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.

"Music can change the world because it can change people."

Blogging has opened up so many interesting doors over the years, We've been invited to so many amazing events and have reviewed some really interesting products. One product though has stuck out above all of the others recently because of the huge impact it has had (and will continue to have) on Seth. Back in 2016 we had an email asking if we would be interested in reviewing a pBone, the first professional plastic trombone. If I'm honest I read the email and had a little chuckle to myself at the sheer randomness of it, but I was also really intrigued, so of course I said yes. The pBone arrived and we all had a little toot and followed it up with a review. As much as I loved the idea of the boys being musical the following few months left the lovely purple pBone collecting dust in the boys room.

Then another email came through from pBone inviting us to one of their events at the symphony hall which had a real impact on Seth and catapulted him into the amazing world of music. He left the event feeling inspired and asked if he could start trombone lessons. I'm fully aware of the fact that I have covered all this in previous posts but stay with me because the pBone adventure just gets better and better. I wrote about the event and Seth began his trombone lessons at school. He said he enjoyed the lessons but he never seemed to practice at home and I genuinely thought it was going to be one of those things that eventually fizzled out. Until one day he came home and told us that he was playing a song at his schools music show. As I hadn't heard him practice at all I was worried that he may have jumped in and offered prematurely to be a part of it but on the day he completely shocked me and played in front of his peers and the all the parents, with all the audience getting involved and clapping as he played we will rock you. It was one of those moments where a wave of pride washes over you as a parent. So this is where I have covered before in previous posts.

Seth has just finished his final year at primary school so the last few months have been pretty busy with sorting out the transition to secondary school. Seth (like all of the kids in his year) had been visiting schools trying to work out which was the best fit for him. Which, after viewing quite a few was made really clear to him early on. Unfortunately the school was out of our catchment area and we were pretty sure it was going to be a no go. The school however is big on music and their many bands travel all over the world for shows and when entering the main doors you are greeted with cabinets full of the trophies that the amazing children have won over the years. Seth had his heart set on the school. Despite being out of the catchment area the school offered a handful of places for musical children to join their bands. To be in with a chance Seth had to attend an interview and complete a musical aptitude test. On the morning of the test Seth was so nervous but  he went in and gave it his all. Weeks passed and a letter arrived through the post. Obviously you know whats coming, I wouldn't be writing about the failings of an 11-year-old.

Seth had been accepted, which was amazing news. He had only technically been playing a few months but they had seen something in him that they were looking for. Part of the acceptance letter stated that he needed to start taking lessons at the school on Saturday mornings on the run up to the summer holidays to get him ready for the musical side of his secondary school experience. So, he started attending the Saturday classes which he enjoyed and on his third week they asked him to stop the lessons and move into the schools big band. Which again was the most amazing news for Seth and us ever doting parents.

Within a couple of weeks of that his teacher just casually threw in his grade one trombone exam without telling him which he passed no problems and although he came out from his class trying to play it cool I could see that there were secretly fireworks going off inside. Its amazing to think that all of this amazingness has come from a chance email sent our way, for something that we would have never even thought about looking at had it not had been pointed out to us. 

I always wanted the boys to try and take up an instrument because despite wanting to when I was younger it was never an option. Every moment of the pBone being introduced into our lives has been an amazing experience for me as a parent. Not only has it boosted Seths confidence more than I could have ever imagined, it has also ended up putting in some serious groundwork for Seths transition into 'big school' helping him to meet new friends in the band before he had even reached his start date in September. Since starting his first term he has now also been invited into a second school band, adding to the excitement of it all. Watching his big brother learn to play an instrument has also given Opeie the passion for learning to play an instrument and he has started drum lessons too. pBone has had such a huge impact on us all as a family and I can see that its going to get even better. 

Seths passion for the instrument has also got him desperately wanting to share what he has learnt and I find it so moorish that Ive even considered getting one myself (I quite like the pink one) so he can teach me too and we can play together, watch this space.

Thinking of getting your kids into music and want to find out more? Visit the pBone website here.

"You know you’ve read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend."

The last few months have been all about making the house ours, moving rooms around, de-cluttering and making use of all of the space we have. We decided that one of the rooms downstairs needed to be a relaxing reading space. We couldn't quite decided what to put on the wall though in a relaxing space dedicated to one of our favourite past times. That was until I thought about a gift that my bestie Helen had got me for my birthday. She has really helped me through a lot of the harder parts of all this heartache and she was eager to help with putting some personal touches into the house. She had very Kindly bought me 3 canvas's so that the boys and I could create one each.

I asked the boys if they would use their artistic flair to create something each around a book (or series of books) that were important to them. I knew straight away that mine was going to be based on A Series of unfortunate events as Ive been reading them to Opeie at bed time and Ive really loved how excited he's been as we have ploughed through them. I didn't want to draw an obvious picture of the Baudelairs or even their nemesis Count Olaf so I went for a random singer from the Volunteers fighting disease, as the song about the heart shaped balloon always stuck out for Opeie.

I wasn't at all Surprised when Opeie decided he was going to base his canvas design on Beetle boy by M.G. Leonard. The Beetle boy trilogy will always be very special to me as they were the books that really opened up Opeie's imagination and made him realise just how amazing the world of books can be. He hung off every word of those stories and after the first and the second books we were both eager for the release of the next one. I was genuinely gutted when Battle of the Beetles ended.

I not quite sure what I expected Seth to choose, as he mainly reads on his own these days and he gets through so many books that I can't keep up with him.  I was pretty surprised that he chose Enid Blyton's 'The Secret Seven' as they are books that I have been reading to him at bedtime. The secret seven and the Famous five were books that I grew up on and I wanted to share those adventures with the boys.When I asked Seth what was so special about the Secret Seven books he said that he loves me reading to him and finds my voice really relaxing (which made my day).

Emotions may be all over the place at the moment but these little personal touches around the house are making fun new memories and giving us the relaxing home that I think we all need.

"And when it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow."

With Seth's first day of secondary school being tomorrow, I should be really thinking about starting the home ed for Opeie tomorrow too. In great home ed style though I'm not. Instead we have decided to have a 'home ed appreciation day' before getting into all of the adventuring and creative learning. We both feel really lucky to be in a position to be educating/learning on our terms and were going to spend tomorrow really thinking about that as we see the local children leaving for school. Tomorrow will be a day of staying in our pj's, reading, baking and playing because... well we can.

I think its amazing how far we have come as a team and I often think back to those unnerving few months around (what would have been) his official 'start date', all the 'what if's' and 'Am I doing the right thing'. It seems crazy now to think that I had that little confidence in not only myself, but Opeie's ability to learn outside of a classroom environment. I'd be lying if I said that I didn't still have the same occasional thoughts every now and again when I am having an off day, but luckily on these days (which thankfully are getting less and less), I take myself back to a single moment.

We had decided to go on a spur of the moment mid week camping trip (because as home edders you can do that kind of thing). As we pulled into the campsite car park at Devils bridge the heavens opened. Not a light delicate shower but the sort of rain that meant that we couldn't park next to the tent pitch for fear of getting stuck on the field. We managed to get the tent up in the rain and flopped onto the beds to read for a while. The rain died down and the sun came out and we saw that as an opening to go exploring. We decided to walk Devils bridge falls (which is beautiful) while reading the local legend that surrounds the bridge.Within 5 minutes of the walk the rain came down even harder than before. We were drenched! usually I love the adventure, but I felt like the trip was going to be a flop and I seriously started questioning the whole 'Home Ed' thing. As we walked up the waterfall though with the rain still coming down and the spray from the falls almost hitting us too, the sun came out behind it all and what appeared a few feet in front of us was the most beautiful sight. 

In an instant, all of those negative feelings I had about Home Ed seemed to vanish and as we stood and stared at a rainbow (that we could almost touch) curving over the waterfall in front of us, I was left with an enlightened feeling of 'This is exactly where we should be right now'. 

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that"

I genuinely had no idea that the transition to becoming a single dad was going to be so difficult. I'd felt like a single parent for such a long time, so I figured everything would just fall into place. Being there for the boys though during this confusing and upsetting time has been so exhausting. Its hard enough dealing with my own confusion around why someone could walk out on their family for what seems like no reason at all, without having to also be damage control for those two very special boys in my life and the hurt and disappointment that they are feeling. Keeping busy is all I've got these days and I'm trying to desperately hold on to my passions and creativity, while keeping it together.

LEGO for me has always been so much more than a building toy, it has become a way of life in our home and a way for the boys and I to not only explore our imaginations but to also communicate with each other. Recently LEGO is the one thing that is keeping me sane of an evening, which may sound dramatic but there have been moments over the last few months where I have felt like I'm not coping very well and the evenings can be quite lonely. The rummaging, the designing, the entire process of building has become like my evening meditation and Ive started using that to build things to make the boys home more interesting. 

All the heartache aside, it has actually been pretty nice transforming our home into the home that we want and the first thing we did was to scrap the lounge and turn it into a LEGO room. It made so much more sense to actually make use of the space that we have and it has really helped the boys to look at our family home in a new way now that its just the three of us. 

The past couple of nights Ive been busy making small changes to things in the house. A couple of damaged picture frames have been replaced by frames made of bricks and (not being a fan of the main lights in the house) I decided to create some new table lamps for the house for a little more relaxed lighting (we could all do with a little more 'relaxed' these days). Opeie recently bought the Powerpuff girls kits with his pocket money and after building them they were just sitting on the shelf not doing much, so I decided to build the first lamp around them, mainly because of all the bright colours. It came out looking pretty cute and fit perfectly into the room.

Well, I'd got the buzz, so the following evening I started to build a Spider-man themed one for the boys bedroom. As I sat there clicking those bricks together it was the first time in what seems like such a long time that I really felt like myself again. Not only did the lamp come out looking really fun  but it really got me thinking of more things that I wanted to create over the coming weeks. I think it has been good for the boys to see me getting excited about something again.

Ive always had a thing for lighting around the house, especially of an evening and I can't believe I've not thought about doing this before. The great thing about building the lamps with LEGO is that if we get bored of them we can take them apart and change the theme. The boys also pointed out that we can create lamps for Christmas, Halloween, Valentines etc. It looks like this may be a new family tradition and as Opeie keeps saying 'Im glad we are are making new fun memories over the bad ones'.

As always, another amazing win for LEGO in our house, Its amazing that something as simple as plastic bricks, could have such a huge impact on us three boys.

"If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you're a one-eyed man in a kingdom of the blind."

A few weeks back we had a visit from one of our friends Kayleigh, who's been a friend of mine since Uni and unlike me she went on to do amazing things with the skills that she picked up from her course. Kayleigh is a skilled glass designer who specialises in hot sculpting and iridised surface design (I took that last bit straight from her website 😂). Like myself she's a big fan of the brick and one evening we had a chat about how she would really like a brick version of her combined furnace, glory hole and Lehr setup from her work place so that she could use it to be able to explain how it works to her customers a little more easily. Obviously I love a challenge when it comes to LEGO, I didn't expect it to be as much of a challenge as it was though, when she arrived at ours with no photos of what it was I was building. 

As she explained each part of what she wanted building we had a good chuckle as I had no idea what half of the words meant. So it was down to Kayleigh's skills with a pencil to try and give me what I needed to start building. While I started putting bricks together, asking lots of questions as I went, Kayleigh kept Opeie entertained with some building of her own. 

When you complete a build that is a representation of something that you have never seen before its really difficult to get excited about it. It wasn't until Kayleigh added this image of the LEGO with the actual furnace behind it, that I realised I hadn't done a bad job at all even if it was a little off scale.

You can see Kayleigh's work over at KayleighYoungGlass

"Sugar, Spice and everything nice..."

I love those quite moments in the house when Opeie is doing his own little secretive things and today there was silence everywhere. I eventually ask him what he was doing and he simply answers "I'm turning you into a Powerpuff girl character dad!". I love that little guy so much.

"Get out of my way, you Cakesniffers!"

Its been a tough few months with our lives changing so much with the split. As I said in the last post I feel like I've really lost myself in all of it and I know the boys are feeling the same way, Opeie especially. With his mom not being around I've been trying as best I can to keep him busy and in the company of the people that love spending time with him. This has not been difficult at all because we have the best group of friends around us and they definitely more than make up for our lack of family. 

Over the last few months we've spent a lot of time hanging out with our friends Charlotte and Rich, usually walking the streets of Shropshire in search of Pokemon. To continue the love of all things Pokemon and our blossoming friendship, they invited us round to theirs today to bake cakes and decorate them in a way that only Pokemon enthusiasts know how.

As the saying goes 'A baking session isn't successful unless you've messed up a couple of batches first'. No you're right, no one has ever said that, but as we all had a good laugh about the mess we made and Rich pointed out that the one batch looked like it needed vegetables and gravy with them, it was clear that the muck ups really add to the memories of the afternoon.

We soon had a decent batch to work with though so we set about adding some flair to our cupcakes. While we created our masterpieces we chatted about all sorts and I was reminded yet again how in awe I am of that amazing 7-year-old of mine. He loves being around other adults and is such a confident kid when it comes to general chit chat, everyone seems to adore him as much as I do.

With the first couple of cakes finished it was time for an action shot, Pikachu... I choose you!

The cakes ended up taking so much longer than we expected but thats the great thing about being around amazing friends, you get lost in all the fun and the time just flies by. With the cakes finished the only thing left to do was check to see if our creations tasted as good as they looked...they totally did.

These may be some of the toughest months we've been through but being surrounded by such amazing and caring people has made us realise that we really are the luckiest three boys.

"There is no better than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time."

Pretty much every night I lay next to Opeie after reading to him thinking 'I'm going to write a post tonight' and every night I head downstairs, lie on the sofa and get overwhelmed by the mass of emotions that seem to stop me doing anything that I enjoy recently. If you've got this far into your life and you've not been faced with the reality that life, at times, can be an absolute arsehole, then you are doing pretty well. I've had my fair share of utter crap throughout my many years on this earth, some (not many though) I take full responsibility for, but the bulk of it has been thrown at me by the unpleasant people I have met while navigating through this storm of a life.

I had however thought that 8 years ago that had all ended and that my life was on track for the celebration of love and kindness that I felt like I deserved. Sadly I should have known better. When you finally meet 'the one' (and for me it was the one that I wanted to start a family with), It feels different than than any other previous relationship. For me, this was the rest of my life and I can honestly say that I put everything I have into developing that into a relationship I could be proud of. Unfortunately, there were two people in that relationship and only one was really putting in the effort when it came to matters of the heart.

When you are in a relationship with someone that holds their career in higher regard than anything else then there is only one direction that relationship is going in. I shouldn't have been surprised when I heard those heartbreaking words because there was a 3 year build up to that point, but then hope can be a very dangerous thing. And I did hope that she would see that her actions were destroying the magic we had built in the early years and that there is more to life than climbing the career ladder.

I wanted this blog to be a happy place for the boys to look back on and see all of the amazing things that we have done together and I hope that it still can be. I felt that it was important to write this post though, not only to mark where life changed for us all but also to break down the wall of negativity I had built, stopping me from doing the things I love most. The last 4 months have been a real learning curve, There have been more tears than I think I have ever cried, thoughts and feelings I thought I would never have and I've ended up really losing myself in all of it. 

If there is one huge thing I have learnt from all of this though it's that I have the most amazing group of friends that I could ever ask for. Not only for being there for me but also being amazing support for the two most important people in my life. The love, kindness and effort of all of them (and you know who you are) has got me through what could have been my lowest point. Life can seriously throw you about at times and I'm not expecting this new life as a single dad to be easy, but honestly, aside from the upset and confusion, so far it has been more fun than I've had in a long long time.

The boys and I have a whole new life ahead of us and I plan on embracing every moment I have with them, Its time to claim our lives back, there is so much fun to be had.

"Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn."

I'm going to start this post off on a negative note, which I don't usually do as I always keep all of my posts happy and upbeat but stay with me. For as long as I can remember I have been 'Anti Zoo's'. I never liked the idea of animals being out of their natural habitat and trapped in enclosures, the whole idea of it weirded me out a little and because of this we had never taken the boys to the zoo. When I think about it now my view on this could seem quite odd as I have taken them to aquariums before... clearly I feel completely different about sea life. 

After being asked to visit Twycross Zoo my initial thought was to politely decline, but before doing so I went online and did a little research on the zoo and this is where I realised that my thoughts and feelings about zoo's especially in Twycoss' case was very wrong. After reading about their conservation projects and research into animal behaviour, breeding programmes and sustainability, I closed my laptop feeling very different about the views I had previously had. So we decided to visit Twycross so that we could really see what the zoo was all about.

If there is one very important thing that I have learned since starting this amazing home-schooling adventure with Opeie, it is that no day sat in a class room, having information thrown at you is ever going to trump a day out learning through experience and that really is what home-schooling is all about for us. Add another home-schooling family into the mix and your educational fun is magnified as the children bounce their thoughts, feelings and ideas off of each other. 

We picked probably the best day of the year so far to visit the zoo as the sun was out and there looked like there was no chance of anything changing, which for a day in April is good going. The kids were excited and us parents had our own favourite animals that we couldn't wait to see. What I loved from the get go was how immaculate the zoo was and how welcoming and friendly the staff were which will always put you in good stead for a great visit anywhere. 

With maps in their hands we left the kids to show us around (a great home-schooling lesson in itself).

First on their list of places of interest on the map was Lorikeet landing, I don't think I'd ever seen a Lorikeet before and I think its safe to say that we were all really impressed by the bright and vibrant colours on these beautiful birds. I was great to be able to walk into the enclosure and have them landing right next to you as you made your way through. I love the way that there was no shortage of information about each of the animals there, having the educational side of things made easy for us home-schooling parents.

Being the little punk enthusiast that Opeie is these days, he was in awe of the black and white zebra mohicans. It was interesting to learn that the zebras stripes can be used as camouflage but also that their monochrome pattern can confuse and deter flies. 

one of the most appealing things about the zoo for me was the shear size of it, you could easily spend the whole day there wandering about, especially on the glorious day that we visited. with something different everywhere you turn, even if you were not interested in reading the information about the animals the visit would be a stimulating visual experience. Being able to see animals that you would never get to see unless visiting their natural habitats, really is very special.

Ive always been a huge fan of the giraffe and as we approached the enclosure we realised we had arrived at exactly the right time, to see them up close while they were feeding. For me personally this really made the visit.

One of the things that really surprised me about the visit was the the way I felt about animals that I'd not really thought about before. We're always watching nature documentaries and although its fascinating to learn about animals, to actually see them is a real experience. I'd never really given Gorillas a second thought, when we reached the enclosure though I could have sat there watching them all afternoon and it was clear that we all felt the same.

At lunch time we found a spot of grass to have our picnic. When we looked behind us we were shocked to see two enormous tortiose happily munching on some grass. (like I said 'everywhere you look there is something interesting). 

Tummys full, it was time for our little map reading tour guides to take us to the next place of interest, the Lemurs...

It was at this point that one of our party members started to get very VERY excited... and it wasn't one of the children. When arranging the trip I had been concentrating so much on the kids having a great time I hadn't thought for one second about our friend Helen having the time of her life. It turns out she loves Lemurs and having them walking along right next to her was clearly making her very happy indeed. 

With so many amazing animals to see  we were fully entertained for the day and the kids had so much to talk about on the way home. As a home educating parent these are the sorts of days out that really have the most impact and the visit has already spurred on many activities and interesting talks about habitats and interesting facts about each of the animals we saw.

If you are planning on a visit soon the new Chimpanzee Eden has just opened. Check out the link HERE!

The thing that really made this visit special is that it made me realise that although it is good to have strong feelings about various things in life, they are not always right and sometimes you can be proved wrong. Twycross and the amazing work that they do to learn about each of their animals while educating along the way really is something special and we hope to visit there again very soon.