By Peter Thackrey, Head of Boarding

Since half term, the Houseparent teams have been hosting online ‘At Homes’ with our students. It has been lovely to catch up with people and hear how they are doing either locally, further afield in the UK or abroad. As ever, these forums of discussion are re-energising for us as Houseparents, and it has been great to get the students together in a social context. The students also found it helpful hearing from their peers as to how they are managing life in lockdown. We look forward to more virtual At Homes, although we would much rather be meeting face-to-face at Bedales.

To give you a flavour of what has been happening at my At Homes this week, I showed the boys in my house how to make poached eggs live – this was my first attempt too! I was delighted that some of the boys joined in at the same time, poaching eggs in their own kitchen. We all had moments of great triumph as we cut into a poached egg and out flowed delicious yellow yolk. We all had moments of disaster as eggs split, yolks went too hard and one even ended up on a laptop! I suggested poached eggs go well with haggis or avocado, or of course, Eggs Benedict… that will be for next week!

Whilst we were poaching, it was great to hear the students sharing their different experiences of lockdown all over the world – life beginning to open up in Hong Kong and Shanghai, life seeming no different to normal in rural Switzerland (always quiet!), and how one Russian city was operating totally normally while Moscow was in total lockdown. The boys also exchanged which box sets they were particularly enjoying watching and some were saying how much they were enjoying picking up instruments they hadn’t played for years. But, most of all, they all wanted to know when they could get back on Flat with their friends. For now, this video from Chris Bott and Olly Hoult on Boys’ Flat will have to suffice… and we look forward to ideas from the residents of Boys’ Flat for episode two!