A School Free Life

I Love Pink Unicorns : ��Gardening To Help Bees & Butterflies �� : Our gardens are important to wildlife such as butterflies and bees because of the different plants they contain it doesn't matter if you...

So the past couple months haven't been the best, 2020 is just really not starting off great. In January there was this wierd threat of war between kim jong un and Trump, In February I aged another year, not as bad as the other things but still sucks. Now in March we have this freaky virus going around, we're locked in our houses and stuff, we cant go outside or we get arrested or something, I cant go to college which sucks a LOT but I do have 2 baby rats and a ps4 to keep me company. At this moment in time im not super worried but thats pretty easy to say from the safety of our house, although the news reports of this thing, especially the way a lot of the general population is reacting, is pretty terrifying. Like who actually needs dozens of costco packs of toilet paper? What are you going to do with that? Barricade yourself in with extra soft toilet paper? Yeah, im dying of this deadly disease but at least my backside is super clean. Just nooo, and then theres normal, sensi...

I joined an Animal Care course and Doncaster College. I got on it at 14 because they were allowing home educated kids on the courses that have an entry level, even though its supposed to be 16+. Just did my first week, and it's even better than I thought, apart front the couple of mild panic attacks when I got lost, it was great, especially Friday, when I got to go into the Animal unit itself and got told to feed the fish, snails, and other aquatic stuff. Tropical fish wouldnt keep  still enough for a good picture Turtle, I forgot the actual name. Maybe terrapin. I was surprised that we were just thrown into it, it wasn't hard or anything, just surprising that they trusted us enough. I'm not complaining though, it was great. 3 Of the tanks i needed to put food in wanted locusts, live, and they were really fun to catch. A few got out as well, so we had to catch them. The White Tree Frog I fed had a couple survivors, so we picked them out and just put th...

Yesterday we went back to the Rose theatre like last year where we went to see A mid summer nights dream, this time to see Hamlet. Even tho this one was a spoopy one, I actually preferred the one we went to last year. I found Hamlet himself really annoying, but everyone else was alight, except the queen, shes just plain stupid, spoiler alert, Husband dies, what do she do? Marry his brother/my brother in law! Get revealed that the new king poisoned the old one, what does she do? Nothing, still stuck-up, still useless. Then decides to drink the drink offered to Hamlet, by the king. First off, rude. Second, the King, who was exposed by Hamlet, offers said drink to Hamlet. HMmMmMmM, yeah perfectly safe, lets take a swig. Oh whoops I'm dead now haha silly me. I dont like the queen. My favourite character was probably Athena, Athene, Ath-something. She goes nuts after Hamlet kills her dad and its pretty fun to watch, and her ghost scene is quite eerie. Her brother is also pretty g...

We've been to 3 places using the national trust card over the last few weeks. One of them being somewhere we've been driving past and wanting to go to for a long time, Mr, Straws house. The others being castles. Mr. Straws House. Built in 1905 and remained mainly untouched since the 1920s, its been repainted in places and some protective measure have been put in place, but in the main part of the house its basically the same. The owners had a very wartime attitude of make do and mend, so even before the last owner died in 1990, its was still basically exactly the same than before, with very little in the way of modernisation. Except a boiler I suppose. I wasnt all that interested, but one thing that was pretty amusing, was on the bed in Mr straws room, the bed sheets hadnt been changed since he died, and there was a grimy semi circle at the foot of the bed at the edge where he used to sit, a bit gross, but eh. The house itself wasn't what I was expecting at all...

The other day we went to place in Darbyshire called Staisbury Mill. Its an old 19th century flour mill originally made somewhere in the 13th century, but was modernised around 1840, and then again a little bit (re floored n stuff) in the 1990s. And that's about as much history I want to write. It was alright, not really a massive amount to see, but i think we were there just long enough to see every thing without being bored, and it was pretty nice to see it mill actually, well, milling. We even decided to buy some flour, which wasn't even as ridiculously overpriced as it could've been, which i made some Banana Bread with, I've done a blog post on Create Make Bake with the recipe if you wanna look, up to you. It was pretty good to be fair, and we wern't out too long which means I could retreat to my lair, I mean room, before they forced me to go anywhere else.

Yesterday we went to York, yet again. This time it was for something a bit more special than looking around a few museums. This time it was to go and see a theatre play called A Midsummer's Night Dream. There was a absolutely horrible film made a year or so ago called Strange Magic which is a take on A Midsummer's Night Dream but it's really bad, I cant think of a film that I hate more. Anyway, this is a pop-up theatre made to be like the Rose theatre that was built in 1587, 12 years before the Globe. The building itself was quite impressive, even if it was a pain to get to our seats. The play itself was.... interesting... there were parts that I find very hard to believe that Shakespeare wrote and other parts that wouldn't have been funny if it wasn't in old English. It started off pretty rubbish but it got better when the fairies came in, they weren't your normal prancey dancey fairies, at first I was confused and sat there like........ What? But after...

About a week or so ago The Things  came round for another experiment thing, this time we blew stuff up, ... not really but it would have been better if we did. Anyway I set up by far the best thing, it was a bottle of vinegar and a balloon with a loads of Bicarbonate of soda and, Fooosh the balloon goes up, I wished it had of popped but alas, it did not.. Not a whole lot more happened after that, mainly just playing and/or messing about.

Yesterday we set up a little experiment with Nikki, Luke and Emma. We were basically just testing to PH of some stuff around the house. It was pretty interesting to see how acidic some stuff was, for example, I mashed up a raspberry and it turned out to have a similar PH to lemon juice. We had some stuff to test Alkalinity, it seems that its mostly man-made stuff that is an alkaline. It went pretty well though, we had fun, if fun is trying to explain PH, acidity and alkalinity to a 7 year old.

On June 12 I woke up to find little barley dead. This caught me off guard as she wasn't ill, the night before I swapped her and robin over into each others cage, which I do quite often. She was eating and drinking fine and was moving without a problem. But the more I think about it the more it made sense, she was, after all, over 2 1/2 years old, which is quite a long life span for a rat.  I was extremely shook for the first couple hours but I calmed down quickly. I had to get rid of the weeds in the front bed in the garden so grandad could dig a hole (that's right, we don't put our pets in the bin), this led to me clearing to bed completely and planting some flowers, I've now done the same thing to the bed nest to it where Lemon was buried. I am very glad she went how she did, as far I can tell she died of old age, the best way to go :) She's a lot luckier than the other 3 who didn't get to go as quickly. Now there is only Robin, he lives in barley's ca...

When you hear that you're going to York for a 'Behind the scenes' at a museum, you would think that you're going to the 'Backstage' of a museum and learning about how to did everything there. But that wasn't at all the case. Instead we were stuck in a room for an hour learning about writing from an Inanimate  objects point of view, like 'The adventures of  a pincushion'... It's an exciting adventure about a pincushion!!! Yay!!  As you can definitely tell, I was THRILLED to learn about a phase in the 18th century where people started writing about random objects, instead of learning about the Fairfax house. But don't worry, we DID get to go to the actual Fairfax house! Because it was arranged as a Home ed trip, we didn't have to pay to get into the house itself, this lead to a very rushed, not even complete, tour of the house. This didn't impress me as Fairfax house is one of the few preserved houses that I actually liked. ...

On Friday the 6th of April our Freda gave birth to 9 little puppies! She had the first at 10:54 and the last one 20:00. All together we've got 4 Boys and 5 Girls.  After the 7th was born we thought that's was it, mainly because it was a whole 4 hours and nothing else had happened. I turned round and BOOM, one popped out. The next 5-10 minutes was chaos because we were just told that if anymore came they probably wouldn't survive, and also because he was in a awkward position so it was quite difficult to get a hold of him.  About 45 minutes after that we saw contractions so at least I was prepared, this one popped out easily and for a second I wasn't sure if he was breathing, but luckily he was. So far they're all looking good, cute and healthy. Even little Runty is fine. Someone is watching Freda 24/7 so we shouldn't lose any. I've been pooped on quite a few times and my slippers are covered in I don't know what. But its worth it :D.

A few days ago we went to Chester zoo, which is a pretty big and popular zoo here in the UK. Fun fact: According to Trip Adviser, Chester Zoo is rated 3# in the ENTIRE WORLD! It was alright, except for the fact wherever we went there were animals pooping, and there were school kids everywhere. Oh, and not forgetting the monkeys with haemorrhoids, or at least it looked like it. That was something that I could've lived without seeing... SO, moving on from that. My favourite part was the bat cave, which my coward of a sister didn't go anywhere near. It was really cool, I mean, it smelled terrible but it looked really cool... 300 bats flying round your head and you're bound the get hit at some point, which I did. The parks there are really good as well, it's just a pity that we didn't get long on them. It was honestly pretty good, still debating whether or not it was worth getting up at 6 for. Here's a small collage of photos. This is a bear, who has foun...

2 Days ago I had to put down Lemon, my third Rat to die. A week or so prior she had fallen ill, and we knew it was only a matter of time. For the her last week she got better and as even eating and drinking on her own.  But then, on Friday, she went from the best she had been in a while to the worst, in a matter of a few hours. I hoped it was just an episode so I put off taking her to the vets, until the following day where she was worse, way way worse. But the vets had already closed so I couldn't do anything until Monday. Nothing much happend on the Saturday, I lay in bed with her all day. She was only just able to move, basically dragging herself. On Sunday I made the decision to put her down the next day, she had a violent seizure which was horrible to watch, and since then she made bad twitching movements. I had really hoped she died over night, but she chose to carry on fighting. That makes it sound cruel of me to put her down while she is still fighting. But we all knew,...

Yesterday I had to get up way too early to go to York. 07:00-08:15 We get up, get dressed, get out. A 35 minute drive later we get to the train station, where we wait for 10 minutes trying to figure out where our train is. We finally get in York and then we wonder around a park feeding squirrels by hand with some monkey nuts that a lady gave us, (I ended up eating to rest of the monkey nuts). We go to our first museum, Yorkshire museum, wasn't overly interesting (wasn't at all interesting) so... moving on. York Castle museum was a bit better, If it wasn't for the 55 steps leading up to the the actual castle and then realising we can't get in without a pass it may have actually been a nice experience. We took a break and went back to the park to feed more squirrels... It was then that I was crowned Queen of The Pigeons . When a flock of pigeons descended and decided that I was to be their Queen... from that day forth, I was known... as the Vermin Queen. Armed with...

On Tuesday, 12th September, we went to a place called The DEEP on a home Education trip. I'd heard about it and I had a basic idea of what it was, but it wasn't much like I had imagined really, I thought it was a giant aquarium that you could walk through, all though there was a tunnel that did do that. Me and my baby sister had a educational session booked in, her's was first and I had to sit through it... I did get a microscope to look at some shrimp with... that was fun... Okay moving on. There was an hour and 20 minutes between them and in that time we had lunch, that was nice... I was starving. Then it was mine, I think that they could've explained it better because it got difficult and I nearly give up but I got to draw on the table!! So overall mine was better. Then we actually got to walk 'round the place and look at the exhibits, my favourite one was the jelly fish dome, the there was some amazing tanks, including one with a pair of Green Saw-fi...

Angel wing is a syndrome that affects primarily male aquatic birds like ducks, geese, and swans. This causes the last joint in a birds wing (our equivalent to a wrist) to become twisted and the feathers to stick out. This is what we found in one of the signets on our lake during our walk. This happens due to a high protein and carbohydrate diet that lacks vitamins E and D as well as manganese, the most well known culprit being white bread,  according to some experts this is a common misconception, and is just due to to people feeding them. This causes them to not hunt for normal food as often because they know that they will get food anyway. Genetics are also to blame. This diet affects mainly younger, male birds that are still growing. If only 1 wing is affected it is normally the left one for unknown reasons, but either way the bird cannot fly. The only way to reverse the damage is to basically strap the affected wing the the bids side and place it on a nutritionally balanced...

Today a cycling event called Tour of Britain came through that village that I live in, Tour of Britan is the same as Tour De France but obviously is in England and Scotland. We don't really follow cycling so this wasn't like AMAZING but it wasn't something we would see everyday either. We've got quite a few pictures and some footage. Footage! This was difficult to get but here are the first 5 cyclists! Cyclist Train!

Yesterday, Calverton SJA unit set up a pet first aid course. I was the only cadet from my unit there so I didn't know anyone. Also I mummified a cat.... It was break and I was bored...  A PDSA veterinary nurse was there to teach us, which I was surprised at. I learned a lot of very interesting things there, Including where to find a pulse on a dog and different diseases that pets can develop and what affects they have. The CPR was interesting too. There were different subjects such as poisoning, bloating, seizures and different stuff like that. The bloating one was my favourite, I always thought it was just a bit of air in the stomach, but no, with dogs their whole stomach can twist, blocking off the blood supply to other vital organs. This was one of the more relevant ones considering our dogs are deep chested and deep chested dogs are more likely to have this happen to them.  The seizures were interesting as well, especially the video that she showed of some pets h...