Just Jo!

I sincerely hope you’re ready for a lot of photos today! I took a lot, more than usual….
We left the house at 8:45, and didn’t step back through the door ’til 6:30. We met Denise and her two at the bus station to catch a bus. Who’d have thunk?? We got one to Tiverton for the first of our group’s big grant spending spree. A horse-drawn barge trip along the canal. She’s got lovely children (I will try very hard to limit my use of lovely, it might be hard, it’s been a very lovely day!), and we had a lovely (failed at the first hurdle ) chat on the way. A lovely (pathetic!) walk up to the canal to meet everyone. Lisa was very pleased with herself to be one of the first to arrive!

We got on the boat, and Olivia, being my daughter, made straight for the bar.
Who said home-educated children are isolated, never get a chance to ’socialise’? There were 75 of us.

From teenies to oldies (No! I wasn’t the eldest!), most of the teenagers came too!
Phil (I had to ask Olivia what his name was), the boss man, introduced all his workers, mostly his family, and we got going.

We stopped for a question and answer session. Our worries (and quite a few others’) about the poor horse Taffy, having to pull all us lot, were allayed when Phil explained that in actual fact he’s only pulling the equivalent of a third of his weight. Because of momentum ratio and a ton on land being the same as 40 tons on the water. Well that’s alright then! They have about three horses and they never do more than two trips a day.

We saw lots of ducks and ducklings, moorhens, a pair of swans….

Phil wanted to try a first with us. He’d already done it with lots of school trips, but we were the first home-educating lot he’d had. The thing was if we could keep quiet for one whole minute and see how ever so quiet it was. We sort of smirked, “Yeah, you’ll be lucky!”….
But we did it! Apart from two of the smaller ones, who really did not want to be quiet. At the end of the trip, he said it was a pleasure to have us and he hoped we’d enjoyed it as much as him.

Rosie and Jim came out to play as well!

Olivia and the girls had a play on some rocks with their friends, then we said our goodbyes and went for a walk back along the canal.

I thought it was just me who liked photos of backs, but Lisa does too! I’m so relieved that I’m not a weirdo. Not a total weirdo anyway….

We saw this nettle thing, and didn’t know what it was, but I have identified it now….

It was a lovely walk. All 5 miles of it! We saw lots of things, ducks with 19 (19!!) babies, lambs, dogs, cyclists, cows, dogs, fishes plopping, cyclists, dogs, pheasants, dogs, rabbits, cyclists, dogs, butterflies, think we saw an Orange tip, but I don’t remember the one we saw having speckled bits on the underside of it’s wings. I can’t find what else it could be though.
Oh, and we saw some dogs. I think the girls must have stroked every single one of them.
One of the last ones they stroked was old, a bit blind and deaf. He was very accommodating, Olivia explained in all seriousness to the girls that, “Deaf dogs are always friendly because they can’t hear what you’re saying about them…..” Oh yes, the Oliviaisms are back!!
A bit further along, we saw a blackbird in a bush who was merrily singing away, until we stopped to have a proper look at him. Then he shut up. Olivia told the girls that she’d been talking to a blackbird in our garden and that he talked back to her.
“Go on then,” I said.
She chirped and tweeted to him. He didn’t answer back….
“It’s not the same one….” she said….
I’d like to say she’s a unique entity, but a dog barked on the tow-path, there was an answering bark. I could only see a swan, and for a split second I thought it was the swan barking at the dog…. “Cor! Didn’t know they could bark!”
Look, it was at the end of a long walk, I was tired, the sun was in my eyes, I couldn’t see another dog….it could have been the swan, evolution and all that, defence mechanism, y’know?
I’m going to bed!
I’ve copied the study pack we got on the barge for the girls. There’s three of them and Olivia. So I printed four copies of it, a four page study pack. I got to the final page and realised that I didn’t need to make four copies. Three copies and the original makes four.
Look, it’s the end of a long day, the sun was in my eyes, a dog was barking, I had visions of ghost planes (long story, remind me tomorrow!)….
I really am going to bed….to fall asleep during the second half of Shakespeare In Love.