Talking Round the Table

Apparently this toucan is talking. I wonder if he talks round the lunch table too?

The best part of every morning is lunchtime. We stop work, make lunch, and cluster round the table to eat and share stories of our morning's work. It's a habit we've formed over many years, and I love it. It's a whole other education outside of my usual work.

"Did you know that Holland isn't actually a country?" Mum starts with. "It's actually a province."

"What's a province?" Gemma-Rose, the youngest, asks.

We explain that it's like a state and soon my younger sisters are teaching me all about Holland and the Archimedes Screw used in windmills. It's a fascinating subject. So much I didn't know about Holland and the Netherlands before.

Eventually we move on to Victor Hugo and his history lesson of a novel, Les Miserable. Charlotte is stubbornly trying to reach the end of this tome, though it's taken her months to get close.

"I think that book is the definition of an info dump," I say with a giggle. "All that history."

This moves us onto the subjects of books and soon we're sharing old favourite books that we've read for fun, or used in our study. From there, who knows where the conversation might go? It's sure to be in an interesting direction.

Officially, I'm not homeschooling any more. I'm a full time uni student, study the business of writing and publishing. I don't study artists, history, or composers any more. I'm too busy trying to wrap my head around sociology, or keep up with the technical terms of media. My education has moved on.

But that doesn't mean that I don't have time to join in with our lively lunchtime discussions round the table. There's still so much to learn that my university course doesn't cover. Talking with my family, learning from them, and adding my own views is an important part of life. Yes, I might not be homeschooling any more, but I'm still learning alongside my brothers and sisters, sharing knowledge. And that is something I hope will never stop.