On Saturday, after ballet, Joy and I had a girly afternoon in Hebden, hot cocoa and fudge cake in Coffee Aroma, which is a real cafe, not an organic vegan cous-cous bar. I had to resisit the huge temptation to have a coffee, due to my homeopathy, opting for a nice pot of tea instead. And they put crisps with the salad!
We wandered round the charity shops, bumping into friends and chatting. She got some horsey reading books and some new Hello Kitty pyjamas. On the way back the muscovies were perched photogenically on the mill dam behind Bridge Mill. (who says they don't form lasting couples?- these 2 are always togther).
On Friday I bumped in to the Health Visitor. I was just doing a spot of house-hunting, (as you do,); Freddie was crying his head off, "I don't want to go in there" and it was really windy and blowing us all about. So I just smiled and said "hello" and she just said "O dear". I used to quite get on with the HV, but now I see her as a potential agent for reporting the boys as being lost or 'missing children' under the government's Every Child Matters Scheme. Fergus is not registered as being home educated, which, of course, just won't do when they try to bring in the monitoring and control over HE. This will never work, but will cause us loads of hassle and having to, at least have the apperance of jumping through hoops. I think I will be able to cope with it because I have a degree in hoop-jumping, I just hope it doesn't put people off. Most people I speak to, who aren't familiar with home-ed actually seem really shocked when they find out there is no compulsary monitoring at the moment.
Anyway, I was thinking all this paranoia is possibly having an effect on my behaviour. I mean I didn't scuttle off and hide from the HV, but I might now think twice about accessing health care and other services, which might add the children's names to more lists, and would make it easier for them to be included on the database. And it wouldn't take them long to find us (yes, they are talking about knocking on people's doors and asking what educational provision the 'lost children' have.) The HV found us after we moved house, by noticing what kind of things we had in the garden (gnome gardens-on-a-plate, made at the Steiner Kindergarten, were a dead giveaway!).
Last night I went round to my friend Emma's house, which is next to the village pub, so we ended up bumping into a few more people; it was nice to have chance to talk, after fleeting conversations during busy days with the kids. Emma has been listening to some web radio stations, which was nice to be reminded of, as well as looking at travel blogs. I'm now listening to Folk Off, which I had found lying about and had (incorrectly) assumed to have arrived from one of Brendan's obscure record collector/music dealer friends, by way of payment for web sevices. I have also tried, without success, to enroll on a music sharing website belonging to an old, old friend of mine, or is that a friend of an old friend, or old friend of a friend? (O no, I'm not getting into that one again!)
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