Peace

I have been reminded this week how lucky I am to live in a country that is not at war with itself or any other country.  Despite being a work of fiction, The Beautiful Truth set in modern day and wartime Poland, has been well researched and paints a vivid picture of life for ordinary Polish people trapped in their occupied towns and cities.  Many resisted the occupation, life must have been one of constant fear and hardship.  No one talked about the Second World War when I was a child, I did not study this period at school, it is only since having my own children that I have come to know anything about this period in history.  The more I read and learn about the war the more I have come to understand why no one wanted to talk about it.  I cannot imagine what it would have been like to have been alive at that time.

When you look further back in history we were a country often at war with others.  We had a huge navy and were often sending great warships off to battles.  As I walked round the HMS Victory this week it is really hard to imagine 800 men living and working in such a small space.  The noise, in battle, must have been overwhelming, especially for the younger members of the crew probably aged around 12 who may have been at sea for the first time.  The number of men who died on ships such as these must have been huge and there is a reminder of this in the Mary Rose Museum.  Whilst the remains of the ship is on display, for me it is the artefacts of life on board that are more interesting. The loss of life on this ship was huge, it sank close to the harbour bounds, and though life was lost it was preserved in the mud and has now been painstakingly preserved.  We will never understand what it was really like to live and work on such a ship, the noise the action, have been sunk with the ship.

I have noticed this week, whilst being away from home that I have less 'noise' in my head.  I am thinking, always thinking about what we are going to do on that day, the next, food, washing, jobs I need to do round the house, activities to do with the children and so it goes on.  It is distracting, it stops me sleeping but not this week it has all gone quiet, if only I could find a way to turn it off or down at home........the peace is wonderful and relaxing.

Some of the noise going round in my head lately has been my thoughts on education and the future of my eldest.  I have been trying to identify why and what it is about secondary education in Britain that I am not happy about, writing it down has helped to make it clearer.  I have made some peace with my thoughts this week following a discussion with my parents.  I had thought that they were totally opposed to me continuing to home educate the children beyond primary school age, but after discussing with them my thoughts and what outcomes could and need to be achieved they have changed their minds and are in total support of whatever I do.  I know that in the back of my mind this was bothering me, I would have taken the decision based on my eldest's needs not what they thought.  But I know that if they had not been supportive it would have been harder for me and I would have felt that I always needed to justify what I was doing.  I still need to give this more thought but my head feels a lot clearer now and I still have plenty of time!

What do you do to find peace?