Activity Week!

Each year, the children spend a week out of school in the summer term. This year, I went with them to an outdoor activity centre...

Day 1
Wake up: 04:00 (for most of us).
Depart: 07:00 (all of us)
Arrive Manchester: 08:31
Arrive RAF Cosford: 10:37
Depart RAF Cosford: 13:31
Arrive Manor Adventure: 14:29 (all times accurately estimated – well, almost – to the nearest minute).
Divided into 9 dormitory rooms (33 ÷ 9 = 3 2/3 boys per room. Hmmm....) and 3 activity groups (11 per group – easier maths)
First activity: 15.30 – 2 groups took part in Survival (don’t ask); 1 group, Archery (hidden talents beginning to emerge)
First meal: 17.25 – cottage pie, chicken or pork. Lots of fruit. And vegetables. Mmm...
First frantic game of Flobberty Floogle (you don’t want to know) 18:01 WITH, SIMULTANEOUSLY...first frantic game of Frisbee.

The chicken...

Second activity: 19:00 Confidence course (scary scary heights and balancing, extremely confidently done); Archery (scary scary arrow shooting); Maze (scary scary underground exploration). RAIN. IN SPADES, STAIR RODS AND TROPICAL MONSOON PROPORTIONS. (I sheltered under a tree with a chicken – of the feathered variety. The children were intrepid.)
Showers and Washing: 20:35
Pyjamas: 20:37
Evening wind up down: 20:59.
BED. AT LAST!

Day 2
Cooked breakfast!
Canoeing, kayaking and all things wet. Billy survived the ‘point of no return’ – in other words, every one else fell in. Including Mr V. (Did he fall or was he pushed? Ask Henry – and Mrs P.) Ed pioneered a new hairstyle: safety helmet featuring tufts of hair poking through the strap holes on top. He looked rather like a faun with a plastic head.

The end of the 'confidence course'...confidence gained!

Rifle shooting: no injuries, a few bull’s eyes but on the whole the target remained an area of relative safety.
Initiative exercises. More training in group work, initiative and working together was PROBABLY necessary before coming on Activity Week. ‘Nuff said.
Abseiling. Fear of heights comprehensively squashed, overcome and defeated. RESULT.
Singing – pop, opera, nursery rhymes and The Barbie Doll Song all featured during various activities today: particularly in the shower.
BED. AT LAST!

Day 3
Cooked breakfast!
We become Enginious scientists with a visit to Enginuity science and engineering museum. Then we go back in time: Victorian time at Blists Hill Victorian Village at Ironbridge. Complete with...Victorian boiled sweets! Victorian fudge! Too much sugar! Amazing engines! All kinds of Victorian clothing and household objects. Victorian funfair!

The grocers...reminiscent of my childhood!  (Didn't think I was that old...)

Amazing record for getting through the Underground Maze: 11 seconds, 3 seconds off the course record!
Quotes of the day:
For Rifle Shooting, do we wear any clothes?
During Initiative Exercises: Is this Rifle Shooting? !!??!!
I’m going to find all the sweet shops and go into every one.(At Blists Hill. There is only one sweetshop.)
This is the last shopping opportunity you will have – but life WILL go on.
Injuries to date: 1 slightly grazed arm; 1 old scab removed; 1 grazed leg; 1 cut lip; 1 bitten tongue (self-inflicted); 1 toothache (after visiting the sweet shop – pure coincidence). 1 lost tooth (natural causes, tooth fairy telegraphed); 1 case of mild homesickness; 3 cases of claustrophobia (in the murky maze); 2 attacks of acrophobia (aka fear of heights).
Items ‘lost’: numerous. Items ‘found’: = to items ‘lost’.
Number of children lost: 0!
BED. AT LAST!

Day 4
Cooked breakfast!
Activities: see Day 2
Also Blind Trail, High Ropes, Obstacle Course and Wide Games. Very exciting.
Injuries: 1 accidental nose bleed, 1 encounter of an elbow with a bunkbed.
1 mega game of ‘Sleeping Lions’ – 4 joint winners, all of whom managed to stay completely still for over 15 minutes – then the teachers gave up trying to get them to move.
BED. AT LAST!

Day 5
Cooked breakfast!
Climbing the walls. BMX bike games.
Injuries: 1 slightly grazed little finger.
No one wants to leave. (Sorry, Mum and Dad, this is all too much fun.)
Back safe on Guernsey soil. The adventure of a lifetime...this year, anyway.
BED. AT LAST!

School school school!

It has been a while since I have posted about school.  Really, it has. But I just have to post a little snippet of the numerous little joys that teaching brings me.  (And no, I'm nothing like  Roald Dahl's Miss Honey. Or even Mr Chips. Nothing at all. Right?)

It has arrived at the time of year when we reach...the end of the year. The time when suddenly the children and I realise that we have worked hard together all year and we really, really like each other. They have all finally clocked on to my (super dry, bordering sarcastic) sense of humour. (One or two got it from Day One. They are the ones I have joked with all year, grinning and giggling quietly to themselves.) The class can do almost anything I ask them to do - mostly. Even putting capital letters and full stops in the right places. Mostly. And so we begin to inspire each other.

Now yes, hopefully I have inspired them much earlier in the school year. I think I have. I've had some amazing creative writing - stories, poems, even newspaper reports - and art work. They've shown tremendous concern and care for each other and those less fortunate than they are.

But this last week has been an unusual joy. It started from a homework assignment which I left up to them to decide. We'd looked at the English Civil War, talked a lot about it and the questions still kept coming several minutes after the last bell of the day. (Yes, I know, timekeeping and all that...but what do you do in the face of enthusiasm?  KEEP GOING!)  So I suggested that they find out more, presenting their findings a week later - in any form they wanted.

I was stunned by their enthusiasm.  They wrote pages of notes and explanations; produced a newspaper page of the 'Stuart Times'; created a 'Wanted' poster for Charles I, listing his various 'crimes' against the crown; created a chess set featuring the different groups of characters in the Civil War; and produced 'Lego' models of a battle, and Charles I's trial and execution.

So, I had to record it. Because I know, come September/October, I will begin to wonder what I am doing, when homework is scrappily done, or not at all, and the children I  teach are 'takers' rather than 'givers'. I will look at this, and remember, and look forward to seeing the results of a year of hard work once more. It will happen.

As for this class - in a few weeks they will be gone, moving on to greater things. And I will rejoice with them - in a grieving kind of way.

Happy in the moment...

Karen Ehman talks about 'Embracing the Now'. About being thankful in whatever circumstances...wonder where I've heard that before? This is MY 'now' that fills my mind in this particular minute:
A computer of my own to use when I want, how I want…
A freshly made cappuchino to drink as quickly – or as slowly – as I want
An email conversation with my sister-in-law that reminds me of the blessings of family.
A breakfast with a sweet friend, which sets me up for a relaxed weekend
A room to prepare for an unknown guest – the friend of a friend – the blessings of a stranger
A house that waits for a dearly loved husband to come home.
A home that longs for the return of the ‘flown-the-nesters’
And a job, done with the strength God gives, full of dear colleagues and eager children.
Just a glimpse of my ‘now’.

Mary de Muth on the purpose, pain and point of suffering

This should probably be put elsewhere...but my link to Mary de Muth is on this page, so just wanted to link to a great piece she has written on suffering, not living the perfect life, and some thoughts on what it is all about. Just brilliant.

Duck psychology

Mama duck took off and left a couple of weeks ago. She’d been going away on trips, getting the ducklings used to being alone and more independent. (They weren’t, of course. Still kept begging for bread and annoying the rabbit.) Still, they look like ducks now. Big. Fat. And, mostly, winged.  They are trying frantically to fly, propelling themselves out of the pond before collapsing beak first onto the grass.  Much flapping of wings but no lift-off – as yet.

Today, Mama returned – with 7 tiny ducklings. They look as if they’ve just crept out of their eggshells, tiny balls of fur stumbling around.

The original 4 are REALLY annoyed. The look of disdain on their faces said it all, so we thought, until Boss Duck (aka Apple) had a go at the ducklings. Mama didn’t react much, apart from poking her beak at Boss. No dramatics, fights or other tantrums.

I wish I understood duck psychology.

Now they’re all hunkered down within a few feet of each other:


4 adolescents, 1 adult, 7 miniature ducklings and 1 rabbit.  Sounds almost like the chorus of Tom Lehrer’s hunting song.

Gentle encouragement: Approaching God

I’ve known Lisa Borden for over a quarter of a century.  I know, it sounds old. We’re not really. Well, not that much.  Lisa was a really young bride when I first met her. Now you know how old she and I are, middle-aged in years, young at heart, and spiritually – well, Lisa was always the mature one of the two of us.  This friendship – just one of the many Lisa manages to sustain so thoughtfully – has nourished me beyond words.

I was reflecting recently on how gentle Lisa was, all those years ago when we met with our husbands to study the Bible together. She was so patient with this young Christian who really didn’t know much about the Bible at all and certainly not how to live a like a Christian.

Lisa taught – and continues to teach - me a great deal. Back then she taught me, without many words, just by her kind nature and her lifestyle. And now she teaches many others with her words too. Beautiful words, thoughtful words, insightful words.  In her book,  Approaching God.

Now I know a little more than I did then.  I know the Bible better. I have some idea of how to live like a Christian. Sometimes, I feel I actually achieve it for a moment or two.  And sometimes, I can pass on a little of what I learned from Lisa.

So I’m ordering another copy of her book to give to a friend. A friend who longs to know and serve God better. A friend who, through Lisa’s book, will discover God as father, mother, artist, healer, guide...not just head knowledge of God, but discovering God personally. Because Lisa opens up the way to God through metaphor and imagery, in poetry and prose, in pictures and gentle questioning.

This is a bedside book, a being beside me book, a carefully bagged handbag book, a desktop sojourner book. A dip-in, dive-in, delight-in book.

Approaching God.