“Learn something new. Try something different. Convince yourself that you have no limits.”

 

It kind of felt like 2020 was going to go out in exactly the same grey and stagnant way that it has been festering the entire year. I know I shouldn't moan, we're all going through this but having a mass of other rubbish thrown in to the mix was making this year one I was desperate to put behind us. Even without the lockdown madness this time of year has been a testing time for Opeie, shrouded by a mix of emotions and upset. I tried so hard the last couple of years to make 'Christmas' fun again but with no joy, so this year we talked and said 'no more!'. If this year has taught us anything it's shown us what is actually important and also what ever we decide to do (even if it doesn't fit in with other peoples views)... its okay. 

So instead of 'Christmas' this year we have decided to have a celebration of our favourite little creatures 'Beetles', With the build up being filled with beetle related creative activities to decorate the house 'our way'. We've been busy doing all sorts but my favourite thing so far has been decorating the wall in the LEGO room with a series of hanging beetles. This really got us pumped about the upcoming festivities.

What has really made this for me is how much it has taken the strain off of Opeie and has given him the chance to see the end of the year in a different light. This morning he said 'Dad, I'm so excited about Beetlemas!'... and that is all I needed to hear to feel like we are taking control of 2020 again.

"Passion surprises. One doesn't search it. It can happen to you tomorrow."

Day 101-102:

Yesterday seemed to fly by and I didn't take a single photo so I'm lazily adding these two days together. Last year we visited Attingham park a few times around this time of year in search of the Lesser stag for Opeies photo collection of found beetles. Each visit we came away with some photos of some interesting new beetles but sadly never the Lesser stag. As we walked home yesterday through the woodland near us, we turned over logs looking for beetles and there she was, sitting there waiting for a photo. I love how things like this can really make our day and we can now cross off Lesser stag from our list. Next up... we still haven't found Opeie's favourite, the elusive violet ground beetle.

"To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it."

Day 83:

I don't know what we'd do if it wasn't for all the creativity in the house, it seems like we are always drawing and painting these days. Since becoming a single dad the evenings have always been the hardest for me and this whole lockdown thing has just magnified that. That feeling of being alone and disconnected is horrible. sketching has been a huge way of taking my attention off of that and has helped to keep me in a much more positive headspace. It's been great to look back on all the things we have created and I look forward to putting it all into a fun photo diary for Opeie to look back on. 

"Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you."

Day 64:

It was one of those rare occasions today where I found myself actually having a bit of time to myself as Opeie happily played with his friends online for a couple of hours. My first thought was 'clean the house?' yeah right! I grabbed a coffee, the watercolours and some music and sat on my bed with the windows opened and painted my do-over for the piece I wasn't happy with yesterday for the #creativelockdownproject word 'bugs'. The word made me think of an afternoon cycling up the Long mynd when we spotted some Bloody-nosed beetles for our ongoing beetle collection. I bloody love beetles!

"Well, I, happened to... Find me a buggy Coming out from under a rock in the grass, yeah..."

Day 60:

Im not really sure why but I seem to attract shield bugs, they seem to find me and then just hang around. Todays little chap landed on me while I was painting on the trampoline. He did his thing and I took some pictures and then put him down on the ground and moved to paint over on the garden sofa. The cutie followed me and landed on my watercolour palette before finding its way back onto my hand. I like to think that it knew all about our love of beetles and just wanted to join the club and get a bit of attention. Nature is amazing!

"A painting in a museum hears more ridiculous opinions than anything else in the world."

When we started the home ed back up at the start of the month, I had every intention of having a museum week but sadly something happened and it completely threw me. So last week we decided it was time to start making up for that and decided to visit Derby Museum and Art Gallery. I love a museum that grabs your attention straight away and the Natural history section of the museum was pretty much all we needed for a perfect afternoon of visual education.

We can pretty much rate a museum on the amount of beetles we find there and this one did not let us down. Opeie loves Coleoptera displays where he can see his beloved beetles up close. 

After having a look around we fluttered our eyelashes at the front desk and asked whether they would mind us painting while we were there. We've gone ahead and painted without asking in places before and people can be really funny. They were more than happy to let us get arty so we found a nice spot to get set up and let our creative juices flow. Museums and Art galleries are usually quiet but this place was so peaceful. We were both fully relaxed as we painted in perfect surroundings.

It's afternoons like this that really reinforce the decision to home-ed. learning visually in a relaxed environment and at a Childs pace is what education should be. Opeie can take what he wants from a visit like this and the both of us probably came away learning something completely different from each other. It's always important to end a day of learning on a high and it was all smiles as we left Derby. Time to plan our next museum trip.

"Where oils lumber... watercolours prance."

With the last 15 months being like an emotional rollercoaster, it's been really difficult at times to properly relax and get myself (and Opeie) into a good, clear headspace. When you're dealing with a heartbroken kid its hard to think about anything else. Ive been doing my best to keep us both entertained though and have been really surprised at some of the things we have found to relax.

We've always been an arty pair, always creating something and we've used so many different mediums over the years,  I've always avoided watercolour though out of fear. I know that sounds absolutely ridiculous but I was 110% confident in the fact that I couldn't produce something I was proud of and because of that I held Opeie back too (naughty daddy), until now.

With a little creative guidance from someone that knows what they are talking about we found ourself a few weeks back sat at a desk with paper taped down and paints and brushes at the ready. It turns out that painting is one of the most relaxing activities (after LEGO of course) that we could have been doing and definitely nothing to be afraid of. 

There is something so satisfying about experimenting with colours and then turning the experiment into something fun. I can quite easily get a little lost in the activity, which recently I feel pretty thankful for.

Opeie has really been getting into the beetles too but he's also been having fun with colour mixing and creating galaxies (as you can see he's a bit of a Doctor Who fan). I love seeing him get into creative ventures like this, its nice to see him concentrating on something so positive and activities like this are really good for the soul.  

So thanks for the tips, sitting with us and taking the edge off of my watercolour fear, you know who you are. 💜

"Little things make big days"

There really is never a dull day in our house, we always seem to be doing some random activity or out looking for adventure. For all the fun that we have though there are always those random days here and there that stand out from the rest and today was one of those days. What seemed like forever ago, when we read the first of M.G. Leonard's books (Beetle boy) our whole world was opened up to to the fascinating world of Coleoptera. I can honestly say that I had never given beetles a second thought, I barely even noticed them, but those first few chapters changed everything for Opeie (and myself) and in no time at all it had made us so much more aware of the things that are around us.

The second installment of the story (Beetle Queen) was released and we were hooked, becoming more and more interested in beetles and why they are so important to the natural world. I had been so desperate for Opeie to take a real interest in something and this was it, so it became the driving force for a lot of the things we were doing with his home education. 

By the time the third and final book came out for the Beetle boy trilogy (Battle of the beetles), We could be found many times a week crawling around in the woods, turning over rotten logs and rummaging through leaf piles, it had become a way of life. We have a beetle hunting kit (which we take out everywhere), we stopped cutting our grass in the back garden and gathered rotten logs so the beetles had somewhere to live and the house became a shrine to all things beetle, with decorations and themed furniture everywhere.

When the forth book (The Beetle Collector's Handbook) had been released we had got to the point in our beetle loving lives where we were in farmers fields breaking up pooh looking for Dung beetles, I guess you could say that we had fully embraced Opeie's main interest and honestly, I was loving every minute of it.

We owed a lot to the hero Darkus and his amazing transgenic beetle Baxter, but more so to their creator and Opeie was desperate to meet her. The magic of this generation means that we were able to chat to her occasionally via social media which was awesome and we hoped that at some point that she would be book signing somewhere over our way in Shropshire. It was a long shot but we were patient. While we waited for this encounter to happen we continued our Coleoptera adventure, attending Entomology events, visiting museums and even spending an afternoon with a Dung beetle specialist in Oxford (which was really interesting). We made a list of all the places we wanted to visit and at the top of that list was Dr Beynons bug farm over in Pembrokeshire. The plan was to visit over the summer but then...

It was like a dream come true for Opeie, His favourite author at Dr beynons, Suddenly it was all systems go, Opeie was going to meet his hero and there was so much excitement surrounding the event. We tweeted Maya and let her know that we were coming to meet her finally and to have her pen ready to sign Opeie's books. The plan was to take Opeie's beetle book that he has been creating as part of his home schooling to show her so that she could see what a huge inspiration she has been to him. 

As we pulled into Dr Beynons Bug Farm on the morning of the visit another car followed us in, it wasn't until we were getting our things together ready for the visit that we realised it was Maya and her family. Opeie was in complete awe and just watched her walk by with his mouth open, Starstruck. 

Not wanting to pounce on her from the get go we spent a couple of hours looking around the bug farm, it was full of interesting information and some beautiful beetles including the Rainbow Stag Beetle which Opeie has decided he would really love as a pet.

The talk by Maya and Sarah was awesome and hearing Maya read an extract from the book in her very flamboyant way must have made my bedtime reading seem really dull, she really drew us in with how she saw the characters personalities. After the talk we waited for all the other visitors to chat and get their books signed and then it was our time to pounce. Opeie was in his element and I was feeling pretty excited for him. We chatted beetles and both Maya and Sarah read through Opeie's beetle book and seemed genuinely impressed by the work he has been doing, Sarah even requested a copy of his beetle poem to display somewhere in the beetle farm which is really exciting.

It was one of those days that was just filled with pure happiness. 

By the time we got home we were exhausted, it was one of the most fun days out we had ever had and as Opeie drifted off to sleep the huge smile on his face said it all. There must be something so satisfying when your heroes actually turn out to be heroes in real life and Maya is as super as they come.

Bringing back the festive cheer, with a Coleoptera Christmas.

Its crazy to think about how much I was dreading this Christmas. The run up to what should have been one of the most amazing days of the year for the boys was clouded with negativity, with both boys saying "I wish Christmas wasn't happening this year!". I can't believe what an absolute disaster this year has been. With so much going on in the boys and my own head its no surprise that they were feeling the way they were. Seth point blank refused to write a Christmas list and Opeie wrote a heartbreaking letter to Santa explaining how much he had been let down this year. So the Christmas lists were put on hold. I boycotted advent calendars this year (clearly they didn't need the Christmas countdown) and I concentrated on what should always be the most important part of the festive period, being around the ones that love you and embracing festive activities together.

Despite all the doom and gloom I was pretty confident that with some serious effort I could pull it back. So at the start of December I decided to blow off the homeschooling and spend the month concentrating on Opeies emotional well being. I arranged lots of meet ups with friends and we filled December with Christmas crafts, tailoring this years Christmas celebrations with his main interest, Beetles! It's crazy to think that this love of beetles started with us reading Beetle boy together.  I have loved fully embracing this new passion of his.

While Opeie had his friends round one afternoon, me and my bestie Helen sat drinking coffee and making snow flakes for the window. After a crash course on how to make them (with a few disastrous outcomes) we were soon sitting there chatting away cutting out beetle themed snowflakes to cover the windows in the house.

Having to pretty much start the Christmas decoration collection from scratch again this year actually ended up being a good thing as we could give the tree the beetle makeover that it needed. Thanks to a special someone we ended up with glittery beetle decorations and opeie used his big dung beetle for the top of the tree. we finished it off with brown (dung) baubles too. It definitely suited our more Coleoptera loving sides.

One of the things I was really stressing about this year was the stockings as Opeie was unsure which house Santa would take our usual stockings to and it was something that was really upsetting him. Luckily though, it turns out that I am Santa, is pretty slick with a needle and thread and didn't let us down this Christmas when we came downstairs on Christmas morning and found fancy new beetle stockings hanging up for us, even Rose got a mini one full of little treats. It really added to the excitement and Opeie was all smiles.

We filled the house with Grinch themed paper chains, we made a gingerbread house, mince pies and basically jam packed our December with family fun. by the time we had reached Christmas Eve the magic was back and we ended up having the most amazing Christmas morning, which just goes to show that a little effort and creativity can go a long way. With Christmas out of the way it's time to start working on making 2019 the most fun it can be and I'm thinking the beetles are going to be playing a huge part in that.

Happy new year all.

"Read enough about the dung beetle, and a picture of its character emerges: patient, optimistic, uncomplaining."

Home educating Opeie has really helped me embrace our day to day adventures and I couldn't be happier with how it's turning out. Over the last few years I have been regularly reminded that you never know what is around the corner and some of our home ed days out have taken some pretty amazing and surprising turns. Last week we ended up on an unexpected trip to Oxford, as our friend Charlotte was dropping off some of her amazing work at the Ashmoleon. The plan was to have a look around the museum, visit the natural history museum and then the Pitt rivers museum too (pretty awesome day out I thought, little did we know where the day would take us).

The Ashmoleon was fab and was a great help for Opeie's current Egypt project. We spent a good couple of hours taking it all in. Opeie was pretty eager to get to the natural history museum though and who could blame him, our last visit had been such a great day out and Opeie and his friends had found it fascinating. We'd only been in the museum 5 minutes when we noticed a chap with a tray of beetles, as expected Opeie was super excited so we went over for a chat. Darren had us completely mesmerised from the moment he started talking. An expert in all things 'Dung beetle' and so passionate about his field, I think we could have sat and listened to him all day. I love a 'come on! lets sit on the floor and chat' kind of person too.

Darren had me and Charlotte standing in the middle of the museum pretending to be trees as he explained why dung beetles were so important and Opeie loved every minute of it. I asked him where the best place would be to go and see a large Coleoptera collection and he said 'Here!' then continued to explain just how many beetles they had behind the scenes. Thats when he said 'Meet me at the main doors in 20 minutes and I'll take you backstage and show you some beetles', well it was like Christmas from that point. Opeie was so excited, I was trying to stay calm but was doing cartwheels inside and Charlotte had picked up on us nerdy boys getting into it and was loving it all too.

Darren took us to his office and showed Opeie some beetles under his pretty impressive microscope and even had Opeie help him identify some of the beetles that had been sent to him using an extensive collection of books on dung beetles from around he world. This is the sort of thing that would never haver happened so organically had it not have been for home ed, and being in the museum midweek. It was lovely to take a step back and watch Darren really take the time to talk to Opeie and explain in detail what it was that he does and how he got to where he was, with stories from his own childhood and his interest in beetles.

One of the things that really stuck out for me was when Darren told Opeie that he hadn't really done very well at uni but his passion for Dung beetles got him to where he was. From a home ed point of view that really summed up how I feel about Opeie's education. Ive always said from day one that if theres one thing that I want Opeie to come away with from this, its a passion for something, whatever it is. When I left school I had no passion or motivation for anything because not a single thing had inspired me.

After identifying some interesting beetles Darren took is further into the backstage area of the museum to where there were an insane amount of cabinets full of beetles. From the always impressive Goliath beetle to a beetle that was the size of a pinhead, it was fascinating and I would love an afternoon there going through each and every cabinet looking at each tray of beetles. This for me was the Most perfect (and unexpected) home ed day.

As we left, Darren gave Opeie his card and said that if he ever wanted to chat about beetles or if he was struggling to identify one then we could email, which I thought was so kind. After such an amazing visit to the museum we wanted to do something to say thank you. Opeie wanted to write a letter and Charlotte (absolutely loving being a part of a home ed adventure) asked Opeie to draw a beetle picture so that she could print it onto a travel mug at her studio to send to Darren as a surprise.

A gift from us wouldn't be a gift without immortalising the awesome chap in LEGO, a full on team effort by the three of us. Complete with a dung beetle and ball of pooh to roll around. I'm not sure that all of Darren's talk of rummaging through pooh has got Opeie to that point in his beetle loving adventure yet, but his passion and excitement has definitely pushed him that little bit further.

"The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough."

I love the build up to the boys birthdays, I get so excited about all the prepping. When I asked Opeie what he wanted to do for his birthday this year, that little beetle lover of mine wanted nothing more than to take his friends to the butterfly farm in Stratford-upon-avon, after a very exciting visit last year. Our previous visit was one of those days out that will stay with him for a long long time and that was all down to the interesting and very well educated staff. So it was no surprise really that he would want to go again and share the magic with his friends.

Our previous visit was a dreary and wet day but this time the sun was out and it was amazing to see the difference in the butterflies as they seemed so much more active with the sun shining through the roof. One of the things I love most about the butterfly farm is that the excitement begins as soon as you walk through the doors to the butterfly area. Within a minute each of the kids had a new friend land on them and that was pretty much all they needed to kick start an amazing visit.

One thing that always sticks out when visiting is the interesting and friendly staff that work there.  These guys are so full of amazing informative information and from a home education point of view this is priceless. Mark took us through all of the stages of a butterflies life cycle, pointed out lots of different types of butterflies and answered every question we could throw at him. This visit was a little more exciting too as the kids were able to handle the giant stick insects, millipede's and other fun creatures from the Mini beasts area.

I could spend hours at the butterfly farm, happily sat on a bench with a sketch book, doodling as people walk around in awe of all the beautiful butterflies fluttering by. Being able to bring Opeie's friends along too was a lovely experience for him as many of our visits to various places has just been the 2 of us, so it was nice to share the fun that we have with other Home-Ed children. If you are out for a day trip to Stratford-Upon-Avon then we cant recommend the Butterfly farm enough. I'm sure it wont be long before Opeie wants to visit again. Another truly amazing visit to a place that's full of magic.

"These beetles are amazing. They're special. Spend some time with them, and you'll see."

I feel so lucky to be homeschooling Opeie every single day, our days are filled with adventure and there is something to learn around every corner.  There are an endless amount of resources throughout the UK and we are doing our best to make the most of all the ones that we find relevant to Opeie's interests at the time. During the early days, I would panic about child-led learning, worried that I wasn't covering things that needed to be covered but I would always come back to a thought of being around 8-years-old, fascinated by a dinosaur project that we were doing at school that only lasted a couple of days. The project ended and it was never touched upon again and I was so disappointed, I don't want that for Opeie, his interests are so important to us.

Opeie's current interest is 'beetles', thanks to our friend Jamie buying the boys a copy of 'Beetle Boy'. Jamie worked with the author M.G. Leonard and had written inside the cover that she was "Beetle Mad". So it quickly became the book that I was reading to Opeie (we always have at least one big book on the go). Not only did it kickstart his new love of Beetles but the story had us both hooked from the first few pages.

We inevitably started our own beetle hunt and managed to find a few but none that matched up to Baxter the intelligent Rhinoceros beetle in the story. What was awesome, was that when we struggled to find the name of a beetle we had found, we contacted M.G. Leonard online and she got straight back to us with the answer we were looking for. In Opeie's words "she's amazing!"

To continue our hunt for the ultimate beetle it was time to take our beetle hunt on the road and while searching online for a suitable place to visit I was greeted by a place I remember as a child. I have fond memories of sitting on the bank of the river Avon in Stratford-Upon-Avon, picnicking on the grassy area, a stone's throw from The Stratford-Upon-Avon Butterfly farm. They have a Mini-beast Metropolis which I took to be a sign, so that is where we planned our next beetle adventure. 

There is something quite magical about being in a room that is filled with butterflies. Everywhere we looked, there were beautiful colourful wings fluttering by and it was quite the experience for Opeie. We learned all about the tiny scales on their wings and how they fed on nectar, it was great to see so many different varieties. As stunning as the butterflies were though, we were there for another (more important reason).

Before we could got to the Mini-beast Metropolis though we were greeted by Mark who had been described to us as the "Beetle Nerd" and most definitely lived up to his name. Not only did he talk us through the beetles they had on show but he also showed us behind the scenes at the Larvae and the Pupa which was very exciting for Opeie and fro an educational viewpoint this was as good as it gets. We even got to see and learn about the outer shell created by the pupa from soil and secretion. It was fascinating to see, and Mark made it all even more interesting, the guy really knew his stuff.

The star of the show for us was definitely the Goliath beetle, as big and awesome as he was though, Opeie informed me that "he's still not as big as the Titan beetle, they can grow to the size of a big ruler! they are my favourite". Another amazing homeschool outing thanks to the Stratford-Upon-Avon Butterfly farm and their staff, education through experience is what it's all about. Next on our beetle adventure is to find somewhere we can see both a Titan and a Rhinoceros beetle. (if you are reading this and know of somewhere in the UK let us know on Twitter @pirategifts).

Who knows, Entomology maybe something that Opeie goes into later in life, it would be so exciting to be able to look back at all these things and know that this is where it all started.