The system works!

Earlier today, Alex comes in from outside while I'm at the sink washing up and says to me "I going by myself".
"Where?"
"On the naughty step."
"Oh, have you done something naughty?"
"I pull the leaves offa flowers."
"You're right, that was naughty. OK, off you go." And darned if he didn't. I went over a few minutes later to accept his apology and hug. Bless him - what a sweetie. Of course, not pulling the leaves off in the first place would be even nicer, but not nearly so cute.

I'm probably a bit mad...

Probably?? I hear you all say in chorus... I say this because I've started another blog - like I can even keep up with this one! The thing is, sometimes I'm not inspired to blog here, because my life's not all that interesting and I try not to bore my readers to tears... The new blog is a quilting blog, so it's entirely related to what I did on any given day in terms of quilting (or sewing or dyeing, fabric painting or I suppose cross-stitch or any other related craft thingy) so it has no obligation to be interesting to anyone but other sad quilters who like to see what their fellow addicts are doing. I thought about just adding all that stuff to my normal blog, but it didn't seem right. You are all of course welcome to read my new quilting blog, but please don't feel obliged - that's why I've separated them!

Tennis, anyone?

A very long time ago, Geoff used to play tennis on these courts with his friend Stewart. Like 20 years ago. Over time, they fell into disrepair, until they were virtually unplayable on (ok, questionable grammar, I know). Recently, the park has resurfaced and painted and put new fences up and now they are really nice courts - they do charge a nominal charge to use them, but frankly, it's worth it. We've taken the kids a few times, but today (which was a lot rainier than in this photo, which was taken yesterday - Geoff knocking the ball around with Sarah, who is getting better) Geoff and I decided to have a game ourselves. We haven't played in about 10 years - since before Sarah was born. Geoff pointed out that we weren't that much worse than we'd been then - unfortunately, that's mainly due to the fact that we were fairly bad then... Both of us ache now, though - all those muscles we don't normally really use. For him, it's his back. For me, it's my right shoulder and arm. My back seems ok - that's probably the yoga... 

Positively 3 1/2

This morning while I am fixing toast, a little but quite strident voice comes from the living room "I wanna drink of milk". "Ok," I reply, and reach into the cupboard to get a Tweenies cup. "NO! says the voice, followed by the stomping of small feet, "I gonna get the cup out myself, I gonna get it - I gonna." "OK," I reply, and hand the Tweenies cup to him, "put this one back and get the one you want." I get the milk out of the fridge and wait for Mr. Boy to choose his own cup. Sounds of Tweenies cup being put back. Sounds of Mr. Boy moving the cups around to decide which one he will deign to use. "THIS one," he says, handing me, you've guessed it, the Tweenies cup. WhatEVer, as the girls would say...

Lessons for the house-husband

1. When you put new, fresh bread in the bread bin, the old stale or moldy bread at the bottom doesn't take itself out of the bread bin and throw itself away because it's embarrassed to be there next to the new fresh bread.

2. The whole "putting things to go upstairs on the edge of the steps" thing only works if you then actually CARRY the things upstairs next time you go. Otherwise, the things that were waiting to go upstairs Wednesday evening when your wife left to go away for 4 days will actually still be sitting on the edge of the steps on Sunday evening, when she returns.

3. There are no "putting away" faeries. And children, when given the choice, will 99 times out of 100 choose not to put their own stuff away - go figure.

Kid free zone...

Or at least, free of my own children... I'm off later this afternoon to Birmingham to attend the Festival of Quilts (big UK quilt show) as a vendor - working on the Nolting Longarm booth with Lana. Coming home Sunday evening, probably. That's about 4 days without my kids. At the moment, I consider this to be a very good thing - I'm on the verge of setting up a UN style exclusion zone between my girls with threats of economic retribution if either fires sallies into said zone... If I thought it would actually work it would be done in a second - problem is, just like in the real world, these things tend to need heavy reinforcements to have any effect.

Home again home again, jiggedy jig

Had a nice trip up to see Grandma Lucy last week - not entirely relaxing, because it's always hard having kids away from home in a house that's not completely geared towards kids, but they were very good and they do love visiting Grandma. Luckily, the weather was very nice so we were able to go out and do lots of stuff. On the way up, we went the slow route, past Oxford up to Coventry. We stopped at the Oxfordshire museum in Woodstock - a small, local museum with a nice sculpture garden, where we ate our picnic. Then we stopped again at the Rollright Stones, which the kids really enjoyed. I like Stonehenge, don't get me wrong, but I think I prefer some of the smaller stone circles, which are dotted all over - there's a really nice feel to them, plonked in the middle of a field, just kind of there. And of course, hardly any tourists, unlike Stonehenge, which gets a bit insane sometimes.

Thursday we mainly stayed at Grandma's, but Friday, she treated us to a local amusement park, Twinlakes Park, which was exactly right for the kids - for older kids, there wouldn't be as much of interest, but it was great this year, and will probably suit them well for two more years before Sarah starts getting bored. I'm sure we'll visit again next year - either Easter or summer.

Saturday we took Grandma and Auntie Mary (Geoff's Aunt - his dad's brother's widow) to lunch, and Sunday we headed back home, again by the meandering route, this time via Wellplace Zoo, where we had our picnic - we had a lovely run down some of the kinds of country roads you only get in England - really great and SO much better than the wretched M1... But it's nice to be home - and much easier on the kids as they have all their stuff to get into and amuse themselves with - and easier on me, as I don't have to keep an eye on them all the time...

One advantage (?) of being at Grandma Lucy's house is there is no internet access, so in the evenings once the kids go to bed, I mainly just read. (Helped by the fact that there is never anything on telly in the summer). We were there for 4 nights; I read three books - ok, none of the was A Suitable Boy (though one was by the same author), but neither were they picture books - I was glad I thought to take 3!

Oh, and of course there are lots of photos in our yahoo album.