We’ve recently had the pleasure of uncovering some old friends who have wiggled back into our life through the best of routes Zoe and i were friends in an old life of mine and then we lost touch somewhere in the scrum of having young children et etc. Recently she got back in touch when one of her kids reached a point at school where home educating was the next obvious step for the family and thought i might have something useful to say Apparently she’d been stalking me through my blog for quite a while anyway!

We’re particularly happy as Zoe, Poppy and Skye are not only lovely, they are also local and the kids are of an age that fills in some friend gaps for my girls and the six of them have become friendly pretty much instantly. With things like gym, being girls and being home educated in common, plus perhaps the bonus of Fran having an understanding of school now, they’ve all hit it off nicely. Let’s be honest, Fran is always going to be happy to find another 11 year old girl who likes to be upside down! And Zoe and i seem to have picked up where we left off 7 years ago

Yesterday we took a trip down to see them and, (since they are also stalking us through our current interests ) we did some Celtic ‘stuff’ together.

I took fimo and the kids all made torcs and arm cuffs.

And then later on, after quite a lot of playing and much bouncing on the trampoline, we made oatcakes and butter.

(Remembered double cream is quicker and better this time!)

Fran and Skye had added back flics, tuck backs and back somersaults with half twists to their bouncing repertoire by the end of the day. I thought Fran would be exhausted but by the time she finished gym that evening she had, with the aid of an intensive coaching session, completely mastered her round off flic (fast cartwheel type thing with a back flip tagged on to the end). She was so happy she nearly cried

And everyone had done maths, music, english and science before we left the house in the morning!