These It’s Friday posts are my attempts to catch up on what we’ve been doing re home education amongst other things. I’m sitting here in our family room enjoying our first fire for the year as there’s been a sudden drop in temperature. My husband lit the fire then moved to another room because he said it’s too hot in here for him now – not for me.

I sent this to my son and daughter-in-law today – they’re fairly certain they will home educate but their eldest is only three and a half at the moment.

My son texted me back with this:

‘My kids would get the added bonus of a discussion on the merits and challenges that come with digital currencies, the future of fiat, and an essay exploring whether fiscal privacy should be classified as a human right

Because, you know, maybe we’ll be able to buy light bulbs with bitcoin soon

Also you forgot LED vs flourescent and incandescent technologies’

Miss 17 started reading Darwin’s Black Box a couple of weeks ago and thinks it’s interesting. It’s fairly technical in places but she is finding it quite readable.

And this week I gave her How Now Shall We Live as a worldview/apologetics option after we dropped a couple that she was just not engaging with.

Today for current events we watched John Anderson interviewing a Russian born Podcaster, Comedian & Author, Konstantin Kisin on ‘The Russian Psyche.’ Do you know where the term ‘politically correct’ came from? Yes, Soviet Russia. These conversations as well as various Podcasts have been excellent for keeping up with current events from different perspectives.

Ye Cannae Shove Yer Granny Off a Bus is a Scottish song I grew up with and loved. I bought this book when we were in Scotland in 2019 and read it to my three year old grandson the other week and he loved it. A wee bit o’ Scottish indoctrination. When my daughter had our first grandchild I had to make up my mind what I should be called and chose ‘Granny.’ My kids thought that was terrible; they said it sounded like I was a little old woman…

But I wanted to keep up the Scot side and pass it on so that’s what the Grands call me.

Mother Culture

Chasing the Dragon by Jackie Pullinger – I read this years ago and recently bought the updated edition of the book and re-read it. The author went to Hong Kong in 1966 when she was twenty years of age and began working with heroin addicts in The Walled City. A short bio is here and her official website is here.

The Walled City was demolished in the early 1990s and the government built a park on the land it had occupied. A model replica of the old Walled City and a plaque to acknowledge Jackie’s work was placed in the park. Incredible that her work made such a huge impact and was acknowledged in that way.

Cousin Phillis by Elizabeth Gaskell – a simple story that is only about 124 pages in length. A young man meets his ‘cousin’ (Phillis) and her family for the first time when he leaves home to work in another part of the country. Nothing much really happens in the story, except for an unofficial romance that didn’t work out, but it is written beautifully, as you would expect from Mrs Gaskell. I listened to it on Librivox narrated by Elizabeth Klett and it reminded me a little of Edith Wharton’s style of writing. It had a more optimistic ending than if it had been a story by Wharton.

I’ve been interested in reading Andrew Robert’s books, Churchill: Walking With Destiny but in the meantime I listened to an interview with him about the book on the “We Have Means of Making You Talk” Podcast. Now I’d REALLY like to read it as it sounds fascinating.