climbing and lunching

A few days ago I was chatting with a friend who also home eds, as her eldest is feeling a bit like there's nothing to do and it's all a bit boring. We have been talking about regularly swapping girls and taking them to various things together (I already take her daughter to forest school), and one of the options we talked about was climbing. There is a home ed climbing session at a (not exactly) local climbing centre once a month, which started a few months back after the regular success of a session a lot further away. We have been talking about perhaps taking Small climbing at a centre very close to us once a week as an alternative to him doing gymnastics. So I thought that I would take the sprogs along to the session today and see whether they actually enjoyed it - very little point organising for them to go regularly if they don't actually like it!

This morning I really did not feel like spending all day out and about, but decided that I shouldn't deprive the kids just because I wasn't feeling 100%. We walked down to the post office to buy a metro day rover which allows us unlimited travel on buses and trains in West Yorkshire, and then hopped on a bus into town. We then got on the train which takes about 20 minutes to get to the village where the climbing centre is. Unfortunately, once on the train I realised I had lost my hat. My bespoke, WAHM-knitted, part-of-a-set hat which I have had less than a week. I'm really quite upset about it. I rang the lost property office of the bus company, as I think I left it on a specific bus, but I have to wait until tomorrow to find out if they have it or not. If not I will have to sheepishly go back to my friend who made it for me and ask for her to make me another :(

Anyway, we walked to the climbing centre and the sprogs got kitted up and had an hour of climbing. They both had at least one go on the ropes, although they were not entirely confident in the rope's ability to hold their weight, but I guess that confidence will come with time. They also played various games with the other kids, under the direction of the staff, and generally had loads of fun. They really enjoyed themselves and didn't want to leave (always a good sign!).

After the session finished we hopped back on the train and got off a couple of stops later to go see a friend for lunch. I spent the afternoon catching up and they spent the afternoon playing with her kids, and we eventually left about 3pm. We had planned to stop off in town and buy some things we need (boring things like cat litter and loo rolls), but Tiny fell asleep on me on the bus back to town so we decided that trying to shop would be rather silly and went straight home. Typically, Tiny woke up as soon as we got home!

On the way home we discovered that Tiny had left two of her blue nosed friend softies somewhere. I rang my friend, but she couldn't see them in her house, and then I rang the climbing centre and they confirmed that they had them safe and sound, "looking after the computer on the front desk". Then they said I can "just pop in to get them whenever". I didn't have the heart to tell him that a 10 mile journey that takes an hour and a half both ways is not exactly a "just pop in" job, or that we were just trying out the experience to see whether the kids liked it and might not be back as we would favour the nearer centre, or if we were then it wouldn't be until next month.

This has made me ponder something... I am interested in what other home edders consider to be "too far" to travel? Do you have a limit in terms of travelling time, travelling costs or distance that you consider to be not worth it? Does it depend on what the group is? Please tell me your thoughts :)