Hi from the UK

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Thank you Tofazz nice to meet another Newbie

Tequila
I had some with tea (although my children thought they would pinch some as well...nothing is just for mummy lol) It's lovely, the best I have tasted anyway and a lot better than stuff in supermarkets. My children are 10 and 4 (twins)

I have actually taken my daughter out of school when she was 7 (which didn't go down too well, and my name was mud around there for a while) But I had the education board round to check and they seem to think she was doing fine after my teaching.
My daughters special teacher has been really good, but we are still awaiting for the board to get back to us with more funding so she can stop all day. And we are looking to get her statemented as she needs this for when I look at secondary schools this year.

Our public transport are few and far between, and some of the buses can be right bone shakers..which doesn't help with the roads being naff. I swear when I went to see my sister last month I vibrated right off the bus.

Is that where you live in South Cumbria (I note you mentioned it in a previous post.)

And not at all (regarding the conversation) I like to meet new people online. I find I take to certain people and I can talk for England, on here I feel very much at home and not alone in the slightest.

I thought it might go down well. The main problem now will be fighting the urge to get down there and buy a box of two of the stuff like I did. We must have spent £50 on apple juice (as well as cider) and a few other bits and bobs whilst we were there. It's a little bit far to travel though, just on the hoof like that.



I see. I'm 23 if that counts for anything.



The school? I would have ignored what they thought of this.



I suppose you knew that there was no legal requirement to have them poking about in your home? My mum never considered letting the LEA enter our household. She just sent them very lengthy samples of the sort of thing we were doing and the LEA were quite happy with that. I think they knew though that there wasn't really much chance they could bully her as she was well backed-up too. Put it this way, it gave me a healthy distrust of unjustified authority.

We did home tutoring lessons very briefly but we soon reneged on that idea and I basically taught myself. So I'm really rather good at speaking on the Internet and learning things but my self-help skills are absolutely dreadful. My mum often jokes about getting me married off!



Be careful with high school. My mum considered the possibility of sending me to high school but I would never have survived it - depression and a massive nervous breakdown would have beckoned. I was already very miserable even in Year 6 in primary school, so it wasn't going anywhere. I suspect that she may find the transition difficult (if not possible). What mood is your daughter in now? Does she still come home crying every day?



That doesn't sound like much fun. Our buses run every ten minutes to Preston and every two hours (!) to Clitheroe. I think the ones to Chipping and to Goosnargh and Royal Preston Hospital go every hour or so, too. Basically, if you don't want to go to Preston, you're a bit knackered.



No, I don't live in Beetham - in fact, I've only ever been there the once and we actually just went up there on a whim.

I actually live in a little town in the heart of Lancashire called Longridge, which is just inside the beautiful Ribble Valley area which includes much of the Forest of Bowland. A friend of mine from Northern Ireland (from South Down) claims it is heavily like the beautiful rolling countryside there and having been to South Down I agree with him. Some of the most beautiful countryside in Northern England is located here, making the Ribble Valley a delightful place to be in the summertime.

Can I post some more photos of my local area? If you click on any photo, you'll get taken straight to my Flickr page where you may download them in larger and original sizes, as well as seeing everything else my photostream has to offer.















Good stuff.



Well, we're quite a welcoming bunch here... mostly.

Ahh sorry I have just seen your from Lancashire as it says so under your profile picture (brain cells are not working today) A big homer D'oh! on my part.

I can see why your bought a lot of apple juice, between that and Shloer I'm addicted.

No I didn't know I didn't have to let the LEA into my house, I was told it was a must. Mind you I didn't mind as they weren't pushy or that bothered come to think of it. They came in looked at her work, asked her to write her name and read a sentence and that was it.
As for high school there is no way I would put her into a mainstream school placed in normal classes as I know she would not be able to cope. There are a couple of schools near us that have special units where she will spend most of her lessons. If It did get to the point where she could not cope at all I would pull her out of there without thinking twice. My sister did the same with my nephew as he has aspergers, he ended up at a place called hookergate. At the moment she has a love/hate relationship with school but no longer cries over going since being diagnosed and getting her new teacher.

It hard to teach self help skills as It's a personal thing and you can only teach so much. (speaking from experience )

I would love to see more photos, can I say I am jealous..it looks so beautiful there. That would be my idea place to live. I live on the outskirts of a village but still have neighbours (and not the nicest) I have this dream of winning the lottery and buying a house right out in the country, learning to drive so I can meet people on my terms.
I have been having a nose through all your photos, probably why it's taken me so long to write all this out. By the way your a brilliant photographer, and your cat Emma is gorgeous.
We had a cat from a rescue place, but I think I missed the 666 sign on its forehead. It use to go completely psycho when seeing a cat outside, or on certain times of the day. It's claws came out every-time my youngest daughter gently picked her up..it actually scratched her all down her ear. This is the same cat which supposedly came from a good home.

My avatar is a reference to a Swiss direct democracy initiative against gun registration. Basically, I just really like the provocative, no-nonsense (and sometimes hilariously over-the-top!) artwork that the advertising firm that produces these posters comes out with.



I don't buy apple juice as a general rule - I'm a big beer/cider drinker - but the Willington stuff is too good to pass up.

If you drink alcoholic cider and you like them fairly strong, may I recommend Aspall's Imperial Cyder (8.2%)? The larger branches of Sainsbury's sell it for £2.59, which is a bit steep, but there may be other places that sell it for less. I know the more substantial Booths stores (I don't know where you are in Cheshire, so I can't really advise you as to your local one) sells it for 30p less per bottle. It goes down very easily indeed and has a considerably less alcoholic and more apple-flavoured taste than Weston's Special Reserve (also 8.2%). These 8.2% ciders are diluted in order to meet UK duty guidelines with respect to cider - any stronger than 8.2% and these ciders are classed as wines.



I asked my mum about it and she responded with dismay when I told her that you had let them into your house. She hasn't told me why yet (we can always continue this conversation by PM if you plan to hang around on WP) but I suspect that it is negative. I think perhaps they may have set a precedent and that you may be a lot easier to shaft in the future on that score.

It definitely isn't a "must" - they were lying to you, Kay.



My mum also didn't think they would be that bothered. I'll ask her tomorrow why she is so negative about the idea.



There is something that worries me a little about this. I'll let you know as soon as I have more information.



Well, in my case my mum knew that I wouldn't be able to cope in a secondary school, so after she pulled me out she took me round various specialist and private schools. All were roundly rejected on first glance as they simply would not have been suitable.



Hm... what would she be learning, though? And would she be able to take it all in?

I take it she is a bright child?



Is she actually learning anything though? If she isn't, then school is a waste of time. Most schools are the Turkey Twizzlers of edumacation, after all. Life is for liberty and we learn new things all the time.



How were things for you? I take it you yourself have Asperger's, KayMiller? The way I see learning self-help skills is that I had several Great Leaps Forward™ (not funny Tequila, heh). I mean, when I was ten I literally couldn't be let out of my mother's sight and I couldn't be let out on my own, or even really go into a supermarket, or talk to anyone but now I've changed an awful lot since those days. I'm still a bit of a bigot and I still look like I'm disabled and I still have no real self-help skills but I'm getting there, I guess. I'm acutely aware that there are quite a lot of things I can't do - yet - but this is life. Self-help skills at the moment aren't really on the agenda for me, mainly because I am a bit too dependent on my parents and, frankly, it is easier for them to do things rather than for me to try, at least when I'm still living under the same roof. I am planning to move out and live on my own (I reject the idea that it is 'independence', it is merely a different form of dependence) eventually when the correct social housing opportunity comes up.



Well, I don't live in the countryside! I actually live here:

















As I said, I don't live there as such... but it's within easy driving distance in summer. You'd probably like the adorable chocolate-box villages of Ribchester and Chipping also. A lot of these sorts of places are tucked away and remain "Lancashire's secrets" in a way.



Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. We know all our neighbours by name. We chat with some of them and do them reciprocal favours, though we're certainly not the best of friends. They're all basically harmless people - though generally past retirement age - who basically get on with their own business. So, to put in perspective: it's not quite like a 1960s episode of Coronation Street but we certainly aren't threatening to kill each other either.



Why can you not drive, Kay?

I'll never be able to drive because that's because of my really poor eyesight. I have nystagmus, which is a wobble on my eyes. It's not too bad though - any time I want to go anywhere I just get someone else to do the driving! Why have a dog and bark yourself?



I thought you might have done - it probably took a while, though, seeing as there are nearly 9,000 of the blighters!



Thanks for the kind words on my photography skills! As you could probably guess, my skills have improved somewhat over the years.

A lot of people say that about Emma. She's 11 now (we got her in 2001) so she's getting on a bit but she's still fairly sprightly for her age.



That sounds kind of worrying. What happened to Nasty Kitty?

I think i've probably spoken enough now and it's time for my bed. Talk to you some more tomorrow, I hope. Like yourself, I too can talk for England - and Scotland, Wales and Ulster too!

Welkome to WP

Mick