Jesus following, natural living, Somerset homeschooling mum to Acey. Here is our blog to share with family and friends and anyone else who might be interested, about our home ed journey.


John 13:34 - ''A new commandment I give unto you, That you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.''

Thursday 21 October 2010

Do I think the government pick on the most vulnerable people?








Yes, I do! and this blog post was going to be a full on rant about the fact that they are cutting benefits for single mothers (as well as alot of other people who need it most), and forcing us to search for a job when our children turn the measly age of five rendering alot of them in after school clubs and stuck with a childminder during the holidays,becoming mini robots as we all slave our asses off to pay taxes, so that the chancellor can have a nice car.  But what's the point? We all could moan about it, the people who are not allowed to retire until they're sixty six, and the many people who will be out of a job. but what can you do? Getting too bitter about it is a waste of energy. Of course you don't need to be a fortune teller to know that all this will cause is a higher rate of stress and depression, and no doubt more pregnancies. And one can only hope that David Cameron will be reincarnated as a single mother but in the meantime, what is the point in hating the government? After all, those who do not know love are the ones who need it the most.

But as a single parent home educating, where does this leave me? When I first heard that when Acey turns five in just under a year I will have to start looking for a job I really began to panic, thinking 'Oh no, I'm going to have to send him to school.' For me the most important thing in the world is bringing my child up how I want, giving him all of my love and attention. I weighed up the options;

  • Find a rich man to marry
  • Have another baby
  • Move to a commune
  • Move to Sweden (I think it is Sweden, where they recognize the importance of letting children be children and don't send them to school until they're seven or eight)
Of course, I'm only joking really. I'm too honest for the first one, couldn't cope with the second option, like my baths and my independance too much for the third and well, my family and friends aren't in Sweden are they?! I've managed to work a way around it, hopefully starting up my business from home, which I was planning on doing eventually anyway (just not this soon). It is scary, but we will make it happen. Loads of good energy sent this way, please folks!

So anyway, yesterday Acey and I went to a 'Somerset mother's circle' meet in Glastonbury, and met lots of other lovely children and their mammas who think like us. It was definetly what was needed as it is so great to meet other like-minded people who don't question the way you bring up your child when you do things a bit differently :) And I've noticed this before when being around other home-educated children, that there is a real sense of proper playfulness and freedom - just how young children should be! It really just confirmed that what I'm doing is so right for me and Acey. I love being his mamma.

Lastly, I just want to reccomend this book for other mums intersted in bringing their kids up holistically which I think is great - it's by Shazzie who is a huuge raw food guru: http://www.shazzie.com/ although it's not just about raw food, it mentions home edding, co-sleeping, breastfeeding, natural birthing etc and it's called 'Evie's kitchen.' I'll finish quoting a bit from the end of her book written by Kate Magic which really spoke out to me;

''In a culture that values career over family, losing weight over breastfeeding and making money over spreading love, holistic parenting takes ridiculous amounts of guts, determination, focus and compassion.''

Lots of love, and pumpkin soup xxxxx

Thursday 30 September 2010

Mad Rose



There is an old lady who sometimes gets on my bus called 'Mad Rose'. I couldn't say how old she is, although she is an alcoholic and due to all the drink she has consumed she looks about 70-ish. She has greasy long gray hair, wears clothes which look like something she has found from a bin bag outside a charity shop. She always smells of booze, and has bags full of white lightning cider, she swears, she coughs, she shouts, and pisses herself on the bus.

Today  I was feeling pretty damn sorry for myself. I had been to the dentist to have some fillings. My teeth still hurt even though I thought they would have been fixed. The fillings cost alot of money because I wanted white ones, instead of mercury. I don't have all that much money at the moment. Even though I don't have that much money, my IID (Irational impulse disorder) still kicked in dramatically and I spent £8.99 on some lipgloss!! I have been so lonely and was dreading coming home to an empty flat, when all I wanted was a big huuuge hug and someone to make me some hot chocolate. And then, who should get on our bus on the way home,  but Mad Rose!! 'Oh great, a journey home filled with piss and swearing' I thought - typical end to a not all that nice day! And to top it off, she came and sat on the seats right next to where me and Acey were sitting. She was coughing, and retching, people on the bus were whispering and giving her horrible looks. and just as I was about to look down my nose at her some more, I stopped and thought - what must this woman have been through in her life to have turned out this way? And instead of sitting there thinking she was the scum of the earth, I closed my eyes and sent out so much love energy to mad old Rose. And a miraculous thing happened - she turned to me and apologised for coughing!! And then she went on to say how she didn't want to end up like this, and that she got with the wrong man, back in her youth which turned her to alcohol, and that she knows it's not really the answer and wishes she could get out of it. I of course, was lost for words and didn't know what to say, so I just smiled and winked at her. And then as I bent down to help her pick up her bottles of white lightning which she had dropped and were rolling around on the floor, she put her hand on mine, and smiled at me too :)
Love can go a long way. The world needs more of it.

God bless Mad Rose x

Wednesday 29 September 2010

The perils of living near a lobster

Ok, so it's slightly obvious that my neighbours think I'm a little strange. I am covered in tattoos, have had a vast assortment of different hair colours, until I finally settled for being blonde.. my boy has long hair, I have a box full of chemistry vases and test tubes (don't ask) in my back garden and they can no doubt hear the occasionall 'ommmm' drifting out of my window into their living rooms. See, I think that's all perfectly normal, but maybe in the eyes of society I am indeed a bit strange; I am twenty-three years old, and detest going to pubs, I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't watch tv, I like knitting,  I hug trees....

....And yesterday I told my most nosey neighbour (who's daughter happens to be a social worker) that I am home educating my son! I can't remember what he said his real name is, but he is known to me as 'Lobster Man' ever since he invited me into his bungalow and jarred me almost to death with his brass horses, and his singing lobster!! Now, avoiding getting stuck talking to him is like trying to avoid the norovirus, or the bubonic plague when there is an outbreak of it sweeping the nation...pretty hard!

Yesterday as I was walking back from the park, where we had been collecting conkers, I knew he was waiting to pounce as his front door was open. (he had obviously seen me leave, and knew I'd be back). Just as I had nearly escaped to the safety of my flat, over he came asking if I wanted some books that his daughter was getting rid of, and then the question I've been dreading but knew would come sooner or later...''so does he go to school'' and then I said it, my words seeming to reverberate around the whole neighbourhood ''he is actually home educated!''
He then proceeded to tell me how important it was to go to school, and how he forced his daughter to go to college because ''you don't get anywhere in life without that bit of paper'' and that now she has a nice house and a nice car, all because she is a social worker all because she had that bit of paper.

So, yes - this blog post is a bit of a rant - what is so special about having a nice house and a nice car anyway? Sure, those things are indeed 'nice' but why are you a higher- up person in society if you have these things? does it make you more of a special person? Does it make you nicer or more important? It certainly seems to make you more respected, but would I care about being respected by people with such a narrow view point anyway? And with regards to 'that bit of paper' I've heard of many people who have been home-educated and gone on to do very rocket-sciencey type things at university. So Lobster Man can think what he wants - I will teach my boy that he can have whatever he wants in life if he works hard for it but I will love him and be proud of him anyway weather he chooses to be a brain surgeon or a busker in the street...as long as he stays true to himself.

On a lighter note, we have been having so much september fun :) here is our mabon table and some pretty leaf rubbings and drawings by Acey:






And we (ok, me more so than Acey) have been enjoying eating more raw food, and feeling alot better for it; This is what we had yesterday;



Raw cauliflower leaf salad: (this is pretty much the same as raw kale salad, although we didn't have any kale so substituted it with cauliflower leaves)

Massage the cauliflower leaves (or kale, or whatever) with some olive oil, lemon juice and himalayan rock salt (which is soooo good for you and is pink!!) and then add lots of other scrummy salady things. We had grapes, tomatoes, mushrooms, spring onions, broccoli florets and sesame/linseeds! it is very delicious indeed!

Thursday 23 September 2010

Mabon blessings...



It's officially autumn, and I like it. I really do like this time of year when all the leaves turn into beautiful earthy colours and there are pine cones on the ground and magic in the air. Today, Acey found his first conker of the season. Very exciting.

So yesterday, I got some apples given to me at my allotment from the lady on my neighbouring plot. All kinds of apples...a big bag of them! And so I made a delicious apple and cinnamon crumble, which we ate today after our special equinox feast of field mushrooms (horray! A dinner that I can actually get Acey to eat without bribing him)! As a really good project for Acey, I thought it would be fab to use the leftover apples skins, corrs and rotten bits etc to make some fertilizer for our veggies... so we spent the morning doing lots of pulverising until we had a mixture which looked like sick, as Acey described it. We also chopped a load up to make some bird feed with - and after being told by my very clever four year old that birds also like to eat nuts and seeds, we of course added a few of them in there too! Leaving an offering in this way really helped Acey to understand all about celebrating the seasons and how to be thankful for the delicious apples provided by mother earth...(as if he wasn't thankful enough anyway, when he ate the crumble)...




After going to our allotment, we decided that it would be lovely to go to our magic fairy garden, but just as we were about to head off, it started raining and thundering, so we instead got out the musical instrument box and Acey chose three musical instruments; A triangle for rain, my turkish drum for thunder and his pretty jingly shaky stick which sounds very much like the leaves blowing in the wind and we had a great jam, playing the weather instruments and singing songs about thunder!! After all that loud singing and music, the storm appeared to subside. I think we must have outdone it :)

So all of next week, we are going to be learning all about autumn, which is going to be soo much fun. We have already started adding to our mabon altar/ nature table check it...




Oh and one more thing before I go; me and my mum are in love with this moisturiser. Mine came in the post today and it is pure raw beautifully smelling nourishing antioxidant vitaman and mineral rich moisturiser full of life force! This website also does a few superfoods and such like aswell it is lovely! http://www.rawgaia.com/

Love, light and autumn sparkles xxx

Tuesday 21 September 2010

best friends living and learning together

Ok, SOOOO I haven't blogged in a few weeks, and this isn't going to be a long one, as I'm off to bed in a second, but as autumn is now here, I thought I'd update on what we've been up to...

Acey would have been meant to start school a couple of weeks ago, and even though he isn't going, I still kinda got all emotional and proud mummy as my little boy is finally school age! So I had a plan - a timetable if you will, that we were going to follow, and start doing as soon as he was meant to be starting school, but of course with me being an indecicive libra and Acey being a 'no, we're doing it like this' kind of leo, we scrapped that idea, and haven't really being doing anything structured at all...infact, we have both just carried on learning from life as usual.

It's been BIRTHDAYS! :) I seem to know alot of people who's birthdays are in september, and most of my boyfriends have been virgos...drawn to them I guess? So yes, it was my best friend Dave's birthday a few weeks ago, and we went to a secret fairy garden which we discovered - we went on a bit of an adventure, looking for special magick wands from our favourite trees, and Acey loved paddling in the stream. And it was my mum's birthday last week aswell. we had SUCH a pretty sparkly cake!





We have also been learning lots of of lovely new songs and doing lots of dancing :) And eating lots of healthy raw food and superfoods, and lots of yoga! Acey's fave pose is the tree or 'wobbly bird' as it's called in his little yoga book. It's fun trying to balance when you're four I guess. (and when you're 22). All of this week, we have started listing ten things to be thankful for before bed, it's amazing how much this positive thinking can put us both in a good mood for the next day, and how much you can manifest through gratitude. Acey is thankful for his ''cuddling students'' (aka teddy, quack quack and giraffe - his cuddly toys) and his big painting in his bedroom of us as pixies done by my lovely friend Jon who is an amazing artist; http://www.jonoshea.co.uk/ go see for yourself! After months of wanting to be a fireman when he grows up, all it took was this small moment's contemplation, and admiration of this artwork for him to completely change his mind and turn around to inform me he doesn't want to be a fireman anymore, he would like to be a painter instead when he grows up! I told him he can be both! Infact he can be anything he wants to be. We all can...

check out the spirulina moustache;




Anyway, sorry for the crazy random blog... I blame the changing over of seasons for my all over the place-ness lately. Really really really looking forward to samhain this year! last years was a bit pants. and all the autumn leaves and good soup to be had by all! Infact why am I apologizing, it's MY blog?! Ahh, I'm getting some sleep...

Love living and learning and being free xxxx

Friday 27 August 2010

Hippie camp

Well we had a lovely break away at Superspirit camp! The first night we slept on a very snuggly beanbag around a fire in a tipi, we braved the drop toilets, and the communal horsebox showers, and the rain. We toasted marshmallows around the campfire, had storytime (don't forget your mug) every other night in the big lodge around an open fire with hot chocolate (for those who remembered their mugs), we camped with a chicken called Doris, and a field of sheep. We ate delicious food and danced to wonderful bands in the cafe. We circle danced and Omm'd in the morning meetings. We made wonderful friends with wonderful people who we can't wait to see again next year. We had delicious free Krishna food. We had a brilliant time working in the kid's area; the children made native animal masks and paraded around underneath a big dragon for one of the evening ceremonies. They made indian head-dresses and beautiful dream-catchers, We did beating the bounds which consisted of making lots of noise with drums and singing songs around the whole campsite to frighten away evil spirits. They sewed their own pretty bags, and when we left, they were busy preparing a water slide!!! (Thankfully we missed out on the paddling pools full of mashed potato and jelly due to the rain). And we were so lucky to camp with such a lovely circle of people.

Sadly we came home yesterday, due to being able to get a free lift home, and Acey running out of non-muddy clothes. Before we went I had quite possibly the best massage I have had - my hips are now perfectly alligned and so are my shoulders! We will so go again every year. Acey says he can't wait to see his new friends again, particularly the ones who lived in the cool double decker bus which I think Acey would have liked to run away and live in, had I let him out of my sight for too long;
http://www.doubledeckerfamily.co.uk/

We came home two very smelly hippies :) It was so nice to be  in nature for eight days, away from computer screens, and shops, plastic, traffic, and all the other nonsense.Walking barefoot in a muddy field, eating meals cooked on a campfire etc reminded me that we are all a part of nature, but all the rain and cold wind also reminded me that nature is powerful and there is nothing we can do to stop it....it can stop us, though if we are not careful which is why it is essential that we try as much as possible to go back to living that way, in which we were intended to. This is what I want to teach my son as much as possible, a lesson which is far more important than any he could ever learn sitting behind a desk in a classroom.

Saturday 14 August 2010

mamma and boy

So here I am, in my flat, boy in bed, cat on nature table...and it's very quiet. Nothing wrong with a bit of peace and quiet, I'm very lucky not to live in a noisy area (my neighbour in the flat upstairs just made a huuuge bang as I typed that), but I do get lonely sometimes, and it is times like these when I think 'golly! what am I doing?'
Being a single parent, I am of course going to find home educating my son difficult at times...not because of not getting any time to myself as I could think of no better way to spend my life than with my little boy every day watching his wings grow, something I would greatly miss if I sent him to school. (schools make wings a dull grey colour, and they eventually shrivell up - fact!) The main thing, I think, that plays on my mind is certainly the financial sacrifice I am going to have to make...
What if my plans to set up my own business and work from home around Acey's education don't quite work out, what if I suddenly one day cave in and have to look for a normal job and send him to school?!! Oh noooo!!!

Of course, this won't happen, but these are the brief thoughts that enter my mind whilst I sit here alone in the evenings. I know that home-schooling is natural and right for me and my boy, it is our truth - and that is all that matters. The financial sacrifice, I think will be worth it. My son learning naturally through creativity and love is worth far more than any amount of money in the world!

Next week, we have been invited to a lovely camp http://www.superspirit.co.uk/ which is a bit scary for me, as I've never been camping on my own with Acey before, especially for ten days!! But we will have a crazy lovely time, I'm sure - me and my boy.

Here's a few snaps of other stuff that's been happening this week.






A game of guess the tail....




















scootering...














Making puzzles :)

I got a new tattoo.....



And it looks like it's nearly autumn...cold and wet and the leaves are starting to fall...


Oooh and the triops grew :)

Wednesday 4 August 2010

Making new friends...but not triops!

''One source of fear is certainly the education system. Little children are fearless, imperious anarchists, and the education system works and works on them over a period of fifteen years to instill docility so that they won't complain too much when they end up with a boring job. Education is like pruning; it wrecks the natural growth of the tree in favour of a form that is useful to commercial society.''

As quoted from one of my favourite and my BEST books 'How to be Free' by Tom Hodgkinson; As he says, you learn how to type, click a mouse and shop in tesco's - 'but not how to grab hold of life, to live it joyfully and fearlessly.'
Home education was something I had been considering for quite sometime...but it was after reading this book, and thinking 'yes - someone else out there thinks like me!' that I made my final decision.

SOMEONE else out there thought like me, but someone wasn't everyone, and I couldn't think of anybody else I knew who home educated their child. Indeed, surely the majority of people I mention it to think I'm mad (maybe I am - but in a good way, I like to think)! This is made clear by the sheer look of terror in their eyes, not very cleverly disguised by the unenthusiastic smiles, and the carefully poised question - ''but won't he miss out on socialising?''
Acey is, indeed very sociable and friendly, and so I began to look for other people in the area who also home educated. I found a couple of groups in nearby towns, but nothing where I live, so I decided to find other home edders, and start a network of people here!

Yesterday we all met in the park and had a picnic. (it was very scary, as I'd never organized such a thing before), but everyone was lovely and the children all played so nicely together in the sunshine! (without having to worry about the whistle being blown saying it's time to go indoors).  It's great to know there are other like-minded people who know what's best for their children, and hopefully a group in Taunton will now become a regular thing!

On a sadder note, Acey got some Triops for his birthday, and we (me more than him I think) were sooo excited for them to hatch....but, well...they haven't! :( Not yet anyway, maybe they will soon! Of course, it could have something to do with our naughty cat, Casper drinking their water when we weren't looking!!







Come on, triops!!!

Saturday 31 July 2010

Well, hello!

My name is Nettle Fairy and I live in Somerset with my little boy Acey who has just turned four and our very old, but still very handsome cat, Casper. I've never blogged before... I think it's a bit scary! But I have recently been inspired to start blogging about the exciting (if a little scary sometimes) journey we are about to embark on - home educating!

I want to teach my son about the important things in life - Love, kindness,  happiness, health, freedom, sunshine, magic,  picnics in the woods, baking bread, making jam, rainbow cakes, hugs, free thinking,  creating beautiful things, making wishes with dandelions, watching seeds grow, toasting marshmallows around campfires, swimming in the sea, pressing flowers, knitting scarves, nature tables, mud, mud and more mud, daisy chains, foraging, making, singing, dancing,  dreaming, LIVING! Whilst, obviously learning about certain subjects is of course compulsary - sitting around a grey desk, in a classroom,  wearing a uniform, being forced to learn things he may not be ready to  - is NOT!  
For me, being my son's teacher feels just as natural as birthing him into the world, watching him take his first steps, and giving him shelter, warmth and food.

Acey has just finished nursery - (which he really loved, as he is very sociable) and would be due to start school in September. Seeing as he has just turned four, I thought now would be a really good time to start fully focusing on learning more, and I am really excited  to be able to share our journey with other people who might be interested. And how very pleased I am to have my own blog! :)

For more info on home education, this website has it all;

/http://www.education-otherwise.org/