sorry for going awol..

.. as some of you will know it's because I have been quite ill since March. I had some gynae health problems which meant that teaching the kids has been impossible. Heck, getting up has been impossible. It was a really tough time, unfortunately, I have been really scared and shaken up as I have never had anything wrong with me in my life before other than the odd cold and cough. I have struggled through it as best I can but education wise there's not much to report, Rich has had to be at work most of the time while I was suffering so couldn't really help in that respect, it's been a case of surviving with our heads above water with no energy for anything else.. We've made sure they've been reading every day and writing as much as poss and we've been watching a lot of National Geographic stuff but that's really all I have managed. I feel horrendously guilty about the whole thing tbh :-( this wasn't what we signed up for - it was meant to be a better way of learning for them and instead they have completely lost any self discipline to learn that they had. Cal in particular is being difficult because he's just not being stimulated enough for the past few months. I feel pants about it but there's nothing else I could have done, you know? It's just me and Rich doing the practical applications of this and it seems that if one of us is ill then the whole thing just crumbles.

Anyway. On the positive side Issy's reading is slowly improving so it seems, I did a reading age test with her and she got 5 yrs 11 mths and she's 5yrs 3 mths, so it's not brilliant but not bad either. My health is much better all round, I have a good pill that I am taking that seems to have resolved my problems and I'm eating lots better which means I have lost a stone, only another 3 to go.. lol. But I am trying to feel positive and look at it from the POV that had I been ill and the kids were at school I would not have been physically able to take them and pick them up each day - which would have concerned the school and social services would have been on the door step, so every cloud...

Hoping that that is the end of it anyway, and we are in the planning stages of a new strategy which may involve Cal going back into school in September, a place has become available at an excellent Catholic school close to my house and I am thinking I may need to surrender my anti faith schools principles. I will do whatever I have to do for him to do well and the head seems to be a decent sensible man. You cannot argue with the Ofsted report anyway..We shall see, I suppose. I have a few tricks up my sleeve on a personal level too that may involve a massive shake up for the whole family... but again I won't say too much now because I am wary of jinxing it.

Anyhow, I shall keep you updated as soon as I know what the heck is going on chez moi.

Much love, Rach xxx