Joining a blog ring

I've been cruising around the blogs again. I feel like a beacon of misery here, flickering out in a last Phut! of despair when I see all these blogs with happy faces and acres of pages on what-a-lot we-have-achieved this-week, all done up with fanfare and congratulations.

In fact, I'm almost tempted to join one of the blog rings, only I reckon I'd be thown off it after the first week. I'd soon be known as 'that triplet woman with the hair'. Which is better, I suppose, than the nickname I have down at the tip. I'm down there so often now, looking for stylish storage solutions and picking up Ikea furniture even cheaper than Ikea than manage, that the staff have given me the name Basket lady. It's growing on me. I could persuade myself that it's got a touch of class. I could even adopt that as my moniker and start blogging from there about treasure at the local tip.

Anyway, apart from complaining and rummaging around at the local tip, we do sometimes home educate these children here, and I have wondered about the home ed blog ring, like how long I could manage on it before I got told to shove off because I never go on about our marvellous educational experiences, but rather how the tap's broken again or how the shower's never worked in 15 years, or what treat I found at the tip this week.

Well, I could do some home ed blogging. I really could. Now I know I will encounter some of the Tinkertop-Moonbean variety, who probably got up at six o' clock this morning, made scones, built a scale model of the Eiffel Tower, read Pride and Prejudice, had breakfast, wrote a dissertation on Edward I's architectural heritage, went to Brownies/Scouts/Girls Guides, played chess with her baby brother (Sooo cute!!), made herself a dance outfit, investigated mould, and came up with a new theory of physics before she had a bath. Which is not bad going for a three year old.

So I know we won't be welcome. Because our home ed diary would probably be along the lines of the following:

Tiger and Shark had a big squeal this morning at 7am. They were told they were bloody lucky they didn't have to go to school, now get downstairs, tiptoe past Mr Pod's room and get breakfast quietly or there'd be trouble. Then we can start learning something useful.

At 9 am I made everybody read the sentences: 'A conger eel is cooking the carpet' and 'There is salty mermaid on lettuce for tea.' This is what came out of my home-made wordplay box, so bloody well read it and stop arguing.

By 10 am there was a big argument about whose turn it was for the computer. This prompted a discussion about politics around the world. Then Tiger had a temper tantrum and broke up the half-finished jigsaw puzzle of a whale and got sent to her room to think about crime and punishment.

By 11 am everyone was looking for the library book we've lost again. We did it in French. Nous cherchons le livre. We did 'If I see that disgusting mess in your room again I will send you to school' in English. I don't know that in French.

By midday I got out the teaching clocks. By 12.15 I had a temper tantrum and went to the office to think about crime and punishment.

In the afternoon we all went out to the safari park. We looked at the lions. Everyone got a big lecture about how lady lions do all the work while the men lions loll about and eat deer, which led to a long monologue on industrial progress through feminisation of workplace practices. Obviously by me. By then the junior Grits had all fallen asleep in the back of the car after a long squeal at the adventure playground.

By evening everyone had a big fight about whose turn it was for the bath.

So that would be about it. I'd post that up on the home ed blog ring and either everyone would feel smug and superior because Tinkertop-Moonbeam was just putting the finishing touches to her interpretation of Degas after her performance in Swan Lake this afternoon, or they would chuck me off because they'd think I was making it up just to be facetious.

As if.