Your Mother is a piece of Modern History!

Our trip to London

I love hunting for eggs, it's a bit like Easter rooting around in the undergrowth seeking them out! Fortunately we have only 4 hens and an enclosed space so I can normally find them as I did today but as a novice hen owner I remember uncovering 15 eggs once, having assumed that , because there were no eggs in the Coop, the hens had stopped laying. They are normally happy to lay  in their nesting box but the wind blew their Coop door closed today so I suspected they had gone elsewhere to lay and indeed they had!

Since I 'strategically planted' my rat poison down drain pipes sunk into the rat holes a couple of weeks ago I haven't seen a single live rat. I did however find a dead one in the compost heap. I was torn between celebrating or feeling like a murderer. I decided on the former. If I am living in the country I am going to have to learn to be tough. As I've said before the countryside isn't all about honeysuckle and roses round the door! In fact I noticed my husband cross his legs extra tight as my daughter explained the procedure of castrating male lambs on her friend's farm!

On the learning front it was an an interesting day yesterday. It was Margaret Thatcher's Funeral. The longest serving Prime minister in the 20th century and the first woman Prime minister for Britain- a bit of British history! Coincidentally this popped into my in box from Surfnetkids,com It's a great website for home educators as there is always something topical and  a calendar of upcoming anniversaries and special days so you can plan ahead with projects and topics.

 Watching clips of the funeral led to various discussions about the cost to the tax payer (an estimated £10 million.) Whether Margaret Thatcher deserved a funeral similar to that of Winston Churchill and how the money could have been more wisely spent in these days of cut back and recession.As my son studied the congregation he identified politicians both past and present and once again I realised how much he knew about current affairs through being at home when things 'happened' in the world (which of course they always do) but which so often get missed at school because they don't fit into the curriculum. He also recognised St Pauls cathedral where the funeral took place, Westminster Abbey where the body lay before hand and the various London landmarks 'en route' as he had been there. Even the simple fact that Margaret Thatcher was mother of twins and had been a lawyer (like his mother) were relevant to the picture building in his head about The Iron Lady.

Now that she is no longer with us I think we will watch "The Iron Lady" together- it will be a piece of modern history like Chopper bikes and Hot pants or  when Snickers bars were called Marathons and Mars Bars cost 2 1/2p. Now I am showing my age !