School Free Double the Fun: Bike rides to the park, the eye of the storm, resting, birthday parties, small claims, the cosmos and Wildlife

After the wild weather in the night, the morning got off to a brighter start. We had kite flying or bike riding on our list. Since the wind had dropped considerably, we decided bikes were the order of the day.

There was the inevitable scrum for the bikes and both boys lost their tempers with each other. Once that was sorted, we headed off to the post office, got some cash and cards we needed for later in the week. On to the park for a play and then a ride out of the village down the lanes.

Owen going all 'ommmm' on me.

I always feel nervous about going on the roads out of the village, today was no exception. There is a lot of construction work going on locally, due to road/rail 'improvements' a mile or two away. This means many more lorries coming up the narrow lanes.

It was hairy..to be fair 99% are really brilliant and careful when they see us..but one driver nearly ran us off the road and Sam got understandably concerned and wanted to turn back after a few miles. I had to agree with him. He's extra nervous since being knocked off, when someone failed to stop at a junction at our old place..this incident didnt help much.

We cover a few miles and shouted hello to the people we passed...'nice dog!' was called to a few walkers and people smile as we go by.

Maths today, which means Khan academy. Sam wanted to do some more work on time telling..he's making connections between rival he different phrases like 15 mins past and quarter past now too.

Owen worked on absolute values and answering maths questions from a sentence. He finds these things annoying and has to be reminded to read all of the 'story' so that he knows what they are actually asking him. It's mad really, if they just asked the question out right he would have it in a flash...but the ASD part of him finds it hard to pick apart all the red herrings in sentence style questions.

'Why don't they just SAY that mum?!' He insists on seeing the session to the end and gets into the swing of it a bit towards the end..it just reminds me about how hard he has to work to understand certain dialogues.

I also taught him how to play Majong and he was rather hooked on it.

I needed to rest this afternoon, so the boys played on the home education server with friends, whilst I had a lie down. Suddenly the wind got up and a tremendous storm started. It felt like the roof would lift off and freaked both dogs and children out. Blokey and the children battled the bad weather to get to jujitsu but it was still howling a gale all evening.

Sam struggled to settle to sleep and came down asking us to 'switch the wind off please!'.

The next morning, Sam was up early and came outside to assess the 'damage'. There were many leaves and twigs all over the garden, so he followed me round whilst I swept them up and we discussed the benefits of leaf mulch. We then played with Shadow and did some training.

Sam was in 'full on mode' now..think squirrel on speed..so I was doing my best to slow him down. I hadn't even had my breakfast yet and he was pushing things on at warp factor. It didn't help that I was feeling terribly sick. I explained I needed to do my treatment and then we could move on to the next thing. Of course Sam being Sam, he had forgotten in five minutes and was doing a laps around me as I used my gammercore and firing rapid questions ( which he didn't need answers for) at me the whole time. I take a deep breathe and try to swallow my anti sickness meds...it's still only 7:30. It's like someone filled him with mints and Coke. He's made so much racket Owen has come down to complain about the noise.

I get Sam writing birthday cards and he settles (as much as he is able) into some maths work. I try and get Owen to decide on breakfast ...it takes some time and he's grouchy and avoidant ..apparently Sam is 'wrong'....I head that off at the pass and see Owens mouth settle into a firm line *sigh*.

We are off to see friends this afternoon, and there is a birthday theme because it's our twin friends birthdays this week. Sam does a good job on their cards.

Since writing is a particularly hard thing for him, it's good to see an improvement and that he's taking pride in his achievements.

Owen finally finishes his breakfast and works on his maths. It's a new lesson and he winces at the thought of learning a new method...we go through it together and I help explain the stages he needs to follow. By the fifth one it's starting to click with him and he takes over and brightens considerably.

Afterwards he writes his friends cards really nicely 'don't watch Mum'. I am still feeling really poorly but I am hoping that I can get us to our friends house later for the party. Since leaving the house causes them stress , I have scheduled in free play for the rest of the morning to keep anxiety to the minimum.

Owen hugs me and says 'sorry I was grumpy mum' and goes off to play.

I carry on throwing up for most of the morning..it's been a miserable time and the pain in my head has me rocking and crying in private away from the children's eyes. I throw every med I have at it because I don't want to let them or our friends down today.

Thankfully I pick up enough to get us out the house for a couple of hours. We have a good time, even though I am aware I am lousy company again. I am very grateful people put up with me.

They are all such an amazing bunch of children ..*sighs happily* I get home and collapse in a heap. I thank the God of freezers for the defrosted home cooked meal I had the foresight to get out because it means Blokey has a hot meal when he gets home...sadly I can't face any food.

There's not much to write today..I am so poorly. Friends keep in touch via text to check on me. I feel incredibly low in spirit ..the pain just won't let up and I wonder how much more I can take. Despite this the boys work on their maths and are really helpful at meal times and generally keep themselves gainfully occupied. In the main I pace the house, use my meds and curse mentally at the crapness of today.

Blokey is off work today as he has to be in court ...we are perusing a small claim ( it's not small to us). The boys are very interested in the process and Blokey takes time to explain what we have to do. Owen is very keen to come along...we suspect he wants to intimidate the people who owe us money.

Blokey dons his suit and the boys find this hilarious..I faff about with instructions and we check his notes..I strongly suspect I am not helping..my mental functioning leaves a lot to be desired and I am so glad I am not expected to attend.

When Blokey leaves Sam spends ages working on his time telling skills...he can actually do it more accurately than me right now..he beams with pleasure at his achievements and works solidly, asking for more and more problems to solve. He can even do it with an unlabelled clock but due to the writing process being hard , he checks his number chart to make sure he's writing them in correctly.

Owen and I try and work on simplifying fractions,we both scratch our heads over this as they are getting more complicated as we progress. Our hearts really aren't in it today so we look at absolute values instead for a while.

Owen admits he can't get his head round maths 'like this..and what actually do I need these fractions for anyway?' ..I do agree with him but explain about exams..but again, if it's not something he needs at the moment why push him into boredom with it? It's clearly not the right time ( I wonder if there will be one but I have been surprised before).

'I want to look at cosmology Mum' ...so that's what we do.

We chuckle at the scale of our world and 'puny people' compared to the universe.

Owen: Wow Mum, it's very hard to grasp isn't it...? He doesn't the sign with this hands to express 'mind blown '...

' and you know what? When you see how insignificant we are in the universe. It really does wonder why we are bothering to learn about fractions at all!' He rolls his eyes dramatically and I laugh.

Me: with fractions it's all just about sharing cake and pizza out really isn't it? After that ..

Owen: yeah..just numbers..we are all just numbers...he chuckles ...and I will leave you with that bombshell Mum.

I have been laid up with shingles this weekend , just a consequence of being run down etc. Blokeys is helping out but after 1 day in bed resting, I get totally stir crazy and we decide we will visit the Peak Wildlife Park. We have been in the past but it's changed hands and was rescued from the brink of closure last year, so we didint quite know what to expect.

Despite wrapping up warm..it was FREEEZING on the moors but we had a fab time. We were the only people to brave the cold, so it was us and the staff. It was such fun, we got to talk for long periods to the keepers and they asked us if we wanted to help feed some of the animals..which we did. We had a rare opportunity to find out a lot more about the various personalities of the creatures.

This is Alan..he has recently developed a strange interest in trousers.

We fed Wallabies and Capybara

Got to stroke the Wallaby's , who were timid but inquisitive.

Learnt all about the penguins and the local heron that steals their left overs ...we were treated to him swooping overhead after we watched the Penguins dive for their dinner.