What the Easter Bunny did...

Here's what the Rabbit brought Sarah - each kid got a half-chocolate egg (the one in cellophane) with small bits of chocolate inside it - Olivia's was white sheep, Alex's was chocolate dinosaurs - Alex and Sarah got chocolate bunnies (Olivia had Easter shaped marshmallows instead as she's not a huge chocolate fan the way the other two are) and then there were small eggs and shapes as well... Unfortunately, there are no marshmallow peeps in England, or the Easter Bunny would probably bring them as well... Still, there's enough chocolate (and other sweets) to last some time...

First of the year

...and at the end... yum.



After some struggle to get the fire going - I think the charcoal was a bit damp perhaps (it was last year's, and had been in the shed all winter) - burgers and veggie kebabs were eaten. And of course, dessert.

Nearly there!

So, our part is largely done (the border on the left will have bark on it, the way the one on the right does, and there's a tiny bit more shingle needed over to the right of the photo where you can't see it) and what remains now is for the council to come out and do the cross-over and kerb (i.e. take the kerb out and pave from the road up to the edge of the drive). In some areas, your builder can do this, but here, only the council is allowed to, even after they give permission. This is partly because they want the money they can charge for doing it, and partly to ensure (I assume) it's done to a particular standard. Anyway. That should happen in the next four weeks some time, and then we'll be able to actually park on it. Hurrah.

Lunchtime Wednesday

This is all the work they can do today - tomorrow, someone will deliver a tonne of gravel, and then they'll be able to come back, spread that out, and finish the edges of the driveway area. And then it will be done. Hoorah!



And then, of course, all we have to wait for is the council to come and knock the curb down and do the footpath crossover - which could be any time in the next 4 weeks or so. After that, we will finally be able to park on it!



In case you were wondering, this is what the honecomb plastic gridding looks like, which will hold the gravel in place - it comes in squares, about a metre square, and clips together.

Wednesday morning, 9am

So, the grabber lorry finally makes it - which is great, but of course it comes about ten past nine, and blocks the road, making us nearly late for Alex's swimming lesson (we really need to leave by 20 past at the latest; didn't get out until 9.30. Sigh. But at least all the rubble is gone!)




Here's where they'd got to by close of business yesterday - today, they should get all the honeycoming laid, the fence finished, etc.

Driveway, Day 3 (more or less)

Day 2 was a bit of a washout as the builder had to leave about halfway through the day due to illness - and then, with him unwell and the other two guys on holiday, nothing really happened until now. This is all dug out and levelled. Plus, you can't really tell, but a fence has been removed and fence posts for the new one (to match the new one on the other side) sunk. Tomorrow, paving and whatnot. And hopefully, the rubble will go.

New Driveway, Day 1

Yesterday, he removed the path and the bit of concrete at the front of the house (behind where the wheelbarrow is). This may not seem like a lot of work,but it was 8 inches deep in places...



At the moment, it's quite a big step up to the front step!



And a lovely big load of hardcore to take away - of course, the driver of the lorry that would take the hardcore away has just been to the door to say that he can't get his lorry down the road because some idiots (my phrasing) have park right on the corners, so he can't turn (it's striped a certain distance from the corner, you aren't supposed to park there, but commuters often do it anyway - it's very annoying and frequently prevents delivery lorries and others from being able to get into our part of the road, which requires a right-angle turn...).

Funky hairstyle

Olivia stayed the night at a friend's house and the friend's mum did her hair. Of course, she wants me to duplicate this now - fat chance!

Deputy Sheriff of Nottingham

In his school play. He had quite a few lines and did very well. It was a comic villain part and he got lots of laughs, especially in one bit where the whole rest of the cast gets to yell "Shut up!" at him. Now if I could just get the songs from the play out of my head - problem is, after having rehearsed them a billion times with the two classes I work in, I know all the words!

Cakes for Japan

No, we're not going to send the actual cakes to Japan - they are only going as far as school, where the pupil leaders are having a cake sale tomorrow to raise money for Japan relief. We baked loads.

There will be more baking mid-week as Alex is off to cub camp on the weekend and they love to have donations of home-made cakes to take with them...

Aerial view of St Lucia

This doesn't really show all the models as well as it might, but the other photo has lots of sofa and cushions in the background and isn't ideal, either:



The basic concept was a model for each section of the project, with a little booklet about that aspect of St Lucian life.

The main problem with Olivia's projects is storing them later, as you might imagine!

Homemade Paper

Among our many bits and pieces of craft stuff, is a paper making kit - we've done it once before, a long time ago, but this time Sarah decided to have a go for herself - I think it will be quite nice paper when it's dry, if a little holey in places...

Here's what the kitchen looked like, mid-process!

New car

Just in case there's anyone I know left who isn't aware we got a new car... Woohoo! I'll spare you the incredibly long and boring saga of spending the best part of the day at CarGiant and driving home through Shepherd's Bush in rush hour. The only upside of that was that Geoff and I had a nice walk along the Grand Union Canal and then a stroll through Kensal Green Cemetery (hence the photo above). If it weren't so far away, I'd be very tempted to go back up there just to explore the cemetery more (it was nearly closing time when we got there).




It's one of those great old cememteries where all the graves and monuments are packed in next to one another, some more tended than others, really interesting and with lots of depth and texture.



This section of the canal is quite nice as well, though a little industrial in parts - but that's canals for you, at least when they go through towns.



And oh yes - here's the car in question!

Hama Nice Day...

Among the other things the kids have been doing to amuse themselves over the holiday was making some Hama bead creations - for those not in the know, these are tiny plastic beads that you set up on a plastic form and then iron to fuse. All three of them have created things - Alex did the panda, the rocket and the A, with a little help from Sarah - Olivia's done the N and the giraffe and the rest are Sarah's, though a few of them were made previously and just mended during the recent session.

Gingerbreadmania

Gingerbread creations were, well, created. Gingerbread men...



...and Gingerbread women.



Also dinosaurs (or dinosours, depending on which child is spellling).



Not to mention trains.

And of course...


Gingerbread Daleks.

V&A Visit

Today I met up with my friend Julie at the V&A - normally I would not go up to town two days running, but as she lives in California and is only in London until Thursday, exceptions were made...

Disappointingly, as she is a fellow quilter and thus interested in textiles as well, the textiles gallery and the clothing gallery were both shut. (The clothes until 2012, for refurbishment - the textiles, who knows, there was no sign, just a closed door. Sigh.) However, there's still lots of fun stuff to see at the V&A, including the revamped ceramics gallery, which I hadn't yet seen, and which included this lovely little collection of pots and beakers - which reminded me a bit of the view from the window:




I do love chimney pots!

Also found these pieces really interesting...



I did resist taking photos of the billions of other things I liked - one always takes tons of photos in museums, and then never looks at them again!

Birthday...

There was present opening (this is an Obi Wan Kenobi outfit for his teddy bear),



there was travelling up to London to eat in Gourmet Burger Kitchen (walking past London Eye & Big Ben)




...and through Covent Garden where this gentleman was singing La Donna e Nobile, among other things...



I looked in a few windows, and eventually, we found ourselves here:



It was excellent!

8 years ago...

I do have a photo of him newly born in hospital, but frankly, it's not a great photo - this one, which is probably a few days later, is much better...

Happy Birthday to my (not so) little birthday boy!

Volcano, Bridge

The Island of St Lucia now has a volcano on it. I'm going to try to flog Olivia's model to the St Lucia tourist board when she's finished with it...



One of Sarah's. Done from a brief glimpse of a scene on telly, then drawn from memory.

Welcome to St Lucia...

...I wish. It would be nice to be somewhere warm. This was the state of the model of St Lucia when I got home - subsequently, it acquired a volcano. A second one is under consideration...

Sofa bed

I promise there is an actual sofa bed under Alex's collection of stuffed toys. Of course, these aren't the really special 20 or so, who live on his bed itself...

Still life with packaging

Sarah's art assignments are sometimes a little odd. But then, perhaps teenagers would rather draw packaging than fruit.

Mickey Mouse March

Olivia's band had a concert tonight - postponed Christmas concert from before Christmas - we got snowed out before. Luckily, they dropped the Christmas music. I promise the flutes are actually playing here, and you could hear them in person, though the clip seems to be all brass...

Blast from the past

I never seem to blog much over here - guess our life isn't that exciting! But recently, I've been organising old photos - I had a ton of CDs from the days when you sent your film off to be developed and could get it back on CD for only a little extra, so I decided to move all those photos (24 per CD!!) onto the computer and then back them up with the rest of the photos on my memory stick. Consequently, I've been having a look at some of them, and thought I'd share some from time to time. This one is from December 2002 - I remember fairly clearly as we were going to a wedding and I was about a million months pregnant (ok, about 8) with Alex. The girls looked gorgeous, though, even if Mummy looked a bit like a beached whale...