfer from the cycle path.

We had a leisurely afternoon spending some of it looking at Jonathan’s bouncing egg and making a lot of quiche for dinner (always a joint effort as Rebekah makes better pastry and I make a better filling) and rebekah also made a batch of truly delicious hot crossed buns.

We sat and ate a very very leisurely dinner, drank a yummy bottle of red wine (which we unfortunately now have to give a small share of to Rebekah) and sat and had a great lot of conversation ranging from theology, to holiday to moral dilemmas to parenting. The girls said some lovely things about us, but Martin said that Rebekah must have been under the influence of the wine!!!

We had a great day because there were lots of times to not be in a hurry, to sit and chat and take our time. It reminded me that we need to get back to being more idle and not to just rush and be busy all the time but to really slow down and appreciate the here and now, savour time with family and friends and time alone and with God.

 

May
21

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Easter 2011

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I’m having a catch up on uploading photos so a month late here are some pics from Easter.

We had the Easter tree outside church to welcome people in.

In church we had a time of celebration and for some reason the kids were popping balloons.

After church we headed off to Culver cliff to do some egg rolling – this was the best place we have been for egg rolling so will go back next year.

May
11

By

Rob Bell and the Cognitive Dissonance Problem

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I’ve just finished reading Rob Bell’s new(ish) book Love Wins.
I found it an interesting and thought provoking read, but I believe for many it will be discarded (or possibly burned) because of issues with cognitive dissonance.

OK, if you’re still with me, haven’t set fire to your computer at the very mention of Rob Bell or fallen asleep through my use of strange and academic sounding words, congratulations. I shall now attempt to enlighten you in order that your life may be complete. Or something else.

Cognitive Dissonance is the feeling of discomfort experienced when two conflicting thoughts are held simultaneously.

For example if I perceive myself as a good person, but do something that is bad, I have to hold in my mind simultaneously a perception of being good alongside one of being bad. This leads to discomfort – guilt, shame, embarrassment and so on.

Cognitive dissonance is often used as a tool for persuading people of a particular point of view. Some of my work is in the field of Environmental Interpretation, which involves helping people understand environmental issues but also encouraging a change in behaviour and/or attitudes. Effective interpretation often aims for a balanced approach to cognitive dissonance, giving a slight feeling of discomfort caused by taking on new ideas which challenge existing views and behaviours. An interesting thing happens if the difference between pre-existing beliefs and new concepts is too great. Rather than adjusting their beliefs many people will find rationalisations for dismissing the new information as false, irrelevant or misunderstood, or will simply re-interpret the new information to fit their existing beliefs. No matter how convincing the proof, the easiest resolution to such massive cognitive dissonance is often to rationalise the retention of our existing position.

This all leads me to wonder whether a lot of the negative reaction to Rob Bell’s book is a result of too much cognitive dissonance. People with deeply-held beliefs are confronted with an alternative view, not from someone they would expect to espouse such ideas, not a lefty-liberal-believe-anything-you-like sort or a hippy yoghurt-knitter, but the Nooma-ministering mega-church leader. The cognitive dissonance meter explodes. The instant reaction? Justify your position, marginalise the “opposing” view, rebalance the dissonance by removing the aberrant thought. Peace can reign again in the brain once Rob Bell has been demonised, turned into some heretic who has stepped off the reservation. His ideas do not get weighed, tested, mulled-over. The reader’s views are not questioned and tested either. An opportunity is lost. An opportunity to improve understanding, deepen faith, explore belief.

I’m not suggesting for a moment that everyone should agree with Rob Bell. He has, after all, just put forward his thoughts at this moment in time on a number of issues. Disagree with some of it, or even all of it. But don’t let the vagaries of the brain shut you off from considering new ideas. Strong faith can take challenges. That doesn’t mean our framework of understanding simply fends off all comers, but rather if faith is true and real it can accommodate challenge, exploration and new ideas. The other is just dogma.

Feb
26

By

Soggy Saturday

Category: A quiet week in the life, Family, Home Education Tags: , , Leave a Comment

So Martin and I are having a lazy morning, no noise, no rush, no need to hurry to get up. We have a leisurely breakfast planned and then a walk and lunch in a pub somewhere and a long chat about our future plans.

Then there is the phone call!

The one from the kids which says “We’re all wet, we’re coming home at 10.30″ as I wasn’t on the phone to them I could say the words in my head not just think them it went something like “what do you mean they’re coming home early, we’re supposed to be having a relaxed day together – grrrrr grrrrr grrrrr”. So in no time I have gone from completely chilled and relaxed and wondering where we should walk and lunch to feeling disappointed agitated and wondering how I can manage my disappointed feeling and not let it ruin the whole day (this was not really successful have felt edgy and grumpy most of the day).

Anyway we decide we should get up and at least enjoy breakfast in peace and by ourselves.

They seem to be taking longer than we expected to come home so we at least got some of our conversing done.

When the girls come home they’ve gained two Dawsons (we have Jonathan coming back later with other Dawsons) This makes no difference to us as by the time we’ve got our own girls back a few other kids (who seem very at home here – in fact Caleb often walks in and great martin with “Hello Daddy”) msake no difference really.

We then deal with muddy clothes and children and Ruth starts with her usual baking.

More Dawsons arrive with Jonathan and to my relief his car seat!

Tea and good conversations follow and then Dawsons all leave.

Rebekah can’t decide whether to cycle to the swimming pool or not. Rain decides her so we all decide to do a bit of house/van work and the Ali is going to come over.

I’ve volunteered to do an extra Sunday Funday at church tomorrow so I’ve been making play dough and Jonathan is choosing a Veggie Tales DVD

I made some lovely poffertjes – just as they are ready Thorne handily turns up.

You eat them traditionally with icing sugar and butter but I rather like chocolate spread and Baileys!

Kids play demons, I escape to blog and try and feel happy by listening to strange Radio 4 plays and Martin continues on the van.

At some point I will need to kick out extra kids and eat dinner but for now I am enjoying living with radio 4 and ignoring everyone else!

So aside from my sniping at everyone the day has been OK, even pretty good in places - but not what we had planned. I’m not good at appreciating what has come about if it’s different to what I had been expected but after the poffertjes I definitely started to feel better!

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