Last summer was very poignant without Simon’s presence on the island. I have found that this is one of the hardest things to do in life – to learn to let go and see where life takes you next. Over the last few years we have had to make many difficult decisions about our life …
It has been such a lovely summer here in Orkney that it is hard to imagine the calm mild weather ever being replaced by strong winds and heaving waves, but nevertheless I am quite sure that they will come soon as we are well into September as I write. In August, our last native wildflower …
I wrote this survival guide in response to friends asking me how I managed to educate my three boys alone on an island. No-one had really asked me before, and I knew that some people thought I was somehow depriving my children of a ‘proper education’, by not sending them to school. In fact I …
When I was home-educating I had no access to the internet, and had to rely on the books that I had and my own creativity to make lessons interesting. Some days the children were tired and I felt we needed to escape from the home education routine, so I would plan activities to break up …
Having three headstrong boys of very different ages to teach at home was an enormous challenge. of all the difficulties I faced I think the ability to keep going however tired I was might have been the biggest challenge of all. I distinctly remember thinking that I was pushed to the limits of my energy …
Teaching my children at home in our remote island home meant that we could not look for resources in the local library let alone online, so we looked elsewhere for learning experiences. When we first came to Auskerry the beaches were littered with driftwood. Amongst the fishboxes and debris from shipping lanes, the boys often …
Living on a remote island in the Orkney group, off the north coast of Scotland, it was difficult to go on holiday, not least because the weather made getting boats to take us off when we wanted to go very stressful. Yesterday felt like the first day of summer here in Auskerry, and it made …
When my eldest son was three, I was told by the local Education Authority that I would have to either move or home-educate as they were not going to help with his education if we stayed farming our island home. As so many families have been thrown in to home educating during the pandemic I …
The thought of the end of the holidays and having to get the boys back to work again was always tough. They were not keen to lose the freedom the holidays gave them, and I was not keen to return to the planning and marking on top of everything else I had to do! I …
Although I enjoyed teaching my children during the term time, I loved having the perfect opportunity in the school holidays to play games with them. They accuse me now of being far too competitive, but I argue that there is a difference between slightly handicapping yourself to make it a more level playing field and …
When I was home-educating my three children in our remote island home, the Easter holidays were always greeted with huge relief as there was always so much to do on the farm in this period. I loved not having to plan lessons every night, but mainly it was the freedom from having to constantly encourage …
When my eldest son was three, I was told by the local Education Authority that I would have to either move or home-educate as they were not going to help with his education if we stayed farming our island home. Our farm was our livelihood so I had no choice but to attempt to teach …