well, of the summer challenge that is 
Lucy was the lucky recipient, for a fabulous set of photos of their day.
I did leave a couple more on my journey around the ring, but I think I’ll just try to tally up one a day on here.
In other news, we have another new ring member, Kerry at the-lewis-family Please feel free to take the time to go and say hi 
Back later with a round up of our day.
I had a conversation with one of my colleagues that reminded me not to take life for granted, and also gave me perspective that even with all the chaos I have around me, there are worse ways of living in the world. I won’t go into details about her personal life, as it’s her personal life, but lets just say, tonight I’m very happy with everything I have.
Courtesy of Moonshadows
Before I read the blogpost, I went off and read the associated articles, in chronological order, so I started with American Prospect online and then the following defense, and then I read Moonshadows’ take on it. Not having read her blog before, I *was* wondering if I was going to read a complete rant against Linda Hirshman’s every point, and I was slightly disappointed to read an article not dissimilar to the one I was planning in my own head. 
Great writing Moonshadows, can’t believe you got there first with so many of the great responses!
I do feel I have a couple of points to add though, so I will
It seems to me that Linda Hirshman is saying that women cannot flourish or fulfil themselves without becoming men. That a career in the pursuit of money is a far more worthy goal than that of staying at home with your children even for the first few years. I particularly liked reading that elimination communication is the worst possible path for a woman to take:
Not two weeks after the Yalie flap, the Times ran a story of moms who were toilet training in infancy by vigilantly watching their babies for signs of excretion 24-7. They have voluntarily become untouchables
.
I’m sorry, but I rofled at that point. I’ve never thought of Kath or Barbara as untouchables. Or any of the other ppl I know who’ve dabbled with ec. Well, maybe that time Barbara had the camping incident with the potty bucket itself…. I’ve admired their perseverance, marvelled at the bond they have with their children, and thought admiringly of the money they are saving, but considered them untouchables, nope.
And on that note, I’ve admired many women who spend their entire time willingly with their offspring. Tim and I often discuss our life patterns, with the conclusion that children are basically the point. OK, money is nice, life is easier with a moderate amount than with a little (I’ve tried it both ways :?) but I’d give up a lot, and have done, to spend time with the kids. What I do now is unbalanced, but it’s improving, and if we can cut out the commute, and arrange more family time, it’ll be pretty much great.
And that leads me to the suggestion I’d make for women’s future behaviour, and men too. I don’t think the answer is for women to try to succeed like men, because tbh, I don’t think men who aren’t sure how old their children are, are flourishing. I think it requires a balance, and that many of us *do* enjoy and thrive on some work, and the way forward is to change the way of work and the measures of success for society. I would love for it to be possible for all ppl to work part time without guilt *if they want to*, raise families collectively without guilt and for children to be a part of society, rather than institutionalised in extended schools so that the rest of us can be good little worker ants. I’d like for the world of work to open up so that we can do it more flexibly - we have the technology after all
I’d like for it to be a measure of success that you have your job *and* you have your life and your family. Not that you have a job and a set of photographs on your desk to remind you of ppl you only see for weekends and a couple of weeks holiday a year. And I think that is what women, high flying women can do. It’s going to require some high flying men to do similarly though, and it’s going to take a lot of guts from us all. Change is scary. But worthwhile.
Linda, on the offchance that your google alert finds this blog, which I would kind of doubt, I think you wimped out. I think you are just as hidebound and typecast by the male world as women who think they are choosing to look after the butter. (I loved that part of your article btw). I think that you limited your conclusions a way of women behaving that would indeed make them equal to men, and would continue society as is, rather than reflecting that perhaps what needs to change most is society itself.
Big is teaching Small to read…
when they’d read the whole book, he came up to me and said “Does that make you happy?”
When I replied “Yes,” he said “Can I have the orange car?”
oh boy. I think I may have problems there.
However, I told him that the other thing that would make me happy is him using the toilet instead of a nappy - we’ve tried several times and so far today we have dry nappy and one wee in toilet!
I’m rather loath to start star charts with him, but I think toilet training might require them, as he seems singularly uninterested for his own sake.
The Observer | Magazine | ‘If I was a dog, I’d be a terrier. I was brought up in quite a tough culture - I’m used to speaking out
She would love to unlock children from ‘a world which is all about fame and money and status and pointless, passive things’. She would like to give them other values ‘without overloading them with Christian mythology’.
I think this is an author I’d like to read - anyone suggest where to start? Is it the obvious, the first novel?
last night I did this:
Then this morning there has been much playing with geomags.
Small (re)discovered his ideal blox from Beadmerrily, and that was good too. Tim took more pictures and has retreated upstairs with camera, so I may have some more to add in a bit
eta as promised:
when I’m down.
This week has evaporated so quickly, and our holiday seems a lifetime ago. Different ppl, different place, different time, different world. I miss it, and am slightly disconcerted at how swiftly I slip back in to a mock corporate mentality. Nevertheless, I negotiated a slightly different working pattern for the next few weeks, and we’ll see if that helps to hold the real me together a little better, by allowing me some day time to focus on house moving tasks as well as evenings for working.
Yesterday evening Kirsty popped in, to return some stuff that had been in her house (which is no longer theirs). Was lovely to see them, and the kids just all mucked in together instantly. We appear to have acquired Alex’s hat and possibly one of her necklaces though, which wasn’t part of the plan.
Spent the later part of yesterday evening reaquainting myself with the blogring, and shuffling ppl on and off according to dates of recent posts. Contrary to popular opinion, the ring is not hugely bigger than it has been - it seems to be holding steady at around 40 regular posters, which is the number we’ve been at for quite some months now. Not quite sure why that is - quite a few ppl joined and then stopped posting, so are now languishing in an inactive state. I shall try to build in a routine (again) that involves me going around and commenting and hopefully we’ll all get to know some of the newer recruits a bit better
Speaking of which, we have a new recruit tonight: Fiona at Learning Naturally. She’s next to Jamie at Jamie’s world, also fairly new.
And back to today. Lovely morning - I got up long enough to do some washing and washing up, and then retired back to bed Didn’t get up again til lunch time - incredibly decadent I know. Read myself an entire Deric Longden
Got to the point where I couldn’t cope with being yelled at any more, so decamped to do some shopping. Big has requested more experiments, so I went a bit mad in The Works. They had lots of science stuff - I got a kit to do 101 experiments, a solar energy box and a university of oxford smart kit on magic magnets. Noticed that they’ve got 120 Great History Projects
And I treated myself - Zen Therapy: Healing Your Life with Zen
Got home with bags of stuff as I also did the week’s shopping while I was out. Big and Small were both thrilled with my purchases, which included two boxes of Geomags, on sale in the Works. So they made a variety of mathematical shapes, while listening to the classical music I bought them as well. That went down a treat - in fact Big has just been down to fetch it upstairs to their room, so they are going to sleep listening to Tchaikovsky. It’s a cd of ballet music, I’d tell you what precisely, but like I say, she’s taken it upstairs Education rescued for the day, and tomorrow we’re planning a solar energy project. I’m rather looking forward to that too.
And now I’m going to rescue my evening by putting the Sainsbury’s finest pasta thing in to cook, and see if I can talk to Tim into a bottle of wine to go with it. Hope the rest of you have a good one.
“We both taught school, indoors and out. Perhaps our kids had a weird education…but a girl who can shape a comfortable and handsome saddle starting with a dead mule and not much else, solve quadratics in her head, shoot straight with a gun or arrow, cook an omelet that is light and tasty, spout page after page of Shakespeare, butcher a hog and cure it can’t be called ignorant by New Beginnings standards. All our girls and boys could do all of that and more. I must admit that they spoke a rather florid brand of English, especially after they set up the New Globe Theatre and worked straight through every one of old Bill’s plays. No doubt this gave them odd notions of Old Earth’s culture and history, but I could not see that it hurt them. We had only a few bound books, mostly reference; the dozen-odd “fun” books were worked to death.
Our kids saw nothing strange in learning to read from As You Like It. No one told them it was too hard for them, and they ate it up, finding ‘tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones and good in every thing’.
Although it did sound odd to to hear a five-year-old girl speak in scansion and rolling periods, polysyllables falling gracefully from her baby lips. Still, I preferred it to ‘Run, Spot, run. See Spot run’ from a later era from Bill’s.”
Excerpt taken from Robert Heinlein’s Time Enough for Love
This was one of my favourite books as a teenager. I didn’t know at the time that Heinlein was thought to be a misogynist (rather interesting discussion of many of the issues here).
I’m not sure where I stand on that - but I’ve always thought the above passage about education was interesting. I’d quite like my children to speak in scansion and rolling periods, if I was altogether sure what they were ;), and I’m trying to work out what I think the equivalent skills list should be for this society and this day and age. Thought I’d throw it open for discussion - thoughts?
include the kite rescue and indeed much of the kite flying. We had taken with us Big’s small kite, that we’ve had for several years, but to the best of my recollection hadn’t ever flown, and when everyone else started flying kites, she wanted to do the same.
It flies really well. She spent some time near the tent with it, then several of the other children went into the next field and she went with them. I was sitting chatting, when Barbara’s E and Big ran up, both distraught, without the kite. Managed to decipher the wails to say that the kite had gone over the stream and belted off with them to see if it could be seen.
The field over the stream is thistles. Very tall thistles. There was no sign of the kite. 
Big was inconsolable - she had let E have a turn, and it was E who had let go,, somehow making it even more difficult for her to come to terms with. I took her back to camp, thinking that I would go for an explore later on and see if it could be seen. And at that point, Ady stepped up, and sorted it out. First he went to see if it could be seen. Then when he decided it could be, he donned jeans and waterproof trousers over the top, and went wading off into the sea of thistles. At one point we could only see his shoulders and head over the top of the greenery, and I’m hoping some of Nic’s pictures show what he went through. He recovered the kite and Big was overjoyed - although it was another several hours before she got to fly it again as it took that long to untangle the string!
And then there was the episode with the boiled egg. Small has recently decided he likes boiled eggs, and it occurred to me that this was good camp food. The egg box could be recycled into egg cups, Big and I could have egg sandwiches. So I did that. He ate some of his egg and most of his soldiers, then declared he was finished and legged it into the distance. For once I was efficient and cleared away the debris while enjoying a cuppa. And of course this was the time that Small reappeared, and looked at where he had been sitting. “Where is my boiled egg?”
Oops. Oh well. It only takes 4 minutes to boil an egg after all. Well, after you’ve got the water boiling in the first place that is.
in a field, without a computer, television, radio, newspaper…
I feel very unwound. And now we’re back and I didn’t turn on the laptop last night, and so far have done little on it. Rather enjoying the break.
The children seem very happy to get their television back, so it’s been a fairly quiet day. The washing machine is earning its keep, but I was very pleased I handwashed the tye die
So what did we do? Let’s see, arrived while most ppl were at the beach. Andrew and Kath appeared almost instantly, and stepped in to assist, Andrew with putting up tent, and Kath took the children off to the beach for a while. Having arrived late, I got a position to the edge of the main group, which turned out to be quite a good thing as I could retreat with Big to relative peace and quiet when things became too much. I do remember 4 years ago when we first went having to spend an entire day in the caravan as the excitement of a week with her friends was just too much for her!
Can’t remember what we did which day I’m afraid, but think the rough sequence involved swimming and tie dye on one day, polyfilla and kite making another day (we went out for lunch that day as well), Africa alive in the middle of the week, needle felting and basket weaving, and a cabaret. I remember that there was a barbecue (is that spelling acceptable? ) and that that was good, and that I ended up with only a couple of evenings of socialising as most nights by the time I’d got the children settled all I wanted to do was crawl into my own sleeping bag too.
Regretted the absence of a camera when I spotted B and his sons looking at a mole, and when I discovered a hedgehog attempting to raid our bin. Fairly sure that my children will have been recorded by one or two other ppl though, and pleased to see that Mazportico managed to snap my children a couple of times despite us only overlapping for an hour or so!
As is usual at these events, I seem to spend next to no time with anyone, not quite sure how that happens. And while various parts of the week go on for ever (putting the tent down springs to mind) it’s already receding into memory as the real world crowds in again. It was good to have time out though, even if I have come back with a sore throat and a rash (unrelated I suspect, but less than pleasant anyway).
So that’s all you’re getting from my scrambled brain - think I may have left part of it in a field somewhere. Well, what do you expect, camping in a fiesta?
Guardian Unlimited Politics | Special Reports | Reform bill climbdown fails to satisfy critics
Critics of a new law giving ministers greater powers have renewed their attack despite a major climbdown, warning that the government got its proposals “badly wrong”.
It’s still rumbling on. I finally heard from my mp - I mailed her to ask why she voted the way she did on the amendments on the bill. Her answer was basically that she didn’t know - she had thought just reading through would tell her, but it didn’t, so this tells me that despite a number of ppl contacting her, she didn’t do her research, and she just voted the way she was told.
(And don’t bother telling me that they have lots to do and can’t possibly be expected to keep track of all legislation they vote on, that’s a cop out, and she was warned. Boy was she warned.)
It has been rather quite round here, what with the management taking the spawn off to the jolly seside, but I have been keeping myself amused with all sorts of stuff.
The Silent Ringtone Get a teenager to listen to it for you. (I was a bit put out, in spite of my incipient geriatric status, I can hear it…just)
Photos of very small stuff Human stems cells, bacteria, that kind of thing.
Nice.
Normal service will be resumed….
In the mean time I will be reading a magazine
I should be getting ready to go on holiday.
Instead, I’m desperately trying to finish the work I didn’t manage to finish during the week, because I had other work to do.
I’ve got washing to hang out, another wash to go through, and then I need to get to the post office to post an ebay parcel, and all I really want to do is go back to bed.
Tell me I’ll enjoy it when I finally get there?
Big has lost another tooth, that’s three out of three either at school or on the way there.
Small finally agreed to sit on the toilet there - somewhat of a breakthrough. Which reminds me, I must go and dig out a pile of pants for him to take to school tomorrow
PM’s interview with Downing Street website
Because I am quite sure, based on the experience I have had in government, you cannot solve some of these law and order problems unless you are prepared, quite profoundly, to change and rebalance the system of criminal justice so that you have more summary justice, more summary powers, more ability for quick and effective action to be taken, even if it will cross the line that most people normally think of as there in terms of civil liberties.
So the Prime Minister firmly believes, that you need to cross the line that *most* ppl think is there in terms of civil liberties. So he believes he should go against what most ppl think - how is that representing the will of the ppl? Anyone?
Big set to this morning with a sand art set last seen over two years ago. It was fascinating to see how different approach was this time. She was at it for a good couple of hours, and produced two pictures. She did the first one according to the instructions, then decided that the colour scheme was a bit weird, and reorganised it for the second.
The planning was great, and she really carried it through well, producing two lovely piccies. Small amused himself singing along to Inspector Gadget and Bear in the Big Blue House, while dressed as scooby doo (of course!)
They played with the post office stuff some more, and then started to be horrid, so I chucked them outside. I think that pretty much covers the day actually.
BBC NEWS | Education | Head teacher takes home computers
A head teacher is taking children’s computers and TVs from their bedrooms in an effort to improve behaviour.
Duncan Harper, of New Woodlands School, which deals with pupils excluded from other primary schools in Lewisham, south London, said standards had risen.
Parents gave permission for him to enter their houses after he told them pupils were arriving tired and irritable every morning.
Words fail me on so many different levels. Parents giving up their authority to teachers, because they feel that they can’t deal with their children themselves? I understand that these are children who have been excluded from normal schools but even so, surely it is still supposed to be the family that is the family iyswim, rather than the head teacher!
Left this when I wrote it earlier, have come back tonight, and still can’t form coherent arguments. So here you go, discuss if you like.
rounds: 4 / 95 (4%)
sections: 5 / 10 (50%)
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