Full House

At the beginning of the summer, I wrote about the group of teenagers that have emerged from a youth club that our eldest two children used to belong to. The club stopped meeting at the beginning of the year, and a few months later, we asked Reuben and Ellie if they wanted to invite a few frriends over. We started in about May with 17, and last week, we had fifty-three in our home! I talked to them in the middle bit when we feed them, about cravings ( a lot of them have a nicotine addiction) and had a few chats later with some of them about what we believe, who we believe in and why on earth we fill our house with them at the end of a busy week.

We'll keep you posted about how it's going...

Censorship in the Press

Once again the UK national press have buried news that should have hit the headlines. When we were away at the back end of August, examination results were published. I was looking forward to the sensational headlines, but they weren't even hidden amongst the adverts for things nobody wants to buy. For the benefit of those who wanted the full story on this summer's outocmes, here's a few of the headlines that didn't get printed in your Daily Whatever.

• Disadvantaged Bog-Standard Comprehensive surrounded by Grammar Schools Reaches National Average at Key Stage 3.
• Community College Exceeds its GCSE targets by 3% despite Grammar Schools dumping their unwanted pupils on them.
• Over 1 in 30 pupils in Highly Selective Grammar fails to reach basic target of 5 A* to C grades

Oh, well, maybe next year....

Busy Summer

Haven't done any blogs recently. Fairly hectic summer. Abi was working for most of it, but we managed a long weekend with old Northamptonshire friends in Kettering and Raunds at the end of July. Reuben and Ellie went off to Audacious, a church youth event in Portsmouth and we took Caleb to my mum's in Bournemouth. While we were there, we went to London for a couple of days, staying in a Travelodge (very basic). We did lots of touristy things, including the London Eye and a trip to Covent Garden. We also went to see the Lord of the Rings musical, which was absolutely brilliant.

Over the bank holiday weekend, we camped in Cornwall, meeting up with more old friends, mostly Northamptonshire exiles and their new mates. To finish a great break, Reuben had a birthday bash with over 40 school friends, followed by about six staying for a sleepover (or should I say Wakeover).