While I was off cleaning one of our cottages, Dave took the kids down to Lancaster as he had to send some parcels from Ebay. They then went off to the Ashton Memorial park which is a lovely park in Lancaster that has a playground, butterfly house, a beautiful domed memorial building and great views over Lancaster and Morecambe Bay. They had a great time discovering all the little bandstands and seats dotted around the park and had a play before having some lunch.

Later on this afternoon some of our friends from Kendal turned up for a coffee and chat. We haven't seen them for ages so it was nice to catch up. They have a boy a bit younger than Eilidh and starting home-educating about the same time as us so it was good to catch up with how they are getting on. I'm very jealous though as they have just got a dog, everyone seems to be getting dogs (except us of course!!)

Eilidh decided that she wanted to go on a nature walk today so after getting bags and bits sorted off we went. Unfortunately Dave was waiting for people to come and pick some Freecycle up so it was just the three of us. We went across the fields and up through a wood further along our road which leads up onto Crunswick Scar (a big fell!) . Eilidh bought some pencils and pads and we had drinks and biscuits and fruit to keep us going. We got up through the very muddy steep woods and stopped at the top for a drink and draw and then carried up to the top of the fell to find the cairn we discovered last time. We actually discovered two more cairns before stopping for another drink at the very big one on top. Ben and Eilidh calmbered up the cairn and found some other kids up there to play with while I enjoyed my coffee in beautiful sunshine. I can't believe that last week it was snowing and blowing gales!! We then headed back down to the Cumbria Wildlife trust garden to look at the pond and water voles (no sign of them again, probably because Ben doesn't know the meaning of being quiet!!) before heading back home. It was a gorgeous day and there is something very satisfying about being able to walk out of your front door straight into beautiful countryside and open fells.

We got back and while Eildih and Dave went off to do some shopping, Ben had a stint on 'You Tube' watching Thomas videos while I cooked a huge vat of vegetable soup YUM! As Dave hasn't had any work for a couple of weeks we might have to live off it for the next month!!

We have had a good day at our monthly cookery group today. All the kids were busy making loads of pancakes between them and eating them of course! There were some very strange combinations of toppings but they all enjoyed themselves. I did see one of the boys load his pancake up with lemon juice, brown sugar, white sugar, maple syrup and golden syrup....YUCK! Still they had a run around every so often to let it all go down and then came back to make more! I'm sure there were a few hyper children this evening!! Eilidh and Ben fortunately didn't eat too many and stuck to quite normal toppings!

The usual people who we have at these groups are a good bunch and it's getting really good with a cookery, Science and Art groups all going really well. We also are hoping to start a sports/ games and maybe a music group as well.

Last night Jayne, our friend who organises most of these groups came around to sort out the plans for the next few months art groups. We are going to be starting a country theme to fit in with the cookery, art and maybe even science groups so we can add on bits of language and culture etc as well, which sounds really good.

I was listening to the news tonight and they say that children in this country are starting school too early and we are being tested too much. MMMM, I wonder if that's why more people are home-educating???? It always amazes me that the majority of people we have met through Home Educating are ex-teachers. Just goes to show........

After spending half the day cleaning and tidying and Dave busy killing himself sorting out the garden, the supposedly planned council inspection never happened. Honestly, we rang them an hour after they were meant to be here only to be told that the lady was off sick so would have to rearrange another time!!! Not happy!!! Why they couldn't have rung in the morning so we weren't waiting all day we shall never know!?

Anyway enough moaning, at least it got our bums in gear to get some more stuff done around the house and it does look a lot better. Still loads to do but we are getting there. Eilidh had her face painted again and was then let loose on her own hands to do whatever design she liked. I don't think the face paints will last long at this rate!

After spending the morning cleaning and sorting out, we managed to find the face paints again so Eilidh insisted on having her face painted and then both her hands. Then I had to get mine done too, fortunately I persuaded her that only one cheek would do, so now I have a cactus on my face!? Got some piccies but Eilidh has taken an aversion to having her photo taken and refused to smile....grumpy grouch!!

Yesterday Eilidh and Ben had built a 'house' under Eilidh's bed (which is a high sleeper in case you were wondering!) They then insisted that they wanted to have a 'sleepover' in their new house. They put down some cushions we had from the caravan, got their teddies, pyjamas, duvets and books to read and got Dave to fix them a little light up and both snuggled down into bed and Eilidh read Ben a bedtime story. We were expecting them to be awake half the night and get bored of the idea but they both slept really well, no noise from Ben at all. Well that was until 4.30 this morning when Eilidh got up to the loo and woke Ben up, and then neither of them went back to sleep! They thought it was great fun and wanted to do it again tomight but one night at a time is enough!!

Ben got some new trains in the post this morning for his Tomy track, which we had promised to get him, so we had to build another track for him and he played nearly all day on and off with this. His wooden track has nearly all been sold so he is already trying to get us to buy loads of new bits for the Tomy track he is into now (an entrepeneur in the making!)

Went to church, came home, pottered about doing housey jobs, watched telly.....that's about it!!! Boring eh?

Well i did manage to put another coat on the bathroom door and alter some curtains ready to go up in our bedroom. Yes we have spent a year without curtains which is fine as we are not overlooked but as the days are getting longer I didn't fancy being woken up at when the sun did again this summer!! Just have to get Dave to put up the curtain pole now.........

We woke up to more snow this morning, and the kids wanted to go out sledging. Unfortunately they both didn't want to get dressed and washed and by the time they had got their bums in gear it had started raining. So no sledging, never mind (it meant I could keep warm!)

Dave was out all day, firstly helping down at the church clearing out a load of stuff before the builders get to work and then onto the local jumble sale to help out and clear up afterwards. Eilidh went off with him to the jumble sale as she is the chief bargain hunter in the family, although she had strict instructions not to come back with anything and not to let daddy come back with anything!!!

I managed to get one side of the bathroom door glossed and our windowsill at last. Getting there slowly but surely!