Are you cut out for institutions, or otherwise? Where to otherwise?
I was recently given a survey to answer about one of my old schools, when asked about the experience I wrote it was “By far the least painful school I had attended”. That is nothing less than the truth. I have met plenty of people who loved school, but it was not for me. I felt stupid because I only excelled at all the skills they did not measure. I was articulate, social, a good leader, creative, confident among adults and older kids, fair mind, determined and hard working, organised and entrepreneurial, I was pretty poor at English, French, Maths, Sport, History, Geography and Science!!! I am also one of these people who goes grey and pukes if made to sit tests and exams. Friends at uni (which was an institution I loved) used to ask me “Why do you nearly faint in the line to go into an exam when you always get an “A” and are better prepared than any of us?” Well getting “A”s in design related subjects was something I could do at last, but I still felt like I was back at school!
My daughter started out ok with school but gradually turned the colour of her grey school skirt and I realized we would have to change something.
So here we go off to Spain and Portugal in a ford van. We have been half living in the van and half in my mum's house and it's worked ok. I took it to Birmingham and we had to live in it fully, it worked ok. Everyone asks: How will you live in such a small space? But hopefully we will live in big forests, open meadows, wide beaches, and sleep in the van. When we drive up to the Ashdown Forest everyone piles of of the van and disappears into the trees. I have to round up me happy, rosy, good-tired kids to get them to get in the van and sleep. If you think about it quite a lot of your house used to store your stuff. Anyway I will let you know how it works long term in practice. Wish us luck.
How will we live in that small space when it rains all day? No idea!! Wish me luck with that!! Spain has the lowest rainfall in Europe but it still rains, mostly on the mountains. My kids and I used to go crazy in a five bedroom house when it rained all day! I cannot imagine what it will be like in a van. Art, games, stories, reading, then murder daddy with the camping potty I guess!!?
I've driven my van around all Summer, not to mention Birmingham and back and I'm getting pretty good at parking and reversing the big vehicle. It broke a couple of times, oil leak and the turbo pipe came off, but being a ford transit we could get normal parts and a normal mechanic to fix it. My time with classic vans is so over!!!
Then the electrics started playing up, headlights not working on full beam, radio going off at random, I began to fear that the headlights would go off all together when driving at night! I got the mechanic to look and apparently I had set the bar on what to worry about way to low! I should have been worrying that it might catch fire at any moment!!! I assure you that it is fixed and safe now!!
I have worked out what it is that is good for us about our change in lifestyle, it continuously stretches our compliance. Get the van and you have to learn to drive it, then you have to learn how to convert it to a campervan, then you have to learn to live in it. Even the kids, Jasmine has to learn to live in a bedroom approximately the size of the hutch we used to have guinea pigs in! My husband describes middle class life as find a rut and volunteer to get in it! Well we are out and some of it is a bit crazy but some of it is good.
My kids are growing up such individuals, who knows what they will be, but I am sure it will be something of their own, not an institution's creation.
We leave end of September, boat to Spain then around the coast of Spain and Portugal to Malaga or something, an adventure is by definition not set in stone.
Picture from the front page of the still empty travel sketchbook I made myself. Yes I will share every page of you like?
Hugs, Kirsteen
