Wight Weirdos

The Gibson Family Blog

Broken Arm – July 2013

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Well after a good first day in Lincoln I wondered down to the lake with my early morning cuppa and slipped on the steps. It really hurt.

Eventually Martin wondered down and I told him I thought I might have broken my arm. We called a taxi and headed for the local A&E. They were very good at the hospital and everything was fairly quick except for the printing of the CD I needed to take back to the Island.

So here is my broken Ulna:

By the time we got back from hospital the girls had packed everything up and had made a rota for who was going to cook for the next week. We headed home, after only 1 day of our holiday,via Costco and Ikea with me sustained by a heck of a lot of chocolate and paracetamol & codeine!

July 2013 Lincoln Holiday

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We had a great start to our Lincoln holiday. We arrived with no van problems at the lovely campsite at Hartsholme got the awning up and enjoyed some lovely fish and chips.

We spent the next day in Lincoln where we bought the world’s best ice-cream and visited the Museum of Lincolnshire Life. Rebekah was particularly incensed by the restrictions on women teachers in the Victorian era but it didn’t stop her dressing up!

  

However it all went downhill from there on!

June 2013 Quick Round Up – Camping

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Lovely camp with a few friends – pleasant weather – a chance to try out the van – very very cheap campsite.

  

Teapots and cake – very important when you are camping:

  

Big kids and little kids all mixing together, going off swimming, reading etc:

  

Bell tents and BBQs – BBQ needed the help of the airbed pump to get going:

  

 Last night cooking dampers round the fire:

L  

  

November 2012 Quick Overview

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Wow – we have had a ludicrously busy time since returning from camping in September. Every week has had about 5 extra activities in it on top of the usual and Ruth trying to do the hated chemistry revision, as such I am very behind on the blog and have missed out some brilliant experiences we have all had. So a quick overview:

Bristol:

Went to Bristol so Ruth could do a trip to ciromedia for an aerial course. Jonathan, martin and I went and looked at the local street art having got a taste for it in London. We also enjoyed a rather nice park – as you can see I have my “home educators” trousers on!

  

  

 We finally finished the van and even had the re-registration from the DVLA, so we spent the night in the van and then went to Beaulieu in the pouring rain with Martin’s parents.

General life:

We had sumo night at youth nite, Martin and Jonathan had a go. I made an autumn table mat that I was really pleased with.

 

 

London:

Another trip to London – this time with Rebekah and Martin. Had a lovely day mooching with Rebekah, great meal out with mum, Jane and Jonathan and then a great visit to Oasis college.

  

 

Rebekah’s Photography Project:

  

  

 Fire Station Visit:

  

Ruth’s Crafting:

  

Ruth’s Birthday:

  

Art Afternoon at Mike Rodriguez‘s art studio:

  

Overview Of Our London Trip

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I am so behind with blogging and will go back and fill in at some point but for now here is our weekend away in London. Just Jonathan and I were going which was really nice as we don’t have much time just the two of us.

We started with a ferry ride, breakfast in Ikea and then a couple of hours on the coach. This was very enjoyable and passed quickly as we played crib, the ministers cat, hangman and squares. This got me thinking about how educational doing that sort of thing is – crib with the arithmetic skills as well as strategic thinking, the ministers cat good for building vocabulary particularly thinking about adjectives, hangman good for spelling and imaginative thinking and squares again good for strategy. So a wasted couple of hours were actually spent productively – not with me trying to be educational but just by default by us engaging together (on the way home again we were so shattered we both sat and listened to radio 4 downloads!).

  

A short hop from Victoria to the natural History Museum. Jonathan had specific things he wanted to see before we arrived and then on reading the leaflet decided to see another few things. I resisted the urge to “make the most” of the visit and take him to see lots more and as such we had a very relaxed time looking at volcanoes, dodos, dinosaurs, an archaeopteryx and a giant sloth – and for some reason seeing some obsidian was thrilling too.

  

  

  

Then he wanted to go to M&M world and as this trip was about taking him to do London things that he wanted to do (and that I could afford) that’s what we did. It’s not really my thing but if you are going to do these things you should embrace them wholeheartedly!

  

  

The next thing on his list was a trip to Primark so he could buy a onesie with his own money – my sister obliged by taking us there and then we had a nice family meal out at a little Italian restaurant – again Jonathan’s choice he wanted pizza.

Friday was spent meeting up with Ruth and other zonies from the biology group visiting the Centre of the Cell, wandering around Covent Garden and doing the BBC tour.

The Centre of the Cell was slightly disappointing as most of the material was available online – however I don’t think Ruth would have spent as long engaging with it and discussing cell related topics if we hadn’t gone and it was free. We had seen the TARDIS before Ruth was more excited then.

   

  

Ruth went home with the others while Jonathan and I went back to my mums and had a lovely roast dinner and choice of three puddings!

Our last day in London saw me doing some bargain hunting in the Salvage shop with mum while Jonathan went to the kids club cinema with Jane and Jonathan. A quick trip round the exceptionally crowded Borough Market Then we had my highlight of the weekend an Alternative Walking Tour of London. We spent a couple of hours walking around the Spittlefields area of London learning about its history and looking at street art and graffiti. I learned so much and found it fascinating. I would definitely do it again as by its nature the art work will have changed. I didn’t know that people did street art with stencils and paste ups as well as chilled spray cans (to give a different effect) as well as all sorts of other things. I’ve just put a few pics here but will probably do more later.

  

  

We had a great weekend.