My ten holiday books

So I'm going on holiday next week for a fortnight. I always run out of things to read halfway through so this time I'm taking ten... I don't think that's too excessive....

1. Regeneration - Pat Barker

2. The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood

3. Sweet Tooth - Ian McEwan

4. Looking for Alaska - John Green

5. Notes on a Scandal - Zoe Heller

6. Scotland Yard - Sir Harold Scott

7. Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn

8. A Game of Thrones - George R. R. Martin

9. Call the Midwife - Jennifer Worth

10. How to Build a Girl - Caitlin Moran

7 ways to revamp your bedroom

1.    Lets start with the furniture. I love to move everything around in my room, I always change my desk and bed around for a different outlook and I’ve done this so many times. Your room often needs a refresher, especially if you spend a lot of time in your room. With a little shifting around, voila, I magically become an interior designer. If you think your bed would look better in the other corner or you think your desk should stick out from the wall, then try it! You can always change it back. If you don't fancy lugging heavy desks around at first, you can always grab a piece of paper, draw the shape of your room and try out the furniture in different places before you move them.

2.     Decorate your walls. I found this cute red Oxford canvas in a charity shop, I've used maps, postcards as well as birthday cards to make my plain white walls more interesting and personal. I also added some Cath Kidston style bunting that I got for my birthday-you could also buy some funky material, download a pattern from a website and make your own. Another common decoration is fairy lights. These are very pretty, give a cosy atmosphere and aren’t very expensive-I bought these for 6.99 from amazon.

3.     Next, the bed. It's a pretty vital part of your room, it is a BEDroom afterall. I love buying new bedding, and it gives you the opportunity to change or enhance the colour scheme in your room. You can also get throws and cushions to brighten it up and make it more comfy and homely.

4.     Spread out jewellery over your room, hang it from the walls or display it to add colour and interest to your room. It’s a really good way of showing your own style and individuality, it's also easy to reach.

5.     Put up more shelves to create more room to store or display things - the life of a bookaholic is cursed with putting up shelves and creating ever-growing piles on the floor...these actually make brilliant bedside tables! 

6.     Add a plant or two. These make the room look more exotic. Even if you aren’t good at keeping things alive-get cacti or a little palm tree, as they only need watering occasionally, or you can get artificial plants.

7.    Create a collage of family photographs. These are ones from my childhood of my family and friends, and it's always nice to remind yourself of memories from that time. It also adds a lot of colour and provides a focal point for the room.

A short interview with my brother re: home education!

Harry is 20, and has just finished his 2^nd year of a computer science degree at Nottingham University.

Do you feel that home education has given you an advantage over your peers?

The individuality that I have gained from being home educated has given me an advantage, and I feel that it has opened up my creativity as well. I think it has given me a definite employability status, as it is something different that employers tend to pick up on.

You only did 6 GCSE’s-was this a problem when you entered college?

To undertake my 4 A Levels I only needed 5 GCSE’s that included maths and English, so the college had no qualms in taking me on. I found it slightly ridiculous when I talked to the friends I made at college about the mountains of GCSE’s they had, some 13 or 14, as only had less than half that they had! However, at college it didn’t matter as most people there were in college because they chose to be, and pretty much everyone was interested and motivated within the lessons as much as I was, so it made no difference.

How did you feel entering college aged 16?

I really enjoyed the whole experience of my A Levels. It was new and interesting, and I really liked taking the subjects I was really interested in, to a new level as my studies were more in-depth. As for the social side, I liked meeting the new people and making more friends, but I still enjoyed, and do now, keeping in touch with and meeting up with my home-ed friends that I’ve known for years. The only problem was that I had to get up early for college! Overall I had a very positive experience, and I’m glad I entered college to complete my A Levels.

If you could pass on something to others about home education, what would it be?

The great thing about home ed is that you can learn as many different things as you like, which helps you to work out what you’re really interested in. It made me realize what I wanted to do in life, that I wanted to explore graphic design and computing, and home-ed helped me discover and explore it a lot at a younger age than I would probably have in school. It also inspired my creativity as we did a lot of drawing and painting throughout my childhood, which I think has definitely influenced the way I think and look at the world today.

Ballet.

I have just finished my Grade 8 ballet exam. It feels like the end of an era, entering a world where I don't go to ballet class every week. It's going to be strange, and it is already very sad. The tears afterwards were not because the exam went badly, on the contrary, but because we will dearly miss the dancing, the laughing and the friendship. We will miss our lovely teacher, the principle, who continues to put her heart and soul into teaching after all this time. And we will miss out other teacher who has had years of doing our hair and preparing us for exams as well as teaching and consoling us when we feel down. I will also miss the pianist who always makes sure that we are on the beat and ready to begin. He shed a few tears himself today, as he said goodbye to us all. I will also miss the ballet studio that has the two frustrating pillars in the middle of the room that you have to space yourself around, and the old photographs of performances that hang on the whitewashed walls. 

I will miss the gratification of trying hard and completing the grades. When you complete a ballet exam each year, no matter what the result, you always feel a great sense of pride and achievement that you got yourself to this level, and that you have performed for a London examiner and proved to her that you can do it. Thirteen years down the line and I can't imagine my life without it, but I'm sure I'll get used to it...eventually.

'Omg, you were home-educated???'

Why?

Some people choose home-ed because of religious reasons, however my parents felt like primary school was simply there for childcare and they wanted us to grow more freely, apart from the rules and levels that you have to climb in school.

Isn’t it against the law??

In the UK it is perfectly fine to educate your child at home, as long as the education they receive is suitable to their ability and aptitude.

But don’t you have to be a teacher?

Nope, you don’t have to have any formal education whatsoever to instruct your child at home.

Do you have any friends?!

Contrary to popular belief, I have a social life! Growing up, I had friends at my local home-ed group as well as from my dance classes and friends living in my village. Unlike the image that some people have, just because I’m home-ed it doesn’t mean I wear long, flowery skirts and sit at home crocheting all day…

But you’ll miss out on school’s valuable life lessons!

Valuable life lessons? I feel like I’ve learnt many more things to prepare me for the adult world from my family and friends at home than I would have at school. I know how to have a conversation, prepare for a job interview and bake a loaf of bread… what more could I ask for?

Can you wear your pjs all day??

Strangely, this is one of the questions I get asked the most, and the answer is, you can if you like, but you have to remember that we actually want to get up and learn because it’s fun. I can imagine if you were in school then came straight out you’d want to work in your pyjamas bcause it would be a novelty, but in reality, we prefer to get dressed and ready for the day.

What’s a typical day like??

That’s exactly it-there isn’t a typical day for a home-edder. We had things like an art class to go to or a group meet up to attend, but the point is that nothing is ‘compulsory’ like it is in school. We never really had a specific time to start or end our working time, just as much or as little as we felt like doing that day. One day I wanted to do a huge essay on Jane Austen’s history, so that’s what I did for about a week. I remember this one time when my 3 siblings and I took a week to prepare a whole Egyptian burial, my sister made an elaborate gold mask for the mummy, we all made clay models to be the servants in the next life as well as the  canopic jars. My brothers painted an old cardboard box to bury me in after I was wrapped in toilet paper as the mummy!