In which we experience an air raid...

...in a manner of speaking! After playing with a friend who goes to school and is currently doing WW2, Hannah came home expressing a desire to build an Anderson shelter. Not, as her friend  had done, from a cardboard box, but properly, in the garden, from scrap metal. I took a deep breath. I thought about the possibility of getting scrap metal. I discounted that and offered large cardboard boxes instead, but in an unused bed in the garden with a wooden frame. Hannah accepted but then we considered the fact that we have a metal shed in the garden. That would work,we thought. We spent a bit of time researching shelters and air raids and decided on what she would need to have in the shelter.

Yesterday she made herself a gas mask out of a pair of goggles from a chemistry set, some dark fabric, a toilet roll inner tube with metal mesh from the craft box on the end. She planned her wardrobe, a dress (those of you who know Hannah will know how unusual *this* is), a hand-knitted cardigan, knee-socks and boots. She decided which toys and books would be appropriate..and ended up reading The Children of Cherry Tree Farm, which was published in 1940 (we checked!).

Today, while she got dressed into her wartime clothes, I went down and made up a make-shift bed in the shelter. She had some home made leek and potato soup (wanted it to have been feasible for a 1940 lunch) for lunch and packed a canteen of water, a thermos of soup and a roll in her case. Then I played an audio clip of the air raid siren and she picked up her bag and coat and went calmly down to the shelter with the dog.

They stayed in there for two hours, which is probably long enough to get a sense of what the waiting for the all clear might be like. The dog fell asleep, Hannah read a bit of her book and played with her toys. She wrote a diary entry. Then she emerged into the daylight after the all-clear!

In which I rant about rude people

I'm just warning you in advance that this is yet another home educator getting hot under the collar over the bloody socialisation question!!!

I was going to call it the "dreaded" socialisation question, but I don't dread it. I think, given the unbalanced and highly biased image of home ed presented by the media and government, I cannot blame people who have never encountered home ed as it *actually* is for being concerned. And presumably, if their own children go or went to school, they *do* do most of their socialising with people in their class...school takes up a large part of their life. I am always happy to enlighten people as to the reality of this home educated child's social life...which is there is a hell of a lot of it.

So when I told this woman (a dog-walking acqaintance) that Hannah is home educated and she trotted out that old chestnut, I didn't get defensive. I told her I understood why the image of home ed in the media would lead one to think that, but actually.....and followed with a list of all the opportunities Hannah has to socialise with her friends, drama, home ed group, horse riding, music lessons etc etc etc.

"She sounds thoroughly spoilt!"

How I stopped myself from saying "fuck off" I don;t know. She is *lucky*, yes. We couldn't personally afford to do all these things for her; we are very fortunate in having relatives who offer to pay for some of the more expensive activities. but if she didn't do those things, I would still be doing what I do, scouring listings, museum websites and email lists for things that she might find interesting. And yes, I go to some effort to take her to things. But a) so do parents who send their children to school pay for activities and take them places...it has nothing to do with home ed and b)it's not all about her. *I* enjoy them. So sue me, I get personal gratification out of having fun with my child!

But what hit me most is *how* exactly is it acceptable to say to someone that their child is spoilt, when you barely know the person you are speaking to beyond the most casual acquaintance and have never even met the child in question. I wouldn;t dream of saying something like that, even to someone I knew very well. Somehow I don't think *Hannah* is the one lacking in social skills!