Point To An Adventure

23/10/2022

Seaweed and shells in Cowes.

The boys loved searching for sea treasure on the shores of Cowes.

They had a surprise journey from Cowes to East Cowes on the floating bridge, in that they were driving down a road and found themselves in the queue. 🤣

J found it bonkers that it was a bridge that was pulled by a chain!

23/10/2022

While I was busy the boys went on some adventures with the dogs, including a walk up to Bembridge Fort and Yarborough Monument they wanted to go back the following day for a tour but unfortunately the tours are age 10+ which ruled both of them out.

With stunning views over Sandown and Shanklin this unrestored Victorian fort wasn't actually used in combat until the World Wars as it was built for invasions that never came!

The boys loved that "it was used in the olden days" and thought it was "really cool".

They did have a look for a geocache while they were there but it was too overgrown and they didn't want to trample on the bushes.

16/10/2022

I love how random our searches are!

We're in the Lake District at the moment so that has inspired some of our searches this week.

1️⃣ How to do a Bert Slide
This one definitely wasn't for me! J had a skateboarding lesson with
for his birthday and Kayleigh recommended this as his next move. 🙈

2️⃣ Do lizards eat frogs?
Reptiles, fighting and an interesting video to watch - this ticks all of the boy's boxes!

3️⃣ Famous Five First in Series
We have finally jumped on the audio book train and wanted a good series to kick us off. As well as being super nostalgic for me, it has sparked lots of conversations around gender stereotyping and the era these books were written in.

4️⃣ The Last Wolf in England
The last wolf in England was supposedly killed really near to where we are staying. Cue a quick Google to find out more.

5️⃣ Beddgelert
Can you talk about wolves without talking about Gelert? We will definitely be heading to his resting place at some point.

6️⃣ Gryke
This was part of a hint for a geocache and we had no idea what it was, although to be fair we probably could have guessed where the cache was after years of experience.

7️⃣ Red Tiger Moth
If you spotted the furry caterpillar on our grid earlier in the week you saw the Red Tiger Moth in caterpillar form. We discovered this on and then has a quick Google and I'm so glad we did. Isn't it stunning?

So there you have it, a small insight into what we've been up to and how we learn.

Curious to know if you've heard the story of Gelert. I feel it might be one of those that I think everyone knows but not mainly people do.

16/10/2022

12/10/2022

It's chucking it down today so thought I'd share some photos from sunnier days.

We do love a good bit of bug hunting and how cool is the big furry caterpillar?

Keep an eye out for this week's "7 things to find out what it is.

02/10/2022

🌐 7 THINGS WEVE GOOGLED THIS WEEK 🌐

We've experienced a lot of curiosity about home ed since we started 2.5 years ago and even more so since we've started telling people we were going travelling.

We don't do "school at home" like so many had to during lockdown, in fact we don't really do any "formal" learning but we are all learning all of the time.

So we thought we would create a little mini-series of posts each Sunday showing you some of the - often very random - things we google each week.

We tend to Google things even if we know the answers so that we can a) check we're right 😉 and b) go deeper.

We Google at all times of the day and night. Our learning is not limited to a classroom or a school day. It's a 24/7 immersive learning through life experience and we love it.

7 Things We've Googled This Week

1️⃣ Giant Australian Cuttlefish
We found a 'bone' on the beach, a quick search on the app and we knew what it was but wanted to know more about it.

2️⃣ What are the forts in the Solent?
We spotted these when we were on the ferry and wanted to know more. We loved discovering that you can visit them and would love to do just that one day.

3️⃣ Origins of Halloween
I knew it had Pagan roots but Googled it to make sure I was right and we found some great videos to watch to explain it further.

4️⃣ Oak Marble Gall Wasp
J found some 'oak nuts' on our walk, so we used
again and then searched for more info. I think this was my favourite search of the week. The 'escape' holes were the most perfect circles.

5️⃣ Are Blackthorns edible?
We spotted some sloes / blackthorns and the boys wanted to know if they were edible. A quick search told us what we needed to know and they decided not to bother. 🤣

6️⃣ White horse on hill in Devizes
As we were driving to our campsite in Devizes we could see a horse on the hillside and were shocked to discover how many there are and how big they are!

7️⃣ Who lives in Kensington Palace?
The toilets at Little Owls were all named after Royal residencies and J was curious about who lived in each one. I couldn't answer this one but of course, Google could!

02/10/2022

What we've learnt from our first two weeks living full time in our caravan.

The caravan isn't as big as we remember it.

We don't need anywhere near as much stuff as we thought.

There is always something that needs tweaking or fixing.

Putting clothes away will always be a bit laborious (as will making the bed and putting the bed away).

We go through a lot of water.

We need the awning space.

Said awning will never be tidy.

We don't always need EHU (electric hook up) but we do need fairy lights.

We don't have any more time than we did at home, even though we are spending it very differently.

Childcare is always a bonus (the boys went to play with their cousin yesterday and we got so much done, including a nap).

We actually quite like each other and this adventure is bringing us all so much closer together (and not just because of point number one).

And lastly, adventures are always fun! 

PS - We have loads of content ideas, photos and videos to share with you but the combination of no WiFi, no childcare and no physical or mental space to actually sit down and create means we've been a bit lacking. It's coming though, it's coming. 

PPS - Photo taken at Little Owls

20/09/2022

And...relax.

We've been looking forward to this day for the last 8 weeks and even more so over the last 48 hours.

But we did it and our new home is looking all kinds of beautiful (from this angle 😉).

We've already got a bag of stuff to go to the charity shop and I'm sure we will keep finding things we don't want / need / use as we get used to living in the caravan.

But for now, it's food, a celebratory drink and a family games night in our new home, ready to point to an adventure tomorrow.

20/09/2022

8 weeks ago we made a decision.

A decision to leave our house and take to the road.

8 weeks to declutter, downsize, decorate and get ready to go.

And here we are.

We haven't got a single campsite booked.

The caravan is fit to burst.

But we did it.

We are ready for our next adventure.

12/08/2022