Miseria! Fortuna!

Oh, my long-neglected blog! My dear, dear, grotsday! How I have not missed your charms!

In truth - let me put it bluntly - I love another. (Not completely, it's a passing phase.) But I am posting there. Not daily, but let's face it, if someone's prepared to throw a few coppers in my direction and I can wangle a bit of work, then off I go. Times are hard.

But here is a brief word from our 'hood.

1. The exams are nearly done, except for one half of physics. It has not been awful. It has been alright. Shark is declaring a profound love of Physics. Squirrel is approaching her studies cooly, and Tiger will smash up this house and blast all its contents to smithereens if she does not get the A* she has worked so hard for. (In Latin, Mother of all Subjects.)

2. We visited local colleges to find out wots wot. It was both a depressing experience and a helpful one. There are loadsa options educationally, and so many services, it makes me doubt *not one bit* the oppositional home ed path we chose was a good'un. We had so many years of freedom! Of running about this land dressed up and idle! It was BRILLIANT, that home ed life.

3. All the gribblymongers have their annoying teenage moments now, sometimes right from the tips of their tiny noses right down to their little awkward toes. But on balance, they are okay. They are good company, and Shark helps with the washing up. For me, I do not care if the gribblytruffles take one year or two, to decide about sixth forms or colleges, but I really do not want them to cop 30K debt in the next five years before they begin their first employ. Getting young people into severe debt is immoral. Its covert purpose is to create compliance.

4. But there are other things too, wot we did. Shark is on her Sports Diver course and Tiger has letters she can bandy about, like NICAS. (Apparently you do not pronounce them like knickas.) We went to Stonehenge at sunrise in the inner circle! (I am not dreaming. It was Dig's birthday date, so we had to do something stupendous.)

But there's more! A fantastic Mythogeography walk with Phil Smith of Devon. The Under-17 Car Club, the Woodcraft Folk, birthday parties, the windsurfing season has begun, Merchant of Venice at the Globe.

I crept away to the British Library for Goldsmith's day-long adventure in Visual Urbanism with Dig, that husband of mine. He is coming back to live with me, so yahboosucks to the rest of the world.

And that nightingale I have been trying to track down for the past 5 years? I drove over to Lackford Lakes with Squirrel, and we cracked it.