Home Schooling

Tuesday July 20-th ish (losing track of dates)

I took Big Sister out for a walk this afternoon, while The Doctor stayed home with the baby. It was beautifully warm but slightly cloudy, so not sun-burn weather. We intrepidly left the towpath, fighting through nettles and grasses to a nature trail that lead to the lake, Glen Faba. The walk there is all woodland and wild flowers, and the arrival is all long grass and calm rippling water. We can see two swans gliding about beside a miniature beach, so, barefooted, me and my two year old daughter roamed along grassy pathways to get there. The grass is warm under our bare feet, the ‘beach’ stones are prickly on our soles. Our sandals are strewn by the water’s edge and the water is cold to our ankles. I tell my daughter that the swans don’t mind if we share their lake; she is loving the experience, splashing up water with her hands and getting her hair wet. On the way home she runs towards me, barefoot through grass like a slow motion, perfect and tranquil childhood scene.

We’ve now met the boat family round the bend. They are actually moored at the next bend in the river, and have two children on board. We were invited around for juice and to play. We talked a lot about home schooling, because that is what they are doing. It makes it easier for them to move around, and the child chooses himself what he likes to learn.
“He’s into nature, he watches a lot of David Attenborough DVD’s and he goes out on his bike a lot. But he’s not so into Maths. Or English.”