"If you try to knock me you'll get mocked. I'll stir fry you in my wok. Your knees'll start shakin' and your fingers pop, Like a pinch on the neck of Mr. Spock"

Day 42:

Today Ive definitely been feeling a little more myself which has made the day so much easier. Getting out for a nice walk this morning really cleared my head (which I definitely needed). Todays word on our #creativelockdownproject was 'Intergalactic', Opeie wasn't feeling it so I went it alone today and created this Watercolour galaxy collage. The daily creative project is giving me something positive to focus on each day and its good to have that little nudge to get me creating.

"Creativity is contagious, pass it on."

Day 28:

Most days we have no problems keeping ourselves fully entertained but recently this self isolation craziness has started to take it's toll. The last couple of days, every now and again we've both been a little fed up but its to be expected so we're doing all sorts to try and keep a positive head about us. Today we started a 30 day creative isolation project where each day someone is nominated to come up with a word and everyone involved has to create something around that word. Todays word was 'Spider' so this morning was taken up creating cute spiders made from printing with a sliced up toilet roll tube. If it hadn't have been for this today I think we'd have probably spent the morning staring at the walls.

Stay creative peeps, it really does help. 

"Some people don't like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster."

Day 10:

It would be so easy during these insanely weird times to just lose all hope and fall into a deep emotional pit of stress and worry, and although the last few weeks have affected me deeply (as they have most of us), I'm doing my best to say 'NO!' We need to focus on the love and the laughter. Like eating S'mores with a beard and giving no fluffs about the mess I'm leaving as I eat. This is the new world now people and we need to embrace it or we'll lose our minds.

"Be Excellent to each other, and Party on Dudes!"

Day 8:

It will no doubt be one of the weirdest birthdays that Opeie is going to experience with everything that's going on in the world at the moment but I wanted him to feel just as special when he woke up this morning. Its crazy that 9 years have flown by this quickly and although I clearly didn't envision us spending it in isolation, he's had a pretty lovely day. Despite the current situation the only thing that was missing was him being able to spend it with his friends. As I write this though I can hear him downstairs playing online with his besties, So I'm pretty thankful for technology today.

Also I'm looking forward to the cake.

"Creativity doesn't wait for that perfect moment. It fashions its own perfect moments out of ordinary ones."

Day 6:

During these crazy confusing times its really important to keep busy, if we don't I think many of us (especially the creative folk) will start to wilt very quickly. We've been concentrating on the creative side of things the most while we've been shut away, as the satisfaction that you get from completing a project or producing a piece (no matter how small) can fill you with all those happy vibes.

We've recently started a couple of online drawing classes and todays character illustration was just what we needed for a self isolation pick-me-uk.

Keep creating people, I think we're going to see some amazing pieces of work off the back of this pandemic and its going to be amazing to see. 

"The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind."

Day 3:

Ive not been in the greatest headspace today but the sunshine has really dragged me through it. After  a peaceful walk this morning with Becci and the boys, Opeie and I spent the remainder of the afternoon sitting in the garden building LEGO. I think those magical bricks may just help us through all of this.

If you are doing your part and staying home then stay creative, there's real magic in letting those creative juices flow. 

"Instead of hate, celebrate."

Day 2:

 I'd like to think that what is happening in the world at the moment will make people take a step back and look at how they have been acting towards people in their lives. As heartbreaking as this situation is it could also be a turning point for fixing those relationships that don't need to be volatile.

It's also important to really make the most of days like mothers day to celebrate and remind us that although dark, its not all bad.

Happy Mothers day all.

"Do we need distance to get close?"

I've been finding it harder and harder to write over the last few months for various reasons and it has really been getting on my nerves. The world seems to be going to shit and its been taking my motivation and confidence with it. So in an attempt to get my juices flowing and continue documenting our journey for the boys I'm going to post one picture a day to get us through this slump and give us that little bit of sunshine for these dark times. 

Todays picture is from Titterstones Clee, clearly not practising social distancing from each other but doing our best to keep our distance from others. It was one of those days that was good for the soul and we all really needed it. 

Stay safe people.

"A work of art is above all an adventure of the mind."

I like to try and make the most of our days in full, it doesn't always happen because at times life just gets in the way but making the most of our time together is really important to me . Its so easy to fall into that headspace of getting to a certain point of the day and deciding that there's no point going out, especially this time of year when the weather is cold and wet. 

After an afternoon out with Opeie's home ed friends on Friday we got home, packed our paints, pens and Becci 😂 and headed over to one of our favourite hideaway spots for an evening of creativity while watching the sun go down. We backed the car up to the edge of the hillside at Titterstones, dropped the seats, opened the boot and we had the perfect relaxing view to accompany a creative mind. 

Nights like this are perfection and are everything we need as a family for calm and clear headspace.

“Crackers!” said Dumbledore enthusiastically, offering the end of a large silver noisemaker to Snape, who took it reluctantly.”

Home ed has gone out the window a little this week, and we've decided to focus the week on Christmas craft. If I'm honest we were in the Christmas wind down zone a couple of weeks back and it seems like all our other Home Ed buddies are feeling the same. With a list of things that Opeie wants to make he decided to kick off the week with home made Christmas crackers for the tree. I disappeared upstairs looking for patterned paper to use and while rummaging I found some Doctor who magazines that had the perfect pages in to make Christmas crackers fit for a Timelord.

Becci had brought Opeie a selection of cardboard tubes round over the last few weeks (that boy loves a cardboard tube). So we cut one of the tubes down so that we could support the main body of the crackers, folded the ends of the paper and cut in diamonds into the fold for where the ribbon would be tied. Then we unfolded and rolled the paper around the tube (nice and easy).

We had picked up a roll of Harry Potter wrapping paper a few days back that Opeie had spotted in a shop and as soon as we started making the crackers he told me that he wanted to make the hats with that, So much better than the hats that you usually get in crackers.

Opeie had the time of his life writing the jokes (which obviously I wasn't allowed to see) so I'll be looking forward to hearing those on Christmas Day. All that was left to do was to find something fun to put inside them and we came up with a pretty lovely idea, but I can't reveal it on here because our Christmas guest will be reading.

The crackers were a nice easy activity to kickstart a week of Christmas fun and its already making us  feel a little more festive. 

"you've got a bug on you"

I love a good challenge and when Opeie told me that he was changing his costume idea for comic con this weekend with 7 days notice, I revelled in the excitement. His friend Cara had decided to go as Hilda from his favourite graphic novels/TV show, so he decided as they were going together that he wanted to be Hilda's friend David. Tuesday morning we headed out combing the charity shops looking for all the bits we needed. While hunting we found some brown womens trousers that I altered, and a top a similar colour. 

I used the left over fabric from the trouser legs to make the patch, The waist strap from an apron hanging on the back of the kitchen door to make the necker and used a magic tape centre for the woggle (it wouldn't stay in position so I glue gunned a lego tyre inside it to stop it sliding). The glue gun was still hot so I glued a bug to a head band (he's always got bugs on him). Cara's brother Fynn gave us some brown socks and then we finished the outfit off with some white plimsoles, job done! and it only cost £7 boom!

We still felt like we needed to accessorise though, so as David is always eating Frazzles I 'made' Opeie eat a packet so that I could stuff it and make something fun to hang from his trousers (Its all about the little details).

A weekend lost in the 'Upside Frown'

Ive never bought anything LEGO that I had seen as just mine, any kits bought over the years have been inevitably broken up and the parts have vanished into our huge amount of mixed LEGO ready for future creative builds. A few weeks back though I decided to treat myself to a kit I had been pining after since I had first seen the pictures online. I picked it up just before my birthday and planned to build it on the day with Opeie. As he obviously hadn't seen Stranger Things I assumed there would be no interest in the Kit, but he would just be happy building it with me, how wrong was I! With the kit being that little bit different with the 'Upside down' aspect in the build, Opeie was hooked as soon as the two pieces where joined and saw that the upper level was flipped.

Opeie asked to get it down from the shelf a few times that week and although he loved the build he knew nothing about the characters so it was a little lost on him. While I was putting it back on the shelf one evening I looked across at the big colourful Unikitty build standing next to it and noticed Unikitty and Master Frown standing next to each other with the contrast of 'bright and positive' and 'gloomy and negative', I'm sure you can image the next thought that went through my head. yup.... Opeie needs an upside down of his own. 

So last weekend we woke up on Saturday morning after a fairly busy week with friends and decided that we were going to do nowt all weekend and slob about the house, the perfect time to start a fun team build I thought. I ran my ideas past my building assistant and he reeled off some awesome ideas of his own and we got building (well I got building, the first part of the upside down build is a large obscure shaped baseplate and as far as Opeie is concerned that part is boring and beneath his skill level). With the base plates built we started the 'Fun part'. Saturday was one of those building days where it felt like we had slipped into a black hole of bricks, before we knew it it was bedtime and we had spent the entire day rummaging for parts.

Sunday started pretty much the same way Saturday had ended. Opeie (now my 'build master') had pretty much ushered me into the lego room as soon as I was awake and on my feet, he did however make my breakfast and bring it into me with an excited 'I'm ready to build' face. By late Sunday afternoon we had built both houses but realised that we didn't have any of the pieces to hold the two together so we were straight on Bricklink to make sure they were here this week. When I had put Opeie to bed that evening I sat and built the trees that hold the houses up. I loved building the original Stranger Things kit but I got so much more out of this custom one building with Opeie. Theres something about recreating a LEGO build with an extra fun twist and not being held back by colour schemes is really satisfying (and we went all out with the colour... well it is Unikitty).

On Tuesday afternoon the beautiful sound of package hitting the hall floor filled the house with excitement. Opeie couldn't wait to get our creation clipped together. Once it was all secure and he could see it in all his glory, we really started getting stuck in to the little touches that we love so much. The build of course needed to be populated, Someone pretty amazing had bought me Unikitty's Sweetest Friends Ever, for my birthday, which was the perfect start. Opeie pointed out a whole bunch of characters we didn't have and I'd not even seen before so it was back on Bricklink, like I need an excuse to be buying more LEGO.

The build turned out to be one of the most fun things that we've built together, usually I prefer to build something completely 'US' but this fun colourful twist on a pretty amazing build was very satisfying... but what to call it? the Upside-Frown of course!

Oh and I may have also built a Unikitty Demogorgon... I get carried away, what can I say.

“Keep your face to the sun and you will never see the shadows.”

The autumn/winter weather is definitely here to stay for a while and although its been all big coats and winter boots, Opeie is not letting the change in seasons hinder his fashionsta ways and is still donning shades when he goes out. 

I love how confident he is when it comes to what he's wearing, he reminds me so much of myself when I was a kid trying to find my own style. These retro style cats eye glasses were from Smartbuyglasses and they've got a great selection over Black Friday if (like Opeie) you are looking to stick it to this drizzly wet weather.

Check out the latest deals here.

"I want to run towards something. Not away."

Autumn is by far my favourite time of year, Unlike most I'm a big fan of the temperature drop, Ive always had a thing about my coat going on, making our outdoor adventures that little more cosy. And who doesn't love the colours on the trees, that autumn change is pretty magical. For the boys it's an exciting time of year because we get to go up the loft and start bringing down those end of year decorations. It's always so nice to transform the house and make it that little more interesting and of course that always includes some spooky LEGO building. We were all wrapped up one evening with hot chocolates making Halloween characters and a big sign for the wall in The LEGO room.

Opeie requested we build a witches house another evening and despite not feeling in a creative mood we stuck with it and it all turned out pretty lovely. The LEGO building really got us into the build up to halloween festivities.

With the decorations out and the house feeling a little more spooky we were pretty excited about the fun that was going to be had. Pumpkin carving at home and maybe a spooky party.

Then at the last minute our plans changed and a couple of days before the big spooky celebration we found ourselves driving down to the Cornish coast to Boscastle to for a few nights away. With a mass of negativity starting to muscle its way into our lives at home I think we were both really needing to get away for a bit.

Halloween ended up being an awesome day at Tintagel, adventuring around Merlins cave, Stomping up some big hills and finding waterfalls, perfection.

Happy Halloween ya'll.

"Come hell or high water, The sun's gonna shine. Might not be tomorrow but I know I'm gonna find, Smooth sailing"

These guys seem to have a song for every single thing that is going on my life...

Your friendly neighbourhood... fairground vendor?

Over the summer holiday we didn't venture out anywhere near as much as usual and ended up spending a lot more time at home and surprisingly I absolutely loved it. During term time we're all over the place, adventuring and visiting interesting places but as soon as the holidays arrive we tend to shy away and keep ourselves to ourselves, It seems to be common practice among many home edders. The erratic weather helped with the 'parent guilt' of not doing much but I think Opeie  got as much out of the rest as I did. Because of the hermit like behaviour our weeks ended up being heavy on the LEGO building and we were been busy creating all sorts. The building of Opeie's upside frown made him realise again that a little time and effort with the building goes a long way.

So after that was finished we were having a discussion one evening about where to go next with those magical bricks. I asked him if there were any other of the larger kits that he liked the look of for a bit of inspiration. We had a little mooch through the LEGO site and Opeie decided that he really liked the look of the Ferris wheel but had a much more 'Opeie fitting' theme to base the build around.

So the following afternoon we went on a piece finding binge In hope that we had the parts for the main structure before we started putting our own spin on it. Aside from a few technics parts and some pieces for the main wheel that we had nowhere near the quantity needed, we were pretty much good to go. As expected Opeie had no interest in the start of the build, as building the main body is "Boring", he's all about the cosmetic flair. So I got a chunk of the 'boring part' out of the way while he was in bed over the first couple of nights and got the build to a point where I knew he would be excited.

While I carried on with building the main posts and the big wheel Opeie got to work on the kiosks and as you can see, the 'Opeie fitting theme' was of course Spider-man (which is why I was so excited from the get go). A Spider-man themed Ferris wheel got us talking about all sorts of creative ideas to follow up this build and the the more parts we connected the more the ideas were flowing. I could never get bored of the great ideas that Opeie comes up with, his imagination is amazing.

In no time at all we had the main structure completed, the base of the wheel filled with Spider-man themed things and we were left with the part of the build that Opeie was most excited about. We had decided early on that the twelve Ferris wheel carriages were each going to based around a different character with colour schemes matching their costumes or personalities. This part was really fun because the carts themselves were pretty basic to make and we didn't want them to be too heavy and affect the way they moved, so we had to be creative with the parts etc. My favourite was definitely J. Jonah. Jameson's carriage with his Daily Bugle desk in and Opeie's was Sandman's bumpy looking sand carriage.

Unlike other things that we have built recently there was the added satisfaction of adding the power functions in to make the wheel spin. The fact that Opeie could have it remote control made the whole thing more exciting, and there was nothing quite like the look of pure happiness on Opeie's face being the first to push the button and watch our creation spin.

"A good picture is equivalent to a good deed."

With it just being Opeie and me most of the time I very rarely get pictures of us together so it was a nice surprise recently when Seth said that he had taken some photos while we were out walking. We had gone for a walk around comer woods and passed a field full of bails of hay, so inevitably the boys said 'can we climb on them?'. One of the many things I love about the boys is how they don't need to do the kinds of things that cost  the earth, just to have fun. Life is about adventure and adventure can be found anywhere. For me its all about the company rather than where we are because when you are around people that make you happy that fun and adventure happens organically.

As we sat in the field mucking about we didn't need anything else. It was one of those afternoons where everyone was just content and its the kind of day I strive for every day. It was really nice having a day like that and then coming home to find out that Seth had documented it to. Im definitely going to encourage Seth to take photos more often. 

一期一会

A few months back I had a message from the mom of Opeie's penpal asking if we would be interested in being interviewed by a Japanese newspaper who were writing a piece on education and had been let down by a home ed group. The whole thing sounded really interesting and I thought it would be a great experience for Opeie and something fun to add into us documenting his home ed journey.  To make the visit even more exciting too, Opeie would get to meet his penpal Caelan as his mom Melissa was driving the journalist over to our home.

On the morning they arrived I was a little apprehensive, mainly because our house isn't a classic style home and although everyone that has visited here seems to love the way that we live, I wasn't sure that would translate well to the journalist (I'm pretty sure eventually someone will think we are idiots). It turns out there was no need to worry, when Melissa, Caelan and Saori arrived they all seemed pretty excited by the madness and as we talked I think it was clear why I chose to have our home this way.

The boys hit it off straight away and disappeared to play LEGO while I chatted with Melissa and Saori. It was really lovely having someone so interested in our home ed journey and despite being filmed (which is really out of my comfort zone) the morning was very relaxing. I feel like we have been home-schooling forever, it's the norm for us now and has been such an exciting adventure for the both of us. Being asked all about the reasoning behind home ed and my feelings on the education system in this country reinforced my passion for why we took the step.

Another thing that really reinforced this was Opeie's confidence talking to Saori and feeling completely comfortable with her observing him and how we are together as a family. He happily played his drums, discussed his beetle project and explained how much he loved having his work on display around the house. I'm pretty sure that Opeie comes across as a very content child to everyone he meets and this one to one education along side our happy home life is definitely responsible for this. I genuinely don't think that he would be the same child being dragged through the education system. 

The article was published last week and it was really interesting seeing the both of us in a Japanese newspaper. It definitely wasn't the way that we were expecting to be starting our first week of home ed this year but every September we have done something special to make sure that we realise how lucky we are to be on this education path for Opeie, and our presence in The Asahi Shimbun Globe is definitely this years bit of magic.  

"Despite the weather, it gets better, You won't do this alone"

It's been a while since I wrote an update about the music that is having an impact on Opeie but I think it's really important as his love of music gets him through the confusing emotional things going on in his life. When we are at home we have music playing most of the time, it has always been an important part of my life and the love of (all kinds of) music has definitely rubbed off on Opeie too. So here's 10 tracks that he's been listening to recently. Hopefully he can look back on these and remember what an absolute dude of an 8-year-old he was.

Modern Baseball - Your graduation

With Confidence - Voldemort

Hit the lights - No filter

The chats - Smoko

Two Year break - Change my mind

Our Last night - The Middle (cover)

Kid Quill - Daily Routine

SonReal - Everywhere we go

Shakey Grakes (feat Esme Patterson) - Dearly Departed

Queen - Don't stop me now

"...and of course he wanted his crayons to be happy. And that gave him an idea."

I can't ever see LEGO not being a part of our lives, over the years its been an amazing bonding experience for the boys and I and we have built so many fun things together during this time. I love putting our own spin on the Sets that LEGO releases but for me the real magic comes in those completely original and creative ideas. I love hearing Opeie's weird and wonderful ideas and then sitting down together and working out how we are going to make these things work is something pretty special.

Im not sure where the idea for this build came from, it could have been influenced by the Oliver Jeffers book The day the crayons quit, which was always a favourite of ours. Or maybe just one of those mad ideas that pops into our heads at times. Either way our mission was to create a box of crayons with a colourful story to back it up. Opeie has a thing for miniature play sets that he can carry around with him so the box had to have some form of scene in there too.

Anything Opeie creates has to have some form of backstory, sometimes the stories are deep and other times they are complete madness. This one was about an angry purple crayon, fed up with the restraints of being imprisoned in a box and having minimal outdoor time to let his creative juices run wild. He eventually reaches breaking point after being mocked by his peers for wanting more from life and goes on a rampage, melting his colourful housemates (poor light green crayon 😭).

For me these are the kind of LEGO builds that really get me motivated, giggling to ourselves as we talk about the story while creating is the best kind of bonding there is. I can't wait to get stuck in to the next crazy idea.