Back To School Round-Up: Kids Projects & Trading Secrets

Back to School

Facebook this week has been awash with proud parents posting up pics of their kids in their new school uniform, compete with descriptions of teary eyes… and that’s just the adults. Liz and I have got into the new term spirit too: followtheboat is involved in a school project which might be of interest to any parent out there with young children.

It was some time in the summer holidays that we received an email from Nancy Lake, a teacher at Wybunbury Deleves Primary School in Cheshire. This term Nance is reading ‘Kensuke’s Kingdom‘ by Michael Morpurgo to her class of 10-11 year olds. It’s a story of a young boy who goes sailing with his parents and is ship-wrecked on an island, which he has to share with an old  Japanese war veteran. To help bring the story to life Nancy asked us if would answer some questions put forward by her class.

We thought we’d turn this project into a podcast, so yesterday Nancy put together some audio recordings of her class asking us their questions! We should have it finished by October and hope that anyone, whatever the age, finds it fun to listen to. To help the kids learn more about what we’ve been up to this last year we have put together a video clip as well. We’ll be publishing that first, sometime next week. We’ll keep you posted.

Exclusive Podcast

Talking of podcasts, this week’s Followtheboat episode is an exclusive. In fact we might even be contravening some international secrecy act by publishing it as it’s a recording of a conversation between two naval officers and some boat owners. In it they discuss the piracy situation, avoidance tactics, rules of engagement and how to spot a pirate. We’ve had to delete a lot of it as we discuss specific tactics still being used by both the Royal Navy and the returning rally next year, but it illustrates how yotties deal with the serious issue of pirates. You can find the podcast here.

Facebook Fanpage

And talking of Facebook, right about here on the page you should see a new white box to your right, which is a link to our new Facebook ‘Fan’ page. It’s a way of integrating Followtheboat more tightly with Facebook. If you like our stuff and have a Facebook account then please click the ‘Like’ button and check it out. If you don’t have a Facebook account, don’t worry, all status updates are fed back to the box.

Pressgang

Meanwhile we said we’d desist with the competition announcements but I do just have to tell you that Liz has been shortlisted for another piece of travel writing, which was published in Holiday Velvet. In it she describes what it is about New York that she loves. It’s another fantastic short story and you can read it here.

Meanwhile my ‘House of Strobes’ night shot taken in London has been shortlisted for the TNT Photography Awards, but the most important press announcement, however, is that Millie the Cat got her first piece of journalism published in The Guardian newspaper under her proper name, Millyu. You can click on the image to read a full-sized scan of the feature, though how she got herself to Rye Castle I’ll never know 😉

Curried Props

Finally props to the marina manager, Jose, and his wife for bringing me some home-cooked food to the boat. Without Liz around I must look like I’m starving. Possibly. Very definitely the best curries I have ever tasted. Thank you.

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