The Barnes Family

Month: September 2006

  • Flash: Our little boat

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    1182 Flash is our little sailing dinghy. She was built from raw materials over the summer of 2003. A wonderful project – and a great way to forget the stresses of the working day! The design and the bits came from an outfit called Flounder Bay in Anacortes, Washington. They are no longer there, as…

  • The Nikon D80 is in the shops!

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    I saw it today in Jessops in Bracknell – it looks more like the D50 than the D70s, and it’s certainly small. I think it’s a great looking camera, and perhaps if I was starting again I’d consider a pair of D80s rather than my D50 and D200…

  • Cornwall pictures up

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    1114 I just posted the pictures of our visit to Cornwall. This was a birthday present from Marina – a big secret, well kept. We dropped the boys off with my parents, and took off westwards. It was a real thrill to find ourselves right out on the point of St. Andrews, finding our way…

  • China and France pictures in the gallery

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    883 1019 Just re-posted the pictures of my trip to China and Hong King in 1986, and our 2006 trip to France: Paris for the marathon and Disney World, and a taste of Brittany and Normandy – our first visit. The trip to China took place just before I moved from England to California –…

  • Paris, Brittany and Normandy

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    A spring trip to France, taking in the Paris Marathon, Euro-Disney (yuk!), and a few days exploring Brittany and Omaha Beach and Bayeux in Normandy. Paris by Eurostar 904 I love Eurostar. It’s so much more convenient than flying. We can take the train in to Waterloo Station in London, and walk across to the…

  • How do we know it’s working?

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    Home schooling is a bit tricky. We have adopted a curriculum from Oak Meadow School in the US – it’s a popular school – to the point they seem too busy to talk to us! But it’s not straightforward. Here are some of our first questions: How many hours to spend? How much discipline is…

  • Lots of new photos

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    Africa and Scandinavia: I’ve finished the galleries for these two trips. 360 You can access them from the links at the top of the screen, or go there directly.Our trip to Scandinavia took place early in 2006, right in the middle of winter, and we expected everything to be very dark. In fact, we found…

  • More tech: building a computer

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    Along the same theme as the previous post, Caelean and I are building a computer. Actually it’s one I built a while a go and have now taken apart. Caelean reads about it first, and makes some notes and draws the critical things, then we sit down with the bits and look at them to…

  • Starting to teach: fixing a bike

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    I really enjoy teaching – it’s interesting to see people learn, and fun to work out how to create the conditions in which it can happen. Jeremy and I are dismantling a bike. Today we took apart a wheel bearing and cleaned and re-packed it. So we discussed grease and oil, how adjustable spanners work,…

  • Home schooling

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    We’ve started a programme of teaching our kids at home this year. Properly we should call it distance learning, as we’re actually enrolled in a school called Oak Meadow – they provide us with curriculum and guidance so we won’t stray too far from the straight and narrow. I’ll try to keep a sort of…