Good afternoon!  For many in the UK this is back to school week – today hubby and teachers across the country have school inset training days, whilst the kids enjoy their final days of summer.  The school uniform is bought, the pencil cases packed and soon the countdown will be on for Halloween.

This is the first year in about 18 years that school uniform hasn’t been bought in our house!  The lovely girl has a very loose, smart “own clothes” code for the sixth form – although mum has a feeling that this could prove a lot more problematic!!  The first line of the code made me both smile and sigh – “no underwear to be on show”……so no knicker skimming skirts, shorts need to be long and tailored, no bras or cleavages on show.  How times have changed since my day – the only concession we got in the sixth form was girls didn’t have to wear blazers or ties; the boys had no concessions.  Skirts above the knee….forget it! The girls have been out shopping – last week they visited the interesting God’s own Junkyard with its displays of neon lights amongst other places – and she did return with a skirt….it definitely doesn’t reach her knees!

God’s Own Junkyard

The skirt!

The young engineer has been away at a festival this weekend, but it is far removed from those visited by his brother this year.  I think an accurate description would be a “Geek” festival where like minded inquisitive souls meet up and CREATE!  Never will you attend a camp with such power, high speed wifi and every imaginable technological gadget – one comment on instagram said “You know you are at @emfcamp #emfcamp and not any other festival when the guy in the tent next to you is running a server from the porch of his tent :)”  It is based at Eastnor Castle in Herefordshire and this year additional power and wifi had to be installed, so my bet is the local villages will have the fastest internet connections in the whole UK!

Last year the young engineer and his friend built a giant (8 feet) version of Guitar Hero – wires and lights were arriving at our house for weeks before (you can see it on Youtube here: https://youtu.be/AOU09T3l9Kg).  This year he has taken his better half who is a software engineer but frankly I’m not sure that he knows what he has let himself in for.  They are due back later today…..

This week the young engineer officially becomes a Master of Engineering & Software when he graduates at the Royal Festival Hall.  I am hoping that I will have some very embarrassing pictures to share of him wearing his gown and mortar board!

The first blog on today’s list is about the EMF camp, but if this doesn’t grab you then hopefully you can be inspired by the others on the list.  I have found a post about an artisan Mead brewery (having seen them featured on a BBC programme), some timely back to school views from a teacher, and a new blog from a cyclist touring through Kyrgyzstan to Nepal.  There are also some great life posts and my favourite title has to go to “The Special Stank of a Boy”!

https://hackaday.com/2018/08/14/looking-forward-to-electromagnetic-field-2018/

http://viking-mjod.no/apothecary-mead-legends-of-sherwood/

https://butismileanyway.com/2018/08/30/the-onset-of-inset-days-backtoschool-teacherslife/

https://inspiremystyle.com/2018/08/26/leading-a-fulfilled-and-healthy-life/

http://www.secondhand-life.com/2018/08/anxiety-storms-demons-on-the-boat/

http://janetgivens.com/at-seventy-seven-thoughts/

https://thewildreaderwithacat.wordpress.com/2018/09/02/beautiful-houses-%F0%9F%98%81/

https://woods-wanderer.com/2018/09/02/cycle-touring-chapter-7-osh-to-kunelek-kyrgyzstan-an-ode-to-kolbek/

https://butterflyinremission.com/2018/08/21/how-i-experienced-mindset-shift-motivation-life-change/

https://hotmessmemoir.com/2018/09/03/the-special-stank-of-a-boy/

I hope that you enjoy this great mixture of posts…..please like, comment and share!

Have a great week,

Claire x