Will Dig Life

This is the yearly roundup post - as I've done almost every year for 2020 , 2019 , 2018 , 2017 , 2016 seems to be skipped as I got to grips with mothering two little ones, and  2015 . So what's 2021 been like for us? After the enforced slowdown of 2020, Covid is still with us as I write: so much for the initial 2-week duration initially given! Wearing masks has become normal, gatherings are infrequent, and when they do happen we've become used to keeping a bit of a distance. Clapping for carers has given way to a jaded, tired distance kept by most people... I lament that very much, but there's hope for new beginnings this coming Spring even as we seem to be headed for another lockdown just after Christmas, thanks to Omicron. But, let's look back. We really didn't do much extraordinary stuff in the first half of the year - I stayed busy working mostly when Mr. wasn't working (evenings!) and much of what we used to do with the kids still wasn't on. So we m...

Inspired by Stark Raving Dad's latest podcast - I do love a good podcast! - here's a week in our life at present. This is, as always, written primarily for the kids to one day look back; but it's also, hopefully, to encourage others who are home educating or thinking about it, to let you see what a week in the life of a 7 year old and a 5 year old can look like without school. I feel like I should mention beforehand that we take a child led, autonomous approach to learning: we never sit down at a table to follow a curriculum or do worksheets. At this age, everything in life is a learning experience. And because we are led by the children's interests, which are subject to change, nothing is set in stone - this is literally just a snapshot into the way our weeks shape up right now. It's not a blueprint of how home education should look - that's the beauty of this approach, it's so individual that no two home educating families will be the same. Because our c...

I mentioned this in the previous post , but this journey deserves its own post at length. As I said, we have been officially attending the Catholic church since August of 2020 - that is when we sat down with the leadership of our evangelical church and informed them of our decision. But that event was only after a long journey, and it wasn't the end - there's still journeying ahead for us, not least for Mr. as he is doing RCIA for the year with the hope of being received into the Church this coming Easter. Celebrating the children's first Baptism anniversary on 10th October This is only my story, not Mr.'s - his will be different, of course. I grew up in a Catholic country, was baptised and had my First Holy Communion and my Confirmation at 14: all without ever believing in God. It was just culture, and I was an atheist from a very young age. My father was an atheist, too. My mother, although she prayed every night as she went to sleep (quietly, the only way I knew abou...

I think Covid has caused many people to pause and think, and change things - and not just people, but organisations too! Mr's work for example, previously insisting that all employees work at the office, has now changed permanently to allow them to choose only two days in the week to be physically there. That was always technologically possible, but only after Covid has there been the willingness to allow it. So too for us as a family, a lot of things have shifted during the Covid months... many of them had nothing to do with Covid and it's just been how things fell in time, but others were definitely prompted by the extended time we've had to be together and to think. Some things stay the same, but momentous changes are happening too! I think many of these are worth a blog post of their own, but here are the main changes that have happened with us during/after the Covid months.... We have become Catholic as a family. The kids were baptised in October 2020, and Mr. is curr...

After a very tense time of will-he or won't-he make it, thank Covid, he made it. At 2am he was with us, at last - after a catalogue of fun adventures: having to take yet another test at the airport (to the tune of £85) even though he already had a PCR test done within the required time limit, and having to wait two hours for a result (when the plane was literally scheduled to leave - fortunately it was delayed);  having to prove to a sceptical border guard at Vienna airport that he was actually allowed to enter the country because he normally lives with me, an Austrian citizen (he produced marriage certificate, copy of my passport, and a utility bill to satisfy them!); finding the regular train from the airport into the city wasn't running due to Covid; and after boarding an alternative train, hearing an announcement that the half of the train he was on would not continue, so by the time he and the others on that half had alighted, the front half had already pulled away leaving...

Can't believe we're now in week 4! This week I don't see much of the kids because they're at a sports camp (not sleeping over, daytime only) which is doing absolute wonders for their German because they can't respond to other kids in English like they do to me! But for the first three weeks we've been together 24/7, which at times has been challenging: simple things like grocery shopping are much tougher with two small kids in tow. Who have limited patience! So this week, without them around, I get to do stuff like clean and tidy this place (way overdue!), go to Adoration and Mass on my own, amble around. It's good. I keenly miss my Mr. more each day, but God willing he's arriving on Saturday. Here are a few of our adventures... At the end of July, we celebrated daddy's birthday with cake: Of course we spent time at various swimming places... For a little while, the weather wasn't too nice so we visited museums: Adventures on public transport... ...