Greenbelt 2014 - especially for Jan :-) (Part 1)

By special request I am resurrecting this sadly neglected space to blog about Greenbelt 2014, which after 15 years at Cheltenham Racecourse (very handily about 30 mins from home), has moved to Boughton House near Kettering (about 2 hours from home). This means it is on a completely greenfield site again, as compared to the Racecourse which used some of the fixed buildings, hard carparks etc.

The first big change which this meant was that cars are not allowed onto the campsites for the purposes of transporting tents and equipment, to avoid ruining the ground as much as possible.  All equipment had to be carried from the car park to the campsite - tent, bedding, washing up stuff, food, clothes, books, etc. GB said that wheelbarrows would be available to borrow for wheeling stuff down, and that there would be the usual golf-buggy taxis also. However, having once had to go through this process on my own at Cheltenham due to heavy rainfall, I remembered the exhaustion of numerous trips back and forth, the impossibility of getting a taxi because they were all too busy and feeling absolutely wrecked and achey from all the carrying and pulling. So I decided to take our caravan instead of the tent, which meant I could tow it into place and then move the car to the car park. 

We had a good trip there, arriving around 3pm and then queuing through a long slow line to get onto the site. It is a long way from the public road to the car parks! We set up without any problems (didn't have to reverse the caravan, phew!) but I did have to get help from a couple with a similar caravan on how to get the gas working - I hadn't pushed the regulator down hard enough on the gas canister. We did see lots and lots of people having quite a struggle carrying loads of heavy stuff and having to make several trips.

We went down to the Festival village around 6pm. First impressions were really positive - it is a very attractive site with lots of trees, glades, lakes, architectural garden features, and of course the wonderful Greenbelt site vibing which had lights and ribbons in trees, signs, flags and other lovely things :-)

We were too late to get to the Angels' reception and introduction, or the Opening Ceremony but went to try and sign up for the Scratch Choir which would be performing at the Communion service on the Sunday morning. I've never done anything like that at GB and I quite fancied something special to do on my 50th birthday :-)  Unfortunately they were only taking 20 people (not sure if that was kids + adults or 20 of each) and we were too late. So instead we took a peek in at the Family Twist so I could give Isabelle an idea what it was. This regular GB event gives kids the chance to sign up at the beginning of the session to do some sort of performance - telling a joke, singing, dancing or whatever. I had brought Isabelle's guitar to the Festival in the hope that she would want to have a go. To start with she said no, but then changed her mind and agreed to have a go on Saturday.

We wandered round, checked out the wonderful range of food available and looked in some of the tents for the GB merchandise, the bookstore etc. People close to me will find it hard to believe that that was the only time I set foot in the GB bookstore and I did not spend a single pound in there! That has never happened before :-0

However, Isabelle was then suffering from some tummy ache, having had a touch of the runs for 2 days, and she wanted to go back to the caravan. So we had an early night in anticipation of getting stuck in to things the following day. 

At about 3-4am Isabelle woke me up, having got up for the loo and discovering that there were no lights working in the caravan. I got up and checked, found that sure enough there were no lights or power of any sort, and that the caravan battery was completely flat. The culprit was the water pump which is supposed to shut itself off when not actually needed to pump water to the taps or toilet, but which hadn't and had been running for about 12 hours non-stop. Then Isabelle, having been to the toilet in the normal way, said she thought she might be sick, went back in and threw up several times, during which she also discovered she was having a nosebleed as well. This is not good when in the complete dark with no running water, not to mention my phobia of vomit! My mind was running on overdrive and thinking we would have to pack up in the morning and go home. The very sad thing was that I had arranged for my special friend and her daughter to come and visit us at GB for the day on the Saturday and I had to text her at about 4.30am to tell her not to come. We then slept in the next morning till about 9.30am.

To cut a long story short, we eventually got the caravan battery charged up on the Sunday so power was restored, and Isabelle gradually felt better through Saturday and I didn't get ill so all went well after that!

Naturally we had a slow start to Saturday, missing Yoga and Storytelling which we had fancied first thing. If I'd done exactly what I wanted to do on Saturday I would have gone at 10am to listen to Theo Simon (from fab activist band Seize the Day) talk about Voices for the Voiceless, I would have sent Isabelle to do Den Building on the Lawn at the same time (massive flat lawn area in front of the magnificent Boughton House); "Does Church Make you Happy?" about the Happiness Course ("based on both the latest science and ancient biblical wisdom") at 11.30, and also at 11.30 I wanted to listen to Nadia Bolz Weber talk about "The Authority of Experience and what the gospel has to say about real bodies, people, events and trauma - how a Christian community responded to school shootings, the Trayvon Martin murder and gay suicides". I did manage to catch perhaps the last 20-30 minutes of this latter talk and it was really good. Nadia is the sort of woman who wouldn't look out of place in a biker gang - tattoos and piercings and leather - but she is the founding pastor of the House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver and she was wonderfully real about the agony and brutality of real life and how we can and do respond to that as ordinary people and as Christians. Hers is a talk I think I will download and listen to again.

At 12.30 ish we wandered round, got some lunch (though I restricted Isabelle to only a small amount of solid food and a fruit smoothie) and sat in on a two-woman play for kids called "Misunderstood Monsters" which was OK-ish (I was a bit bored) but Isabelle enjoyed it enough to sit there while we were eating, and join in the audience participation bits. 

At 1pm I would have wanted to go and listen to the wonderful John Bell of the Iona Community talk about "What shall we tell the children? - in an era when the popularity of books favouring atheism lies alongside a low public profile of organised religion, what are the important things we should tell children about God, the Bible and their role in the world?" Of course I already have my own ideas about the answer to this question but John Bell always speaks with great common sense and insight and I would have liked to hear him. However Isabelle was not up for sitting through another talk so we went for a cup of tea/sit down in the Angels Tent at which time I realised I had not brought my charging plug and lead for my phone down from the caravan so I couldn't get it charged.   

I can't actually remember what we did next. I know Isabelle wanted to go to Archery and Judo on the Lawn but we didn't get there for some reason. Perhaps we went back to the caravan for some cheap lunch. At 4pm it would have been good to get to The Bad Christian's Manifesto by David Tomlinson (Why doesn't the God of religion fit the God-shaped hole in people any more? How can we re-imagine divinity in the 21st century? Is there an antidote for involuntary atheism?) but I also wanted to go to a Mindfulness meditation on the Mount. Boughton House has modernised one area of their garden - digging out a lawn-covered pyramid-shaped hole in the ground with the matching pyramid rising up at the side - for Greenbelt this became the 'Mount', a venue for quiet thought, worship or meditation sessions. I didn't get to either event! What I did make it back for was "Help, Thanks, Wow" by Anne Lamott ("funny, insightful and wise best-selling author) talking on keeping prayer simple - help, thanks, wow, and now since writing the book of that title she has added 'what-ever...' in the style of American teenagers. I really liked her - she is indeed funny and self-deprecating.

We then went to the Family Twist and really enjoyed many of the contributions of the kids including a very cute 2yo singing Twinkle Twinkle and a couple of kids reciting and acting out a poem of Red Riding Hood.  We didn't have Isabelle's guitar though so she said she would have a go on Sunday.

I would have liked to go to Rime which was a combination of circus with theatre and dance based on The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, but we were in the Twist at the time, and I would also have liked to hear Sara Miles who wrote "Take this Bread" - "Raised as an atheist, Sara Miles lived an enthusiastically secular life as a restaurant cook and writer. Then one morning, for no earthly reason, she wandered into a church. She ate a piece of bread, took a sip of wine, and found herself radically transformed, embracing a faith she'd scorned and which would lead to feeding others in a way that she'd never imagined."  I have flicked through that book in a bookshop and I would love to read it completely (but so many books, so little time!). She was talking about "the idolatry of food in the context of widespread hunger" - another talk I think I will have to download.

At 7.30pm we went over to a Family Ceilidh in the Big Top and had an utterly fantastic time! This is the sort of thing where it's brilliant to have Isabelle who loves dancing and threw herself into it all very enthusiastically :-) It was so fun and lovely to have her as a companion to dance with.  After that we were exhausted so grabbed chocolatey (in Isabelle's case) and bananay/chocolatey/Grand Marnier-y (in my case) pancakes for our evening treat and then went back to the caravan for chilling out and bed.

On Sunday morning I had birthday presents to open!!!  :-)  Isabelle made me a cup of tea, and then I cooked bacon and egg for breakfast. We took our time and ended up being about 10-15 minutes late for the massive Communion service, which I wouldn't mind except I missed a couple of my favourite songs and speakers. However what we did hear I really enjoyed, and I sat in the sunshine watching three birds flying very high indeed - they were just little black specks circling round and round in the blue sky and clouds - and felt one of those moments of heaven on earth. For those who are interested I recommend looking up musician Marcus Hummon, and Thistle Farms which rescues women from prostitution, trafficking and addiction. At the end of the service, another group close to us burst into 'Happy Birthday' for one of their group, and at the end Isabelle pointed to me and said "it's her birthday too!" so everybody around me sang loudly and joyfully for me too :-)

And I will have to stop for a while - come back for Part 2!







 

Email to school

I will try and fill in the story so far, but for the time being here is an email I have just sent to the school after an incident on Friday:

Dear Mrs T
Firstly I would like to re-iterate what Bill has said about the approach taken on Friday with T.  It was completely counter-productive and has resulted in T and ourselves having no confidence that her difficulties are being understood and handled appropriately. From time to time that may be the appropriate approach to take, but on Friday she was in particular emotional distress after the meeting, had been crying for a significant length of time, was emotionally exhausted and was not messing anybody about. I had had to use significant persuasion and threat of sanctions to get her to allow me to leave her in SSC at all, and that was only with the agreement that she would be able to stay in that small room. I truly felt that in agreeing to that, she had been pushed as far as she could go at the time, and that getting her to stay at school in that state was a significant 'win' which was best held at that point and not pushed any further.  I agreed with Mrs F that she could try and see if she would go to the lesson, but I assumed that it would be gentle discussion and persuasion given her emotional fragility that afternoon, and only after she had had time to calm down and feel better, not harsh pressure. She says that she finally agreed to go to the lesson because she was too afraid that otherwise you would come back, which was another level of fear and anxiety and stress added on top of what had already been a really difficult day for her. No wonder that she feels emotionally unable to cope with returning to that environment this morning.

As far as making the 'choice' to speak or interact, everybody must understand that this is not about choice. Of course she is physically able to speak - that has never been in question. She is a bright, highly-literate girl with a reading age and vocabulary significantly in advance of her actual age. Selective mutism is an extreme anxiety condition. There is no choice involved in the response, or lack of it.  Below I have copied some extracts from the writings of an adult woman who suffered from SM as a child:

When I stepped outside the door to walk to school I would get a knot in my stomach and feelings of anxiety would rise up within me.  At the same time, heaviness would descend on me, causing me to move slower and weigh me down more and more as I approached school.  Once at school I would find myself standing still.  I would walk to wherever I needed to go if I had to, then find the nearest corner or seat, and either stand or sit still watching others talking all around. 

As far as speaking, the nearest thing I can compare is like an anesthetic injection you get at the dentist where your face goes dead and the muscles won’t work.  It was like having one of these injections in the part of my brain that controlled my speech function.

I would stay like this all day.  I couldn’t ask to have my basic needs met such as putting my hand up to go to the toilet, or for a drink, or if I had forgotten my lunch money, or if hurt or bullied.   I couldn’t participate in lessons, or play with others in the playground.  Then as if by magic, as soon as I came out of school to walk home, the heaviness lifted and I would come back to life, playing, talking and doing everything normally.
I can see how others would have seen this as stubbornness. They encouraged me, disciplined me, got frustrated with me, asked me why I behaved that way and got no answer from me.  They sent me to the educational psychologist and the behavioral-emotional unit and they didn’t know what was wrong either.  Back then, SM was not an official diagnosis so they had no checklist to match my symptoms with.  I was trapped in isolation, and I didn’t know how to get out of the trap.  It felt beyond my power to escape from. 
....I couldn’t show anyone my personality or abilities because they were locked inside.
It was a family who helped me on my way to recovery.  They felt it was right to have me come and live with them when I had just turned 19.  I had very little communication; I mainly used shoulder shrugs and gestures, body language and facial expressions although I did speak the odd word.  Things like saying hello, goodbye, please and thank you were incredibly difficult.  Their response to this was unlike any I had experienced, in that they sent me constant messages that I was loved and accepted unconditionally, and they didn’t feel awkward around my silence.  After a couple of weeks the heaviness and paralysis began to lift.  This was due to them reducing the pressure to speak and I felt safe around them.
(my emphases)
(from http://selectivemutismstories.blogspot.co.uk/)

I could find many many more examples of such stories and testimonies from both recovered and non-recovered SM sufferers.

This emphasises the need for a selective mutism sufferer to feel emotionally safe and unthreatened.  It is like a tortoise retreating into its shell and nothing can be seen of it until it perceives the danger has passed and it is safe for it to come out. T no longer feels emotionally safe at school and therefore will freeze and not show anything of herself in that environment as it is at the moment. It is at times of high emotion and stress that she becomes unable to even nod or shake her head to simple questions. In a more relaxed state of course she is able to do that.

The need for 'control' is just one of the symptoms of anxiety: "Anxiety and The Need To Be In Control - Posted on May 8, 2013 by Jodi Lobozzo Aman, LCSW-R

"When you have anxiety, having control can be very important to you. You either feel like you have it or you don’t. And when you don’t, it feels very scary so you do whatever you have to do to get it back.  Avoid, scream, clean, freeze, isolate, carry out a pattern, research, or control someone else, for example."  From http://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/anxiety-schmanxiety/2013/05/anxiety-and-the-need-to-be-in-control/, as just one example.

There is no point directly addressing the symptom of control - the strategy needs to be to address the underlying anxiety that causes the need to control.

I accept that school's responsibility is to educate T but as I said in the meeting on Friday, there is no point having a highly-educated person who can't speak to or interact with other people and in any event, she will be unable to properly learn and assimilate information when under high stress. So it seems clear to me that the very first priority with T should be to address her emotional needs before her educational needs. And it needn't be that complicated.  Her experience in Year 6, when with the right approach she was able to interact fully in the classroom, speak to her teacher, raise her hand in class and answer questions, proves that it is possible to give her what she needs in an ordinary classroom. However at the moment several steps backwards have been taken and we will need to come in and discuss with you how to approach matters from today forwards.

JG

What a difference a year makes

This time last year Jade had only just started answering the register in class. She could read to her teacher, but apart from that did not speak to adults in the school apart from her TA. She had refused to take part in Sports Day. She would not respond to direct questions from anybody. Now, on her last day of primary school, these are her achievements over the past few months:

 - she has been talking well in class since the beginning of the school year;

- she has talked to a different class TA, as well as the teacher;

- she has taken part in Sports Day and come 2nd in her race;

 - she has been doing the Bus Register every morning all year, asking and checking who will be travelling on the school bus that evening;

- she went on the Year 6 residential trip, 2 nights and 3 days away at an outdoor activity centre. She had been adamant she wasn't going to stay overnight right up to the first day there, but towards the end of the afternoon of the 1st day she said she wanted to stay. She loved it!

- she has had a conversation with her riding instructor privately while untacking the pony in the stable at the end of a lesson. She did return to me a bit teary and has been unable to say why, but she semi-agreed it was due to the pressure of the situation, the instructor hadn't said anything difficult or unpleasant (I wouldn't have dreamed that she would have), and Jade had been able to answer the questions;

- she goes round to the shop at our local petrol station to buy sweets, and says she speaks while doing so;

- she went on the bus to her future Secondary School for two induction days, and told me she spoke to a few teachers while there;

- yesterday she spoke to the Headteacher for the first time ever, while explaining the design on her stone for the 'Spiritual Garden' being set up in the school;

 - this morning, she spoke in the school assembly, talking about a shield she and her friend had designed for one of the members of staff;

- this afternoon, she spoke in church at the Leavers' Service, in front of the whole school and many parents, along with all the other Year 6 pupils, describing their stone designs for the Spiritual Garden.

She has come so much further than I ever could have dreamed a year ago. The outlook for her future has changed drastically over the past 12 months. I can now foresee a normal future for her, instead of one where she couldn't function properly or get a job or enjoy social occasions with friends. I am more confident than I ever could have dreamed that she will flourish at secondary school. There is still room for things to go wrong, and for her to regress, but every single report I have ever heard about the school is that it is excellent, especially for those who need some extra support, and I've not heard a bad word about it.

She still has her areas of difficulty - at our first appointment with the psychologist for CBT yesterday she squashed herself into the same chair as me, studiously read a book while the psychologist was speaking to her and did her best to avoid any interaction, and was clearly quite uncomfortable. She still cannot speak to many people, for example my Mum, my brothers, and others. She is unlikely to initiate conversation even with people she can respond to. And she is quick to be moody, grumpy and stroppy even out in public, with people commenting on her angry or miserable appearance especially if she feels any attention is on her. But these are difficulties that I am now more confident can be ironed out in due course.

An amazing day, and one that for a very long time I thought I would never see.

How she's doing.

Jade has continued to make great progress.

Back in July, the same week that she first answered the register at school and danced in the school production, she conquered another big fear. Anybody who knows Jade knows she is pony-mad (like mother, like daughter). She has loved ponies and riding since the age of 4, had her first ride on a pony at 4 and had her first lessons at age 6. She has had regular lessons for about 3 years, has been highly praised by all her different instructors for her natural seat and skill, and can ride beautifully ... but only at walk and trot. Canter has been way too scary for her to try. She has wanted to do it, has driven me mad asking what it feels like, has read about it, thought about it, pretended to do it ... but always refused to try on a real pony. Earlier this year I thought we were going to get somewhere because she agreed to try a canter in her lesson. She was scared of being run away with, though, so wanted to do it on the lunge rein rather than on her own. This means she was going round in a circle instead of a straight line, and although she did manage a few steps of canter, she unfortunately but gently fell off. She then refused to go back to those stables. Instead she wanted to go where her friend E goes, so I asked E's mum, who turns out to have been a qualified riding instructor in a previous life(!) and she recommended Turpins Lodge near Banbury. It's a good 20-25 minute drive from our house and I never would have gone there of our own accord, but they've been absolutely brilliant with Jade. And on about her 4th or 5th lesson, she took us all by surprise. As usual, at canter time, her instructor said "Okay Jade, it's your turn. Trot to the corner, then do sitting trot and kick on and canter round to the back of the ride". And blow me down, she did! I was astonished, and so thrilled! And more importantly, so was she! Check out the video:



So, in the space of a week, she had done her first public performance, said her first word in front of the whole class, and done her first successful canter on a pony. It felt like all the walls were coming tumbling down! Fantastic!

Then came the summer holidays, and a bit of a lull. Having pretty much always spoken to her Grandpa (my Dad) she went all quiet and stopped talking when he was here, for most of the summer.

In early August, the girls and I went for a 3-day camping trip to the New Forest. On our last morning, we all went to a riding stables for an hour's hack. Shannon was in front on a leading rein, then me, and then Jade and another girl behind me. Shortly after we set off, I thought I heard Jade's voice and turned round to hear what she was saying to me, and almost fell off my horse when I realised one of the ride leaders had asked her a question and she was answering!!!! Honestly, that is one of the best moments of my life. And later on when we were talking about it, she told me that when she was wandering round the campsite one day stroking the wild ponies, a man had asked her a question and she had answered him.

Then, of course, it was back-to-school time, with a new teacher and a mix-up of classes, so some old friends and some new classmates. I had a lot of confidence in her teacher, though, because at the end of last term I went to have a chat with her, and discovered she is studying for a Masters in Special Educational Needs, had already read up about SM and her Mum is some sort of SEN trainer who has taught and advised others on selective mutism. However Jade told me she was not planning on answering the register in her new class so I did not know what to expect. Here's how it went:

Sept 2nd - Day 1 of term - Jade did not answer the register but did read out loud to her teacher.

Sept 5th - Day 2 of term - Jade asked her teacher for a maths sheet that she needed. (Initiating speech - quite amazing!!)

Sept 6th - Day 3 - called out the score she got on her maths test in front of the whole class.

Week 2 - answering the register, calling out her maths scores, talking in circle time, answering questions, and volunteering to go up and write stuff on the white board.

Sept 15th - She stood up and explained the third stage of the water cycle to the whole class.

Early Oct - has put up her hand to answer questions in class. She is 'Star of the Week' in her class this week because of her progress with talking, so gets to wear a badge all week which she was presented with in assembly in front of the whole school.

Oct 7th - along with 2 friends Jade has performed a puppet show (with speech) to the whole class.

To say I am proud, relieved and joyful is an understatement. There have been so many dark times when I truly doubted we would ever see such progress, times when I berated myself for not doing more, noticing earlier, helping her better and more consistently, when I felt I identified and empathised too much with her anxiety and didn't help her conquer it. We have not dealt with this perfectly at all. We have muddled through, sometimes pushing forward, sometimes just leaving things be for a long while. We have held back for fear of pushing her too hard, and not known what to do. And yet, imperfectly, slowly, we have helped her along and the results are beginning to show.

She still has a long way to go. She is still silent in every other social situation. She doesn't want to go to any groups or join in after-school activities. She has never asked for what she wants in a cafe or restaurant, is silent while buying things in shops, hides behind me when we meet new people and hates family gatherings and doesn't answer people's questions if we (parents) are there. Nevertheless, we can at last see signs that she is truly on the road to recovery, that it may take time but we can see a positive and normal future for her. Fantastic.

'The Triplets'

The Beans (Petits Haricots) have posted a lovely series of pics of the girls we call 'The Triplets', which includes Shannon, here.

Usborne Books for Sale

All titles are brand new. All cost £1 each unless otherwise noted.


The Amazing Adventures of Hercules – Usborne Young Reading Series 2

Penguins – Usborne First Reading Level 4

The Ugly Duckling – Usborne First Reading Level 4

True Stories of Heroes – Paul Dowswell

The Usborne Detective's Handbook £2

Knights and Armour (Internet Linked) £3

Alice in Wonderland (Hardback padded)

Lift-the-Flap Night-Time

Playtime Activities £2

Pirate Jigsaw Book £2

Farmyard Tales Treasury £3 (Hardback)

Princess Treasury (x 2) £3

A Thief in the House of Memory – Tim Wynne-Jones

The Boy in the Burning House – Tim Wynne-Jones

Usborne Discovery – Trains (Internet Linked

What's Happening to Me (Boys) (x 2)

Bible Tales – Moses in the Bulrushes

The Usborne Flip-Flap Body Book

The Story of Heidi (Padded hardback)

Starting Soccer

The Pony-Mad Princess – Princess Ellie to the Rescue
The Pony-Mad Princess – Princess Ellie Saves the Day

True Polar Adventures – Paul Dowswell

The Snow Queen Book and Cassette tape – Usborne Young Reading Series 2

For the record

Will I ever get the blogging bug back? I don't know, but I know that I regret it when I don't record the important steps as well as the day-to-day stuff for future reading.

Jade had such a good week last week. The girl who, last year, wouldn't even take part in rehearsals for the class production despite having said she wanted to play a percussion instrument, and who wouldn't take part in Sports Day just a month ago, danced in a group on Monday and Tuesday nights in front of a big audience, without a hint or flicker of dropping out or tears or anxiety. We were so pleased!

However, I did notice that during the songs when everyone sang, she wasn't even attempting to take part and therefore stood out (to me anyway - she was at the back) as the only person who wasn't singing. So when, on the way home, she asked me if I would give her a 'prize' for taking part, I said I would if she would even just move her lips during the songs the following night. Maybe I was being a bit ungenerous, but I knew she could do it and I wanted to give her a bit more of a push while things were going so well.

On Tuesday lunchtime, the class TA who worked with Jade a lot last year and is the only person in the school she can properly talk to, rang me to say she had answered the register verbally for the first time! For the past two years she has responded to her name with a thumbs up. But she had said to the TA that she really wants to be a prefect. She's talked about this with me before and I'd said that it was unlikely to happen because she wouldn't be able to tell kids not to run in the corridors, for instance. She'd thought she could just go and tell the TA each time she had something to report. Anyway, as expected, she was not announced as one of the new prefects, but staff will be keeping an eye on the kids and making more prefects of those who deserve it over during the first term. So on Tuesday, the TA said she knew what she had to do to be able to be a prefect, and perhaps now would be a good time to start with her first word by answering the register. The TA suggested she say 'yes' to her friend sitting next to her, but in the event, she gave a very clear 'yes' which the whole class and the TA standing in the doorway could hear! Nobody turned a hair or made her feel uncomfortable. She said she wouldn't do it the following day because they had a substitute teacher who she knows and doesn't like so much, but actually she did, and continued to answer the register all week.

Then on Tuesday evening she took part in the second night of the production and sure enough, I could just about see her lips move during the group songs. It was obviously quite difficult for her as it was quite a small movement, which I found interesting. Strange that it's harder for her to even look as though she's singing (i.e. move her lips clearly) than to dance in front of the audience. We went out the next day and she chose another Breyer horse as her reward!

30DC result

Okay, so I suppose I should report back. It's after midnight, though, so I will be very brief.

I dithered a great deal about my subject matter, lost motivation, decided to give up, changed my mind and wanted to keep going, and realised I couldn't possibly manage a proper Cochrane review in the time available, so with only a short time to go till the end of the challenge, I decided to re-visit my dissertation subject from my degree to see what had happened in the meantime.

I didn't finish - in fact I didn't get an awful lot done at all - but I did confirm to myself that I do still love to get stuck into some academic research, and I met an amazing bunch of people and we have a closed group on Facebook where we continue to encourage each other to 'Screw Work, Let's Play'. All sorts of ideas and thoughts are flowing from that and once I'm back from 2 weeks in France I might let slip what they are....

In the meantime, I started a new blog for my research results (such as they are, very unfinished) so you can take a look here

Screw Work Let's Play 30 Day Challenge

I feel like I've been wandering in the wilderness for a long time. I'm not sure what I'm meant to be doing in life, what my purpose is (apart from raising my family) and how to make the best use of any gifts I may have. I'm sure I ought to be having more fun than I am. So when I came across Screw Work, Let's Play I was intrigued and fascinated. And when I saw they were starting a 30-day challenge to run from 1st-30th April, I was tempted. The Challenge is to actually take action and do a 'play project'. So many of us think of things that we *might* like to do, but we're not sure enough that it would lead to a job/money/a future so we hold back, stay in our secure but unfulfilling jobs and never break out and try something different. So the SWLP idea is to just play! Find something that I would love to do, that would be fun, that uses my skills/talents/personality, to explore whether I really do enjoy it and want to do more of it, to find out which bits work and which don't, which aspects inspire me and which don't, and see what comes out of it.

I only joined the Challenge on 31st March. I kept reading the e-mails about it but felt I wasn't 'good enough' to do this kind of thing. That everybody else would be high-flyers, go-getters and confident extroverts, whereas I have largely been a 'go-with-the-flow' kind of person, maybe a bit lazy, unfocused, unsure of what I wanted or where I wanted to go, so not really going anywhere much. And anyway, I didn't know what project I wanted to do. But at the last minute I realised I really didn't want to let *another* opportunity slip by; that I could change my image of who I am and what kind of an impact I can make on the world. That I can *make things happen*! Wow, how cool is that!

So, without letting myself think about it too much further, I signed up. I watched the video on how to choose a play-project, and wrote a list of ideas. I came up with several - there are all sorts of things that interest me - but there's no doubt about the top two.

Idea 1: Move forward with my 16-year dream of working in academic nutrition, by writing a systematic review for the Cochrane Database on an area of nutrition related to pregnancy/maternal/infant health. I drool over academic jobs such as working at the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit, but I am the parent of 2 young girls, one with special needs, and don't want a full-time out-of-the-house job. I think in the end I might like this to lead towards editing a nutrition journal of some sort, but that's too far in the future to be sure yet.

Idea 2: Go and do a horse-whispering course, to learn Monty Roberts' methods of training and helping horses. I don't think I want to work in this field, i.e. I don't want to be outside all the time in the freezing cold and mud (been there, done that), but on the other hand it totally fascinates me, uplifts me, inspires me and I just want to be able to do it! No idea what the outcome would be there, except that it does feed in to how I deal with my daughter's particular issues. But it would need around £500 to go on the UK-based training course, and I just don't have that right now. So while I would still love to do this, I can't do it on the time-frame for this project.

So Idea 1 wins, for now. I'll give it a go, see how it turns out and whether I still enjoy it like I used to.

Interesting memory from Jade

Jade has just told me something really interesting. She says she can remember being 4, and on holiday in a tent with us somewhere (could very well have been our first Kessingland), and having the selective mutism feeling when somebody wanted to talk to her, but if she had known then what she knows now, she realises she would have been able to push herself to talk and got over it. She said she thinks we should have helped her more. She was struggling to explain herself, so I asked if she meant that it was a smaller feeling then than she gets now, and that with a bit of encouragement or help she would have been able to get over it then, and she agreed.

I told her that I absolutely agreed with her - if we had known then what we know now, we would have treated her shyness/silence a bit differently and maybe we wouldn't have got to where we are now. But I said that it's also encouraging because she can see quite clearly that what she has now is just a strong habit that has built up in her brain over the past 5 years, and that's all. (Which chimes in nicely with the Linden Method which we have started to use consistently this week.)

She also drew a lovely series of cartoon pictures (which she has done quite a bit of recently and shows something of a talent for) depicting herself hiding behind a parent when another child approaches, but gradually coming out and moving closer to the other child, and the parent stepping back, and her own expression changing from worried to relaxed and talking as she gets closer to this other child. I've asked DH to scan it in and maybe I will upload it if Jade lets me.

Organising and decluttering

I've always been messy. As a teenager I had the sort of room where you couldn't tell the colour of the carpet for all the stuff all over it. As I've got older I've got less and less happy about living like that. I hate having anyone over because I'm embarrassed about the house, and I've been irritable and grumpy with the children when I wanted to declutter and tidy and they just made more mess. When I was home-educating I thought it was lack of child-free time that made it impossible for me to get the house clear and tidy, so when Jade started school in April 2009 I knew I wanted to make it a priority. After a year-and-a-half of intermittently trying to do it myself (between spending vast amounts of time with Jade in school and other interruptions) including taking (excellent) online courses and reading decluttering books, I have realised I'm just not going to be able to do it. For whatever reason, I just can't see what to do or how to do it. I can't decide where to put things and I can't decide what to get rid of and what to keep. I was just getting paralysed with indecision.

So I decided it was time to call in a professional. I Googled and found the Association of Professional Declutterers and Organisers, and from there found Kay Julian of Welcome Space.

She came on Monday. We spent the first hour exploring the extent of the problem in all of the rooms, and then we got to work. We decided to start with the girls' rooms so that some of the stuff downstairs that was theirs could find a home upstairs instead.

The 'before' photo below shows a worse situation than normal in Jade's room, as we had just got new-to-us beds for the girls in the past month and the chest of drawers from Shannon's room was being temporarily stored in Jade's room, along with the zip-and-link beds that used to be our guest beds but now need to be got rid of.



It's not all that clear how much has changed in this next photo, but at Kay's suggestion we moved Jade's chest of drawers to the other side of the room near her wardrobe, so there is a 'clothes' side of the room and a 'toys' side of the room. Kay found the most efficient mixture of containers to go in Jade's toy cupboard to store things away so that her home-made stables, tackrooms and other horse paraphernalia could all live together in one corner.


There wasn't as much to do in Shannon's room, but the pile of toys and 'stuff' that was piled in one corner all got tidily stashed away in containers and homes found for them on the various shelves and spaces. She now has a clear floor and a proper home for everything.

The living room doesn't look drastically changed either, but everything was cleared off the table. We reorganised the drawers in the bureau to the left so that the bottom one became the tidy and organised craft drawer, and the top one became the 'to-do' drawer, where active projects and things waiting to go to other people can be stored. I also put a 'to do' note on my calendar so that I have a visual reminder of what I need to get done.




The basket that can be seen on the right-hand-side of the sofa has been re-purposed from a book basket to a 'toy-tidying' basket. At the end of the day, if the girls want to leave any of their toys downstairs ready for the next day, they can do so as long as they fit into the basket. Anything that doesn't fit has to go upstairs.

Kay took away the unwanted chest of drawers and a great pile of other stuff destined for the charity shop, and some rubbish that needed disposing of.

Today I have got rid of the majority of the stuff that was on top of the bureau (seen in the 'Before' pic), chucked some away and relocating some to the craft drawer.

Kay is coming back next Monday to tackle the worst downstairs room. Already I feel lighter and more free to think about other things. I am looking forward to discovering that my house can be nice!

Stuff!

Here are some random meandering thoughts about other stuff that's been going on lately.

I have for a long time contemplated that I may have food intolerance issues, what with IBS, eczema and lack of energy. I've not wanted to face the trouble of an elimination diet with no idea whether it was a complete waste of time. I've wondered about doing a YorkTest blood test but they're expensive. It's only because Shannon has daily tummy aches, and has done for a long time, that I've finally got round to doing it for both her and me. My results have come through. I have a major reaction to cow's milk, significant reaction but less so to wheat and egg white, and borderline reactions to about six other things including pork, shellfish and sesame seeds. I am not looking forward to giving up milk, wheat and eggs. But it's worth a try, and if I end up bloat- and pain-free and with more energy, it will be well worth it. Shannon's results are not here yet. The test includes two phone consultations with a nutritional therapist (which I'm going to be studying for next year, so this is good practice being on the receiving end) to make sure you don't miss out on nutritional needs while eliminating foods.

Talking of diets, I was horrified at the weight I found displayed on the scales at the beginning of September, and immediately signed up with Tesco Diets. I've been taking it steadily, with a few treats and variations here and there, but have lost 10lbs and am only 1.5lbs from my target weight now. I really had been overdoing it on the biscuits and crisps, and really had to get myself under control again.

This is our next bit of exciting news:



We are solar-powered! 12 solar PV panels and some solar thermal tubes. Even better, we now have a new, working boiler (condensing, of course) so after 3 or 4 weeks without heating or hot water (the old one broke down and we have been making do with the wood-burning stove and boiling kettles for hot washes) it was absolutely bliss to have a hot shower, feel heat from the radiators and hot running water from the taps. I hope I will never take them for granted again! There was lots of preparatory work to do before. We have been partly funded by the Severn Wye Energy Agency as part of their Target 2050 project, having been chosen as one of their exemplar homes to show how ordinary properties can reduce their carbon footprint. So we've had to get 100% low-energy bulbs (we already had lots, but we've had to do all the rest e.g. lamps on dimmer switches), replace all the draught-excluder strips round the windows and doors, and increase the roof insulation by getting spray foam. This last one was tricky due to the odd shape of our roof meaning we had a separate bit of loft over our kitchen and a dormer window in our bathroom which was a pig to insulate and in the end Bill had to hack off the inside plasterboard on the roof and sides of the dormer window for it to be insulated from the inside. The bathroom is trashed but it is warm! Even before the heating was fixed, the house was noticeably warmer with the improved insulation.

Shannon is 6!



She chose to have a bowling party, although I have no idea why she decided it was a kitty bowling party and she needed to dress up!

She is such a sweet girl. She is so loving and caring. She regularly throws her arms round adults, gives them a big hug and says "I love you". Whoever we've visited most recently, she 'really loves [them] and wants to live with [them] all the time'. She will stroke my face and say "are you alright Mummy?", loves nothing better than great big long cuddles, and says "I missed you" if I've been out for half-an-hour! She loves to share anything she has with others, even her big sister who, shall we say, finds sharing a bit more of a challenge. Shannon has the greatest laugh, a big smile and a big warm heart. She not only cheers up her teacher's day, she cheers up my days every day, and I consider myself truly blessed to be her Mum! I don't know what I did to deserve her, but it must have been something very good! She loves to dance and is always jumping up, doing moves that I have no idea how she knows how to do! She also loves all sorts of different types of music and will often say in the car that she likes something, of all different genres. I'm thinking it is time to really think whether she would like to learn an instrument properly, though I'm not sure what would be best to start with.



Finally, I'm very glad to report that although this time last week Poppy was seriously ill with a chest infection, after a week on antibiotics she is much better. She doesn't have much energy for walks, but on the whole she is back to her normal self. At 12.5 and with heart valve problems she's almost on borrowed time, but thankfully she's pulled through this time.

Saving the best till last

Having been chided by my friend Michelle, I am blogging! It would be easier if Shannon didn't insist on sitting on my knee and therefore having to do this one-handed, but I will manage somehow!

So, what's been going on then? Well, the one blogpost that has been in my mind for a while is "Jade is thriving at school." Yes, thriving! It's a bit galling for an ex-home educator to admit, but it really is doing her good. Because she is now familiar with the environment, the people and the routines, she is gaining enough confidence to try new things that she would never attempt in a group of people she didn't know so well. For instance, she has volunteered to help out in the infants (4-7yr olds) playground once a week, along with a couple of friends. I think she is enjoying being one of the 'big ones' who help out the 'littlies', despite how horrible she is to her own sister at home! She tried out African drumming when a group visited the school for everyone to try. To be honest, I was astonished when I found out she'd actually done it in front of the rest of the class. She never would do that if we'd gone to a HE workshop or similar. She's taking part in different sports like netball, tennis and hockey. Again, just totally unthinkable for her to attempt to try these in a group of strangers. If we were in the fortunate position of living in Cambridgeshire and could go to Latinetc and Historyetc with all our lovely HE friends, in a regular group, it may be a different story, but even then I'm not sure whether she would have gained enough confidence in that group to take part.

She is going in happily every day, without any parental accompaniment at all. Yes, she has a bit of a moan about it from time to time. She put 'no school' on her Christmas wish list yesterday! And that is about the compulsory forced factory-production nature of schooling, and I am not saying that school couldn't be improved - it certainly could. But it is certainly doing her a great deal more good than harm. And I can tell she really enjoys her sense of achievement when she's learned something and tells me about it, especially stuff I don't know. She enjoys history particularly and at the moment is reading "Oliver Twist" by Charles Dickens, having been introduced to him during the work they're doing on Victorians this term. I certainly didn't read Dickens when I was 9! And even when I did read it, compulsorily for O Level at about 15, I didn't enjoy it like she is.

Every Friday morning, the school has an 'awards' assembly where each teacher picks one child for a 'merit' award for good academic work and a child for a 'star of the week' award for character/behaviour/personal qualities. A month or so ago, unbeknown to me, Jade was picked for a merit award for her excellent use of vocabulary, one example of which was the use of the word 'oblivious'. When her name was announced, she got up from her place and went to the front to collect her award with everybody's eyes on her and applause. A term ago, she would probably have bolted from the hall, or stayed glued to the spot and cried, or something. But she didn't; she actually got up and went to the front for her award. I so wish parents got warned and that I could have been there to watch (but then the relevant parent being present would be rather a give-away!) but never mind the award, I was just thrilled to bits to hear that she got up and went to the front, no matter what for.

Speaking of the awards assembly, Shannon got one last week as well. Hers was a 'star of the week' award for having a lovely smile, being happy and smiley all the time and cheering up the teacher whenever she looks at her! Shannon is the one who is most likely to say "I don't want to go to school". But whenever she is there she seems happy, relaxed and as though she's having a good time. However she is the one that I think would thrive more on home education, apart from her major need to play with other kids every day. She would take part in demonstrations and workshops with gusto, and ask questions, and follow her interests and not worry about getting things wrong.

But personally, I am *loving* my 3 quiet days at home. I love it. I love being on my own, reading, tidying, sorting, thinking, sometimes sleeping, unassaulted by the multitude of demands and interruptions. It feels like it is my 'sanity' time.

So, while Shannon is relatively happy, we'll leave things as they are.

Oh, and finally, saving the best to last, Jade has spoken her first words to her teacher! She has been having 'sliding-in' sessions with her TA (to whom she speaks) and her class teacher and 2-3 other kids at lunchtimes, just 15-20 minutes playing games, and during a game of Happy Families she asked her teacher for a card! The journey of 1000 miles begins with the first step.....

And now I need to put Shannon to bed, but when I get back, I will blog about 'other news'.

Thoughts on future HE

When Jade first went to school in April 2009, we were very uncertain whether she would settle into it or not, but she had asked to go, and we really wanted to see if we could make some progress with her severe social anxiety and selective mutism, in a safe supportive place with trained, committed staff and people whom she could get to know day in day out and learn to trust that nothing bad would happen to her there. She needed to grow her own confidence that she could manage without being with me all the time, and expand the range of people she could be with and hopefully talk to.

We've had major ups and downs in that process, but at the moment things look reasonable. She can talk to her TA usually, though still with some anxiety and not with the complete freedom she talks with at home; she has learned to cope without me being there all the time; she talks to other children on the whole; she can read to her teacher in a small group, and she has answered maths questions in a low voice but enough that the children on her table could hear.

There are still areas of difficulty, obviously. She won't go to Brownies without me, and in fact she's said she doesn't want to go back because it's boring. It's boring because she won't join in any games, and as they play lots of games at Brownies a lot of the time she is sitting at the side with me, just watching. She won't do 'wake and shake' in the playground in the mornings, even at the back where nobody would be watching her because they'll all be facing the front and even though I'm with her and doing it too. She won't go for riding lessons, even though riding is her favourite thing to do. She really wants to be able to canter, despite her fear of doing so, but won't do it in a lesson because she doesn't want to be watched. She can't canter on her loan pony, Lily, because Lily is too strong and would likely gallop off! She won't talk to my Mum any more, or other relatives or any other adults apart from those mentioned and us at home.

Anyway, at the beginning, I urged Jade to try school for a week, and then for a month, and then for a term, and then for the rest of the year. As I've said she's made good progress but still needs to make more, so in our latest discussions of how long to stay at school, we've said she needs to stay till the end of primary, but can be home educated again instead of going to secondary school. She seems happy with this, both about staying at school for 2 more years but also about not having to go after that!

However it's giving me pause for thought on various fronts, and this morning after being woken at about 5.30am by Shannon, I lay awake till 7am worrying and fretting about Jade.

If Jade was normally socially competent, I would not doubt that HE would be best for her. Home education of itself has always seemed vastly superior to me, for the freedom and depth and range of education, and freedom from the excessive peer pressures and attitudes of schoolkids, especially during the tumultuous adolescent stage. Even just thinking about Jade herself, I'm very glad to think about her not being in that pressured, difficult and stressful situation.

But in the small hours of this morning, I saw very clearly the other side of the coin. Adolescence is the time when friendships become extra important, and it is going to be vital that she has at least one or two good, supportive and reliable friends who will be kind about her struggles and difficulties. My worry is partly fuelled by occasionally reading a blog by a teen who struggles with anxiety and selective mutism and who is heading scarily towards anorexia as she struggles massively with her self-image and who she is. I also think back to my own teenage years which were dominated by my own anxiety problems (phobia) and how scarily astray some of my own thinking and views were.

Jade currently has 2 good friends who want to see her out of school time, though there are others at school who seem to like being with her but don't make any attempt to be in touch after school or in the holidays. One girl lives next door, and though she is a kind and good-hearted girl, she is very much a slow learner, and Jade is rude and horrible to her quite often (yes, we do pull her up on it and talk about it and punish her for the worst behaviour but it's taking an awfully long time to change this behaviour/attitude), and I just think that once they outgrow childish games and get into the teenage years, I can't see the friendship continuing strongly. Jade's other friend is herself a bit prone to fiery outbursts, and on Friday lunchtime they fell out in a big way (though Jade has to sit next to her in class all day, since she was deliberately put with a friend to help her in her new class), and she is also one who is in the lowest academic groups in the class and I am worried about the morals and attitudes of the family she comes from and all in all I am not sure that friendship is going to be one that lasts or if it does, I don't really want to encourage it all that much.

Living in such a rural area, there are not many HEors so there is not a strong prospect of good friends in the HE group either. There used to be 3 girls of roughly Jade's age who were HE'd, but she didn't particularly gel with any of them and of course I don't even know if they still are or will continue to be HE'd. Jade has never made any particular friends at church and again in a rural area people come from all over the place so could easily be 15 miles away from us. Once she reaches secondary age, it is really not going to be so straightforward for me to attend groups with her and stay, and unless she is already established in a group by then I can't see her attending on her own.

So I had this scary vision of Jade aged 11+ with no good, trustworthy friends, unable to go to social groups and make new ones, isolated at home, getting less socially confident as the pangs of adolescence strike and ....... urgh!

Add to this, the fact that DH is due to retire in 4 years, his income will probably reduce by half or more, I need/want to study for an MSc over the next 3-4 years so I can become a nutritional therapist and work after he retires and supplement our income, he doesn't want nor would he be very good at being the main educator, if Jade isn't going to school then I bet Shannon wouldn't want to stay either, and I won't be able to study properly if they're both at home all the time, and I just don't see how it's all going to work.

Back to school

It has all gone fairly smoothly! Which is better than I anticipated, after Jade said half-way through the summer holidays that she wanted me to go into class with her to start with when she went back. I thought that if she was worrying about it so much in advance, things would only get worse the closer it got. But no!

I told her that I knew she would be fine and that it would only take her half an hour or so to remember what to do and where to go and what this was all like and that she could cope with it, and then she'd be fine. I agreed to sit outside in the courtyard until 10am, so that I was nearby if she needed me but not actually in the building. When she woke up in the morning, she had a few tears with anxiety about doing swimming and PE. I was able to tell her that there wasn't any swimming this term, so she needn't worry about that, and that I would talk to her TA about her PE anxieties. And pointed out that she definitely wouldn't be doing any PE the first day anyway, so not to worry about it today. She got up and dressed happily after that. Shannon was excited to go back and had been looking forward to it for ages, so she was ready and waiting nice and early.

We walked round to the school, and I dropped Shannon off in the infant playground first of all and saw her go in with her new teacher. Then Jade and I went back round to the junior playground and everybody had already gone in. (Normally they do 'wake and shake' movement to music to wake up their brains first thing, but not this first morning). Anyway I didn't mind the chance to just hold her hand and see her right into the classroom on this first morning. Now she's a Year 5 she goes upstairs to her classroom. So up we went, into her classroom and the teacher welcomed her warmly and pointed out where she was going to sit, next to her friend B. Jade needed to put her backpack on her peg, though, so we were directed back outside the classroom to the cloakroom area, where we left the bag. Then as we headed back towards the classroom, Jade stopped and went all weepy. I gave her a cuddle, lots of reminders of positive self-talk to try and fill her mind with, but she wouldn't go in. After a few minutes I could hear the teacher had finished taking the register and all the children started lining up by the door to go down to assembly. We were very near the door, so I told the teacher that Jade was 'having a bit of a wobble' and the teacher was very kind and calming and said "that's OK, lots of us have a bit of a wobble on the first day back, including the teachers!" She asked Jade if she would be happy to go into assembly, and she nodded, so I went with her at the end of the line back downstairs, and she agreed to go into the hall without me. I indicated I would wait outside as we'd previously agreed. I went and sat in the courtyard for an hour, reading the book I'd brought, and at 10am her teaching assistant came out to me and said Jade was absolutely fine and was happy for me to leave! And she's gone back happily every day since then with no fuss or trouble, I leave her in the playground like every other parent does, and don't go into school at all! She's even done PE, and enjoyed it!

Shannon, on the other hand, loved her first 2 days back, and then last week started to say every morning that she didn't want to go. She only says it before she's actually got out of bed. Once she's up and dressed, she seems quite happy to go. I've tried talking to her on several occasions about what exactly does she not like, but she can't articulate it. If anything, it seems to be playground related possibly - getting used to people not wanting to play games her way, or not being her friend. If it's not that, then it's just that she doesn't want to be out of the house that long, because she frequently says she just wants to be with me all the time. I have spoken to her teacher, who has agreed to keep an eye on things especially in the playground, and who said she was surprised because Shannon is very happy and productive in the classroom. Certainly every day when I pick her up I ask her if she's had a nice day and she says yes. I ask her to tell me what was fun or good and she can usually think of plenty of things. I'm keeping a close eye on what's going on and trying to read between the lines but at the moment I think she is generally happy enough except she doesn't want to get up and dressed and go out in the mornings, and who does?!

Greenbelt 2010

I wasn't sure how my 23rd Greenbelt would be for me. For the first time, I was going completely on my own. Last year, I left Bill and the kids at home, but I knew the Off-the-Pathers would be there and I would be camping with them, even if only seeing them intermittently. This year, nobody else I knew was going, so I would be camping alone as well.

I also dithered about accommodation for a long time. In the past we have always taken our caravan, and last year I drove it there on my own but knew that there would be people to help me unhitch and push it into place. This year there wouldn't be that help, but there were other problems too. The caravan is 28 years old and not all that great any longer. The rooflight leaks and various other things don't work, but the biggest problem of all is that our falling-down garage has just been dismantled, and all the contents stored in various places including in and under the caravan. There was nowhere else to put them if I used the caravan. Our tent is massive, and I certainly can't put it up on my own. In the end, only about 3 days before going, I booked a (rather small!) pre-erected tent through Tangerine Fields. This gave me the blissful situation of not having to try and get there early enough to get near the front of the hours-long queue to get in and get a pitch not too far away from the festival village. In Greenbelts past we have sometimes been a 10-15 minute walk away, which when you've been on your feet all day, or when you want to nip back to your tent to pick up a jacket or umbrella, or grab a sandwich, is really quite a trek.

Arriving this year did present its own difficulties, however. Due to the constant rain of the previous few days, the ground was very wet so only essential vehicles were allowed onto the campsite at Cheltenham Racecourse. This meant that after getting there at about 4.30pm (yes, I really did take my time, seeing as I only live 30 mins drive away!) and waiting in a queue for about 45 mins, I had to park in the main carpark and then carry all my stuff. Seeing as I had everything for camping except the actual tent (airbed, sleeping bag, duvet, stove, washing up bowl, eating stuff, cooking stuff, food, clothes, boots, coats, books) this presented rather a mammoth effort. Fortunately two things helped. One was that Greenbelt run a series of electric golf buggies as taxis round the festival site, and I was able to find that not too far away and leave an ever-growing pile of stuff there as I made trips back and forth from my car to the taxi-stop. Secondly I praised and thanked those wonderful Citroen people who included a little pull-along trolley fitted in the back of the Picasso. This meant I only had to make 4 trips back and forth instead of about 10! Thank God it wasn't actually raining! Nevertheless my arms and shoulders ached rather by the time I was dropped off on the campsite. The next bit of bad news was that, again due to the rain, the taxi had to drop me off about 100 yards away from my tent. Doesn't sound much, but again when carrying that much stuff it took several back and forth trips to get it all there. By this time it was just starting to rain, too. I was shown to my titchy tent which was in a great position only a 30-second walk from the edge of the Festival village and really near a couple of the main venues. Actually if you take a look at this short video, that's where my tent was. Just behind that great big orange tent (from Tangerine Fields, OK?). So very near the action! Anyway, I eventually got all sorted out in my tent (discovered that one of my pillows must have dropped off the taxi trailer on the way round), went and got some food from the Performance Cafe and sat and ate, listened to some wonderful live performances and read my Festival Guide. By then it was about 9pm and I was absolutely and utterly knackered, so I just went back to my tent and went to sleep! I had quite fancied going to see Jude Simpson (stand-up poet, comedian, singer), but she was going to be at the Big Top, there would have been a big queue, and I was just too tired.

I don't really know what happened to Saturday. I still felt tired when I woke up - I do get times like this when I've been busy, busy, busy for a while and then I just crash and barely have the energy for anything for a whole weekend. There wasn't anything I hugely fancied going to in the morning - one possible talk that would have been interesting - but in the end I decided to have an easy relaxing morning in my tent and get going in the afternoon. I ended up falling asleep again and sleeping most of the morning. I had a shower booked for 2.30pm, and so decided to make myself some lunch before going out for that, and then I heard the awesome Beer & Hymns session happening which I had forgotten about (seeing as I was fairly close even in my tent!). It's one of the most popular things at Greenbelt and is always packed out as you will see if you check out the Youtube videos here and here. If church was like that, you'd go a bit more often, wouldn't you?! Me too. Anyway, it was good to hear it even if I wasn't actually there, had my lunch and went off for my shower. Despite being booked for 2.30 I didn't actually get in till about 3pm, and afterwards again there wasn't anything I hugely wanted to go to so I wandered around, going into tents and looking at the shopping stalls. Despite that not sounding very exciting, it is one of the things I love at Greenbelt. The sellers are probably mostly the same people who go to other festivals but I really like the non-fashion, non-High-Street, handmade, alternative clothing. Yeah, me, Mrs Conventionality. But I love that people can wear what they like without being looked down on, that things are usually individually designed, have multi-ethnic influences, etc. It being an arts festival, there are loads of interesting stalls selling art and jewellery and clothing and decorative stuff, you can get temporary tattoos or braids or have a massage, and I just love the whole feel of it. There are also tents from groups like Christian Aid, Tear Fund and YMCA, who put on challenging and thought-provoking interactive displays about the uneven distribution of wealth in the world, hunger and poverty, wars, injustice and present-day slavery. These shake me out of my comfortable white middle-class lethargy, give me a different eye-view on the world and challenge my assumptions about what I can or can't do to make a difference.

So I pottered around, spent a fair while and a bit of money in the book tent (no surprise there then) but just didn't feel motivated to go to any talks, performances or events. I ended up going back to my tent, reading, eating, relaxing, and actually thoroughly enjoying myself just being quiet and on my own. I think I just needed space to unwind.

On Sunday, though, I was determined to get up and get going. First of all I went for a run! This was supposed to be Week 9, where I do 3 x 30 minute runs. The first one I wanted to see if I could do a full 5k, and ran for 34 mins 50 seconds; but the second and this third one on this day I just couldn't seem to manage the full 30 minutes and both times stopped at 25 mins. And I'm supposed to run 10k on 3rd October, yikes!

Anyway, I finished my run a bit later than I intended so was late to get to the Sunday morning communion service. I have often missed this in years past because, although the sight of 20,000 people turning up to a worship service is moving and impressive, the organisers often seem to try and do things in an 'innovative and interesting' way, otherwise known as weird, and for me at least it has often fallen flat. This year was much better. They used well-known songs rather than new untried ones, and kept the whole thing shorter than before. It was good.

Straight after that, I decided to try a talk by Richard Rohr, who is a Franciscan priest from New Mexico. He is the founding director of The Center for Action and Contemplation. He's been at Greenbelt before and seems to be a popular speaker, so I thought I'd go and see why. This talk (one of four) was entitled "The Art of Looking Sideways at Us" (Greenbelt's theme this year was "The Art of Looking Sideways"). The blurb said "The mind thinks it can look at things directly and understand them - which is a very big assumption. There is another way of knowing ourselves and one another that Fr Richard Rohr calls "non dual thinking" or contemplation. He is convinced it is the only possible way to forgive." The queue to see him was very, very long, and I ended up not being able to get in, but I was able to sit outside near the door and mostly hear what he was saying. In essence he was saying that we are all unable to see ourselves clearly, but we are surrounded by mirrors (other people) to help us see ourselves as we really are. And that we need to receive the feedback we get from others and act on it, and also be aware that not only do we not see ourselves truly, but neither do others see themselves truly as well so we need to be as sensitive at dealing with their blind spots as we want them to be with ours. There was a lot more to it than that, but there was a fair amount of noise going on around which made it difficult to hear, and about half-way through it started to rain so I left. It did remind me of my own uncertainty as to whether the 'real me' is the way I think I am, or the way others think I am. I know there is a lot of myself that I do not reveal to most other people, so who's to say that the way that other people see me is the 'real' me? On the other hand, we are all prone to deluding ourselves and avoiding facing the real truth about our motivations and behaviours, so maybe other people do sometimes see us more clearly than we see ourselves. Now that would have been a good debate to have with a crowd of other Greenbelters in the Jesus Arms, had I known anyone to debate with!

After that I went straight to hear John Smith. He is the most amazing man. He's been at Greenbelt several times but not for quite a few years. He is an Australian, biker preacher, founder of the God's Squad Motorcycle Club, similar to Hell's Angels but Christians! He has worked with and mixed with outlaw biker gangs for years. He is an incredibly powerful speaker, highly intelligent, cutting to the heart of 20th/21st century culture and contemporary issues. He lives as powerfully as he speaks, being prepared to put his own life at risk to stand up for justice and truth. Years ago at Greenbelt he totally opened my eyes to what it really means to live a radical faith and to challenge structures and powers that oppress people. He's not well, having prostate cancer at the moment and he definitely wasn't looking too great, but he's lost none of his drive and insight and conviction. Loved it.

From there I went to "Self confidence for women: saying no", led by a life coach. This wasn't as good as I'd hoped it would be, though that could be because my main problem isn't saying 'no', but asking for things that I want. I couldn't really think of anything much I wanted to practise saying 'no' to, except picking up the girls' toys and clothes rather than making them do it, which always feels as though it would take more energy than doing it myself. Anyway, it did get me chatting with a nice woman during the session.

Then Bill and the girls came to visit, as they couldn't bear not to see me for 4 days . To avoid paying a fortune for day tickets we met outside in the car park and I brought some food out and we sat and picnicked and chatted.

At 6.30 I went to hear Janey Lee Grace talk about "Ditch the chemicals: save cash, save your health, save the planet". That was interesting, though a lot of it I knew already, and mostly she talked about the alternatives you can get to conventional cleaners and cosmetics. I think I need to change my shopping habits because although I want to avoid these things, I still usually take the route of least resistance and just buy stuff at the supermarket.

I dashed from there to hear the psychologist Oliver James (author of They F*** You Up and Affluenza) say "It's a mad world". I can't find the notes I took at the moment, but it was along the lines of how rates of mental ill-health are rising rapidly and what to do about it. Apparently those who believe that fame, beauty and possessions are the most important things in life are 5x more likely to be mentally ill than those who have other aims and priorities. He referred to the current education system as being "a disgrace"! I liked that. In brief, he recommended bringing up children along the lines written in "Toxic Childhood" by Sue Palmer - limiting TV, computer games and designer labels, etc.

I then caught a bit of the London Community Gospel Choir on Mainstage, after which I got some food, and called in on my friend who owns the Christian art agency, Veritasse. He always has a large tent display at Greenbelt so it was lovely to see him and chat and catch up on the past year. We were joined by another ex-member of Chipping Campden Baptist Church, so that was fun too.

At 10pm I went to a session of Taize worship. This is always beautiful, quiet, contemplative and peaceful worship. A lovely quiet end to a good day.

On Monday morning I started off at 10am with a workshop on "What Greenbelt means to me". I had thought this would be a big session with loads of people, but walked into a room with only about 10 or 12 participants - yikes! No chance of sitting anonymously at the back and just listening, then, as I had intended. It was really interesting, however. A couple of researchers started a study last year into the meaning and impact that Greenbelt has on people who go, by asking 10 people to keep a journal over the weekend of how they were feeling and responding to what was going on around them at Greenbelt. The researchers introduced the background to the project and read from some people's journals, and lots of themes emerged that rang lots of bells with me. About Greenbelt being almost like a 'tribe' of like-minded people who feel more at home here than anywhere else, and to whom it is an incredibly valuable and important event each year. And how it is a very different 'tribe' than those who attend Spring Harvest or New Wine, which are much narrower and strictly defined events than Greenbelt. Greenbelt attracts a lot of people with very liberal faith views or no faith at all, as well as those with a full church-related Christian faith. I love that debate and diversity. Many of us in the workshop spoke up about our own experiences and were recorded for further use in the research, so who knows, my thoughts and comments may turn up in a research paper or even a book at some time.

By then it was about 11.30, and I didn't have anything else to go to till 2.30, so I decided to do some of the shopping I still wanted to do. I had decided on a bracelet for my niece's birthday, and Bill had asked me to get a big heavy woollen jacket similar to my red one that I had bought at Greenbelt a few years ago, so I went seeking those out. I also bought myself a couple of bracelets, (over-)spending the money my Dad had given me for my birthday, and some more books (oops!). I dropped all the stuff back at the tent and had some lunch and then went off to my next session.

Dave Andrews is another amazing man who lives out his faith in real practical action among the world's poorest and most marginalised people. Check out the website for some of the stuff he's done. It's impressive. He spoke about his "Be the Change" campaign, taking the words of Gandhi that we should "be the change we want to see in the world". It started in a small unassuming way with Dave thinking about and meditating on the Beatitudes (Be-Attitudes, he calls them) that Jesus spoke of and deciding to live them out in his own life. His daughter told him she "liked the person he was being now", one thing led to another and the word got out, and it turned into a major campaign. Check out - it's interesting. As the website says, "Many of us desperately want to change our world. But it is an illusion to think we can change anybody else but ourselves. The truth is that we cannot change them - we can only change ourselves. We need to remember the alternate version of the Serenity Prayer, and repeat it regularly: “Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, the courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know it is me!”

After that, it was time for a bit of light relief, so I headed off to Mainstage for Sing-a-Long-a-Grease. That was great fun! Grease is the only film I've ever been to see at the cinema more than once - when it first came out and I was a spotty teenager I went 3 times, and know all the words off-by-heart of course.

Then, there was a talk about challenging the over-commercialisation of childhood. More scary statistics about the number of adverts and product placements and sponsorship ads that our children see and the targeting of children by advertisers and marketers which goes against the code of practice they're supposed to adhere to. The campaign website is at www.byebuychildhood.org though there's not much there at the moment until the campaign is properly launched in a couple of weeks.

Next I went over to Mainstage again to catch a bit of Jars of Clay, a band I've heard a lot about but never actually heard so I thought I'd check them out. Thought they were OK but not amazing. Later I saw a poster suggesting that the line-up had been rearranged and Jars of Clay hadn't played till later on. I wonder who I'd watched then? Wish I'd seen the real thing!

Then I caught the second half of a talk by Pip Wilson entitled "Sometimes the Cheese is falling off our Cracker". I have no idea what that title meant - here is the rest of the blurb. "We all need tools in our life toolbox for the times we are sharp with the ones we love or for 'difficult' relationships at work. Level 5 is a tool, a skill to have ready for emotional moments. It is about managing emotions and learning the ability to avoid regrettable outbursts. A workshop to get tooled up." I missed the first half, and joined while people were getting into groups of 3. I joined an older lady and a young man and we joined in the exercises of practising talking and listening at different levels. Level 1 is cliche or small talk. Level 2 is fact. Level 3 is opinion. Level 4 is feelings. Level 5 is total, uncompromising honesty. Unfortunately Levels 1-4 took too long and we didn't have time for a proper discussion of Level 5, which is what the thing was supposed to be about. So I still don't have a new tool in my toolbox except for realising the obvious of talking about something with others at the level of total openness and honesty. Of course, he may have explained a great deal more during the first bit that I missed. Fortunately talks can be bought and downloaded from the Greenbelt website if desired.

After that I went off to a 'musical comedy showcase' with the lovely Jude Simpson referred to earlier, the Rev. Gerald Ambulance and Jenny Lockyer. There was more but I had to leave to catch my final appointment for the evening. Jude Simpson was great, the other two not so much, but I still enjoyed my one comedy gig of the weekend.

Finally, I went to a film called "Grizzly Man", a film about a strange man called Timothy Treadwell who lived among the grizzly bears in Alaska for 13 summers and was eventually killed by one. Interesting and strange.

So that was my Greenbelt. I would have preferred to spend it with other people I knew around. I want plenty of you reading this to book for next year, so that there are people I can meet at the Tiny Tea Tent, chat over breakfast with and chill in the Performance Cafe with. Even if you have no Christian faith you can have a good time at Greenbelt. But even without other people, I still had an amazing, inspiring and challenging time, and I wouldn't miss it for the world. I have already booked my ticket for next year while they're at the cheapest price. See you there?

June 22nd

I wish, on this date every year, I didn't keep checking the clock, remembering what was happening at this moment x years ago. This year x = 11. It was in the evening when it all started to go wrong. The nagging thoughts that had me tense all afternoon, grew larger and louder, until, after Bill got home, we decided to take Benjamin to the hospital in Birmingham to get him checked out. Well, we never got there. And ever since then, on 22nd June, I have spent the daytime thinking, "well, here we are on June 22nd, and I'm fine!", and then the sun starts to go down and the shadows lengthen and the feelings grow and I don't want to remember but I can't help it.