My other life

A large part of who I am is missing from this blog.  That is my job as a Zumba instructor.  It has become a key part of who I am and how I live my life, so I feel compelled to write something about it here.  Yesterday was a good exemplar of it's impact.  I had some admin to do, emails, changing website etc, and got on with it in the morning whilst the kids happily played. I have always seen my work as implicit to our lives, and the kids just see it as part of life.  Yesterday was unusual, as I rarely spend a morning doing admin work, most of my Zumba work involves dancing or listening to music, or both.  The kids see me loving my work, and letting it just be a part of my life, and not really stopping me do other things, or being with them (well not too much anyway).  Having a working life outside of the kids is by no means essential to who I am, but it certainly has become a part of my life I would hate to give up.  I am in the lucky position that my job works in such a way that I can pick and choose how much, when and where I work, meaning that I can work it so my husband is (nearly) always home when I go out to work.  I do have to take advantage of some wonderful friends when that doesn't quite work as as expected though.

I found Zumba when my daughter was about 1 and we had a short term gym membership.  After a few sessions, I completely fell in love with the buzz and sense of joy it gave me every single moment of every single class.  Having danced (a bit) as a child, having taught a variety of things, and having run successful businesses,  I saw it as a perfect fit to become a zumba instructor myself.  I spent a few months building up my confidence and plucking up the courage to book myself in to the training course, but I did, and just over 1 month after the course, less than a year after taking my first class, I was in front of over 30 people running my own class.

Last Chatworth visit

Chatsworth house has been a key feature of our Home Educating journey this year.  Providing countless days with friends and on our own exploring the gardens mainly, but also the house and the playground.  We've also clocked up many hours of cuddles with their Guinea Pigs.

It came to the end of our annual pass on Wednesday, so had our final visit on Tuesday, as our dance class blocked up part of Wednesday.  There were a few issues that day so we arrived a little late, and actually ended up missing the playground part of our day as it is usually the first hour of our visit before Guinea Pig cuddles at 11.30.  We only arrive shortly after 11, and since there were still many school children off school, it was super busy, necessitating queuing for our turn with the Guinea Pigs (plus it was one of the deliciously sunny September days, reminding us of our fantastic Summer.  Some people at Chatsworth, however, seem to be oblivious to the concept of fair queuing so we had to wait an extra 10 minutes for the precious time.  However, when they were sat their they had a brilliant and loving time with them.  They even had the opportunity to swap Guinea Pigs, with Autumn ending up with a new recruit called Fluffy, who is a real fuzz ball, and Evan with the amazingly rosetted Fudge.

We followed this by going to the Gardens, but dropped in on the amazing and beautiful toilets in the coach house restaurant with automatic flush, gold doors and beautiful sinks (makes a  nice change from the utilitarian ones in the farmyard!) Once in the gardens we headed to our chosen destination of the Grotto via the Trough waterfall. We had originally decided to eat our lunch there, but hunger won out, and we went and lunched on the money chairs overlooking the rose garden.  This is not far from where we usually have lunch - by the squirrel nutkin tree, so they popped there and explored whilst I read a book.  After about 30-40 minutes of play there we headed on to the Grotto, but we had a kicking and screaming Autumn, flat our refusing to move from the tree.  Insisting that she wanted to just stay there all day. After a while I managed to reason with here and explain that it was a family choice and that we all had to play a part.  That and a smidge of distraction seemed to unlock her legs and get us to move on and enjoy the rest of our day.

On the way to the Grotto we enjoyed the current collection of sculptures around the Canal Pond, I thin they are part of a collection on display on behalf of Sothebys, up for auction.  my favourite of which is featured again, after being on display this time last year.

The trough waterfall was a terrific hit, with lots of boingy prodding into the water with sticks, and there was a great exploration to find the perfect sticks with the right amount of boinginess.

After the waterfall was the perfect pond with its stunning colours surrounding it, and a brilliant tree that Autumn spent a good while sitting in.  I was a little sad later on when Autumn had left her arbourous home that another child with his family requested going in the tree, and was told by his parents that the tree was too precious to be sat on.  I have to say it was probably the sturdiest branch Autumn has ever sat on!  Whilst sitting by the pond Evan enjoyed watching the ducks, I think they were juveniles by their size.  They popped in and out of the water, and both Evan and Autumn commented on the various different ripples that came from the ducks.  Then Evan began exploring how he could make some interesting ripples by throwing pine cones into the water.  As it was a fairly calm day we watched this effect with interest.  Autumn and I sat and had a cuddle, and I took some beautiful photos, including of the Acer trees which are my favourites in the garden.

The Grotto didn't have quite the appeal that it usually had as it was occupied by a number of other visitors (we usually get the whole place to ourselves, which we thoroughly enjoy).  The children asked, as they always do, why there are footmarks on the roof of the grotto (which we view from the bit above it)  We move on and go back the way we came, which is unusual as we normally don't cover the same path twice in a visit, but Autumn had requested going down the other side of the waterfall and stream, which we had never done before, so today seemed a good opportunity to do this.  We spied some sculptures we saw earlier, which we mistakenly took for squirrels when we passed them from a different vantage point, but this time we could clearly see they were faces next to glasses and a bottle of wine!

The next stop was due to be the Kitchen gardens, and time was seriously getting on by this time, so when we stopped at various places, including the rock garden on the way I did have to remind them that they wanted to go further and time was short.  We reached the Kitchen garden for a very short visit, but it was just amazing to see all the amazing produce.  It is impossible not to be inspired by the abundance there, of food and flowers.  It was hard not to pluck an apple or plum from the tree, or not pick a flower to go in my hair, but I resisted the temptation.  Evan ate chives, as usual. We also came across those interesting flowers which look soft and lovely, but area actually hard like they are man made.  It was fun exploring this nuance with Evan. (Autumn had disappeared at this point)

It was time for our last walk out of the gardens, with an everso quick trip to the squirrel tree, but as Evan didn't fancy playing there at this point, Autumn didn't. So that was it.  Our last adventure in the Gardens.  We have decided to explore othere places this year, so have invested in National Trust Membership, and plan on going to Clumber park, and other places more regularly in the coming year, including the Deep, which we are going to on Tuesday, and visiting the Penguins who arrived there earlier this year.  I never dreamed that Chatsworth would provide such a tremendous wealth of fun, excitement and learning on so many occasions for us.  We will certainly take advantage of membership again in future years.

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you Chatsworth.  To all who work there, to the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, to the Guinea Pigs, and other animals, to all our friends who have come with us, to the beauty, magic and wonder of the place. Also, the biggest Thank you goes to my Mum, who not only introduced us to the place, but gave us our annual membership.

Following are the links to all our other outings at Chatsworth

Relaxed Day
First visits
Autumn's Birthday
Making a river
December & December again
Babies
Paddling

Below are photos from our trip in August with friends

Could felting be any more fun... we think so

Today our friends from "I love you more than rainbows" blog (well they our real life friends, but also have a home ed blog!) came over for a crafting morning.  Jasmin said she fancied a spot of felting, so we set to it.  She decided on her colours and that she would make a brooch from flat felt cut out and sewed together.  Autumn decided to make a picture, Debs to make a mobile phone case, and I couldn't make up my mind so decided to just make some flat felt which I could go on to make something out of later.  Evan, however, decided to make some slippers!

I have made felt now quite a number of times using different methods, but this one we used today is by far my favourite for it's fullness of fun.

For speed I'm going to do a quick bullet point list of the method, for fullness you will have to explore elsewhere.

1. Lay out a square of bubble wrap about 40% larger than the piece of felt you want.
2. Tease out wool so that it is fairly evenly spread out.
3. Lay out the teased wool first vertically down your bubble wrap.
4. Lay out more teased wool this time horizontally on top of the first layer.
5. Add any detail on top with teased wool - wisps, stripes, swirls. (remember that the result will be an approximation of your design, intricate designs can be done using appliqué or needle felting.)
6.  Sprinkle soapy water across the wool, spreading thinly and evenly (or use a spray - much quicker and easier!)
7. Put another layer of bubble wrap, (or plastic bag) over the wool.
8. Roll up tightly.
9. Secure with elastic bands (3 or more works well)
10. Cover with a towel if you want to avoid getting wet hands (secure with more bands)
... NOW FOR THE FUN BIT
11. First squeeze the tube gently across the middle all the way along
12. Now whack it, throw it, and generally have a brilliant, silly time with it.
(we threw ours down the stairs, whacked them on the floor, door frames, and you can hold them between 2 people and wiggle hard too!)
13. After about 5 minutes or so remove the bands and carefully unroll.
14. Check it over for bits your don't want and that the process is working well.  This checking process is important to make sure it is all done at the same time, as once the process gets past a certain point it is difficult to incorporate any stray bits.
15. Re-roll and repeat.
16. Repeat processes 12-15 until you feel it is all coming together nicely, and looking less translucent.
17. When you are happy with it, it is time to finish it by plunging and chucking. (my personal favourite bit)
18. Take the unrolled felt and plunge it into cool water.
19. Squeeze it out leaving it wet without dripping
20. Keep in the ball and chuck it hard onto a hard surface.
21.  Gather up using 2 hands and repeat.  Do this lots of times, re plunging if it gets too dry.
22.  When you can see it has reduced in size significantly, thickened up and puckered across the surface, you have done.
23. Rinse it out and dry.

As Evan was making a 3D object he utilised a slightly different method.  Here goes:

1. Make a template, using oilcloth or similar, of your feet about 2cm bigger all round.
2. Follow other method up to 7 making sure 2 separate pieces are done, and both about half a hands width extra around the sides.
3. Put template on top and fold excess around the template
4. Now follow 7-16
5. Open up hole in the middle and remove oilcloth.
6. Place on feet.
7. Ensure wet.
8. Put on a pair of wellies.
9. Jump, stomp, dance around for about half an hour. ENJOY.
10. Remove, check and repeat if necessary.
11. When happy do the plunging and chucking but only a few times as we don't want to shrink it too much.
12. To finish you can sew any bits on you like, add some leather soles, decorations or anything you like really.
13. ENJOY

Felt making

Flat felting is a really funb and easy way to make things with children.  Here we were making a purse.  The main part of the process involves bashing squeezing and twisting the wool once wrapped up in bubble wrap so that the wool fibres knit together and thus form felt.

Here is a wool fibre under the microscope.   You can clearly see the scales which are there which catch with scales on other fibres and mesh together.

Woodland Camp with FoCAL

Cooperating fetching water from the river with a pulley system

Making Pewter trinkets

Evan helps make a stool

Using the Bill hook and a mallet to split the wood

Blob making

Tree adorning

Sparkly potion making in the mud kitchen

Forest bathing

Just the most idyllic way to spend 30-40 minutes I can imagine.  This wasn't my actual view, but it was a view from the camp as I looked up.  I was excited at the prospect when it was introduced to me... especially the fact that the woodland camp leaders wood take charge of the children, so I could have uninterupted time just me and the woods.  So I lay there without a book, phone or even my camera to distract me.  A beautiful little spot had been set up on a warm sunny afternoon next to a small stream out of earshot of the main camp.  My first thought was, what am I going to do to make the most of my time and really fill myself full of the forest as much as possible?  

I decided to start with looking, really looking at what I could see above me.  I looked at the branches, the twigs, the buds and the tiny little thread holding a small bit on. I meditated on these for some time.  then I focused on the shape of the branches;of the differences in the branches, and the Y sections that are created at each junction. I've seen them before of course, but I don't think I really saw them before this moment.  

I moved on to what I could hear at this point so to concentrate this sense I closed my eyes.  I noticed how comfortable I was at this point, that there was a beautiful stillness in the air meaning that I could fully relax my body onto the soft grass beneath the blankets.  Then I began to notice the birds around me.  I listened out for more, they came.  After a while I began to notice a conversation between two birds.  My questioning mind, now thinks how nice it would be to study the different birdsong so I could differentiate further.  At the time though, I was simply noting the sounds for what they were, without need for labels.  I think you can really truly say, I was in my element.  

After a while I decided to draw my attention to other sounds in the space, the first of which I noted was the stream.  It was small and close-by, so I heard a lovely gentle babble and glugging.  An immense feeling of joy welling up inside of me.  I really felt like I might cry.  During this period of having my eyes closed I was in deep relaxation and found it immensely peaceful and powerful at the same time.  

After a while I drew my attention back to my sight, and this time, when I opened my eyes I decided to look back to where I was looking previously, and noticed that the tiny thread holding something onto the tree that I saw before was still there.  I wonder what that thread was made of.  I turn to one side and looked from a bugs eye view at the luscious grass, my attention was taken by a flying creature which seemed like a dragonfly, though I was sure it was too early in the year for dragon flies.  Then I noticed little midges in a clump.  I watched their movement, to see if they moved off, and gradually they did.  Even with my concentrated attention I didn't notice the subtle shifting they must have done to move away from their first spot.

I began noticing outside things at this point I believe, a few shouts from the camp made me think of the children.  I thought how wonderful it would be for Evan to enjoy this space, but perhaps he is still a little young, to manage this activity.  Perhaps with support... My mind began to get back to the day to day of educational experiences and children, I drew it back to the environment again.  The sky gained my attention this time.   The subtlty of the wispy clouds, again I was filled with gratitude for this overwhelming and simply magical experience.  Not easy to capture when I have 24h responsibility for children, or am working.  I wonder how I could capture some of this magic in my life on a regular basis.  Better for relaxing than a massage most definitely, but I have to say I would have found forest bathing a little more tricky had the weather conditions been a little less perfect.

I emerged later,I must have been bathing for about 45 minutes to an hour, though I didn't time it.  I felt at peace and found it a bit weird dropping back into camp and interacting with it rather than passively experiencing it.  Thank you, thank you to Emma Conder and her team for introducing me to, and facilitating me in this amazing experience.

Exploring pipes in the river

Do you think the hen wood like to see my stone in a jar of river water?

My mini stool

"I'm under here!"

We've been on a bug hunt 

Autumn's bug

HUGE thank you to all the wonderful Woodland campers and leaders.  We had a wonderful homely time and felt very welcome.

A relaxed day

We decided to do not very much today,  but did go to meadowhall for bits for the weddings we are going to in march.  Autumn is being flower girl at her aunts wedding, and we have been asked to get the shoes.  Also evan will be taking part so he needed smart clothes too.

We rarely do shopping outings so this fairly mundane sounding day was actually a bit further a novelty to us.  The photos show our fun