Home-Ed Group Monday...

And what a fabulous Monday it has been :)
Our weekend was quiet, tinged with the sad but happy goodbye of my parents - sad that they were going back to Spain, happy that they have a new life that they seem to be very much enjoying over there.  We said our farewells on Saturday, as they were catching an early ferry on Sunday - I have so loved seeing them again.

On to today.

I organised a meeting to a local park for our home-education group.  It was a little selfish of me really as the park is only a 10 minute drive away, but I wanted to stay close to home so I didn't have a frantic panic and early start - getting 5 children ready to leave the house before lunchtime is going to take some practice! :)

This morning worked to plan though :)  We were up and out by the planned time of 10am, which gave us time for a quick supermarket shop and petrol fill up.  We arrived at the park for 10.45am ready for the 11am start time.  I knew there were 3 new families expected to show up today and it was important to me that we were there on time to make a good impression - the thought of 'new to the group' HErs wandering around aimlessly waiting for a welcome fills me with dread.

Anyway, I'm rambling on as per usual - you guys are used to that by now I'm sure :)

Regular group members arrived, Taisia was much adored and cooed over, and hugs were exchanged.  I really felt as if I had been away from the group for far too long - even though Taisia is only 3 weeks old. The new families appeared and were so lovely! It seemed as if they just fitted in to the group nicely, it was a real pleasure to meet them. All in all around 31 adults and children showed up. Not bad for a park meeting on a chilly November day, particularly as there were 5 'usual' families sadly missing from the day.  The weather was very kind to us, blue skies and sunshine, but it did certainly remind us that Winter is on it's way as there was a real nip in the air.  The children kept themselves warm by playing on the playground equipment or walking around chatting. I think all of the new children were made to feel welcome, they certainly seemed to slot right in amongst the regulars - something I very much like to see :)

After a couple of hours of relaxed play and "social" time, we all headed off for a walk around the lake. Oh how lucky we are to live so close to such a beautiful place. This is one sight that greeted us...

Aren't the autumnal colours just beautiful?

We really enjoyed our community trek...

**I don't think that anyone is easily recognisable from the photos here, but if you are present in the picture and feel uncomfortable that it is shared here, please let me know and I will remove it.**

The sunshine shone through the trees and made the colours of the leaves (and children) look so pretty...

and we enjoyed watching the graceful swans and other wildfowl on the lake...

Once home I had a lovely message from one of the new families saying that they had enjoyed meeting everyone and thanking us for being 'such a lovely group' - I'm always pleased to receive such nice feedback as it means that we are doing something right!   I am very much looking forward to seeing everyone again very soon, we are well and truly back to our routine again.

I'm supposed to be making Chelsea's birthday cake instead of typing this, but my head is hurting (tiredness headache through lack of sleep), so I'm going to be decorating the cake in the morning - the base cakes are made, so they just need a bit of artistic creativity now to make them look like I envisage them to.  Wish me luck, photo will appear on here tomorrow...