Sunny - or not

Great day this morning - sunny, no wind - perfect for sunprinting, which I wanted to do for a project of my own, so I thought I'd let the kids do some too. Of course, the moment we get the pieces painted and ready to go outside, there goes the sun for the duration of the afternoon. Sigh. Worked ok, but not with the kind of crisp, clear images that you get on a really good day. Still, it was fun for them - especially Alex, who has never been allowed to do it before. He thinks it's Magic. And so it is.

The ones above are Alex's on the left and Sarah's on the right. Below are Olivia's on the left and on the right, a group effort which was mainly an exercise in using up all the setacolours which had been poured out and thinned. The kids' pieces mainly use foam shapes and leaves as resists, the group piece uses rice, lentils and pasta (dried). I think the group piece in particular is a very nice piece. I shoudl say that the dark parts were there to start with - it was a piece I ruched before which didn't turn out very interesting so went into the "do something else with this later" box.

Portrait of the artist...

The small boy is obsessed with the camera. To the point I have to be careful where I leave it - not because I mind him taking pictures, but he's only four; I don't want him to drop it. Here's a photo he took today, of himself. I kinda like it, actually :)

Run, run, as fast as you can...

Alex was learning The Gingerbread Man in nursery, so we made these biscuits in honour - Allie did all the eyes and buttons himself. There's another, raisinless tray for those who don't like raisins (Sarah) as well. He insisted on having Rover in the picture as well - Rover is his favourite stuffed toy, most of the time. He has the honour of being the only stuffed toy who has an actual name (most are just called Panda, Bear, Cat (or Catty) and so on, unless they are a character that already has a name (Snoopy, Dora, Fimbo, etc))

It's alright ma, I'm only hoarse after shouting at a concert

Dylan last night at Wembley Arena. Good show - better than Kilkenny Festival last year, not the very best I've seen him, but I do really like the new album, so that helps, and he was obviously in a good mood (comparatively speaking). Played Blind Willie McTell, which I understand is unusual - I've certainly not heard it in concert before. Lots of stuff off the new album (Modern Times) though not Workingman's Blues, which I like. But he did do When the Deal Goes Down and Nettie Moore, both of which I like very much. Even Geoff really likes the new album, now that he's got used to it being very different from traditional Dylan, whatever that is.

Not sure why I always seem to end up having to sit next to guys who get a little drunk and elbow me in the side all night - maybe there's just something about me :)

Great comment in a review in one of the free London papers today: "...by singing in a voice so husky it was a miracle he didn't arrive on stage pulling a sled." Even better than the Guardian review of the Newcastle concert which said his voice these days was a "cross between Macy Gracy and Donald Duck" which is odd and slightly rude but remarkably accurate.

What a zoo!

Our friends Cathi and Dave are visiting this weekend from Ireland - on Friday, we took all the kids to the zoo. Here are Olivia and Aine (who is Alex's age) pretending to be flamingos, and Alex with his new gorilla toy, and Aine. They are looking at the Komodo Dragon - or rather, were before this photo was taken... The London Zoo has a new gorilla enclosure, which is nice - my friend Barbara would like it, I'm sure. It was a nice day - good weather (though nothing like today which is sunny and very warm) and we had a good time, despite the effort of taking small kids on public transport - both of the big girls were very helpful with the two 4 year olds, and Aisling, who is 2.5. More photos of the kids here - and lots of photos of animals, too.

Jesus just wants to say hi...

OK, I promise not to blog every time I get funny spam, but this one I couldn't resist - the subject line was "just want to say hi", which is common enough with spam, but the sender just said "Jesus". Had to laugh...

Easter Chicks (and boys)

So here are the kids on Juniper Top, with a couple of Easter chicks, which they have made a nest for. Unfortunately, not a good photo of Sarah, but pretty sweet of the other two... We had a lovely picnic on Juniper Top yesterday with our friend Miranda - beautiful day and great food.

Why we don't take up careers as handymen...

Here in the UK, this is a bank holiday weekend for Easter- both Friday and Monday are holidays. Some years we go up to see Geoff's mum over Easter, but because our friends Cathi and Dave are coming from Ireland next week, we decided to stay at home this weekend. And tackle some of the list of small jobs that have been waiting for us. One of these is repainting the back garden fence, which Geoff started last weekend. Of course we didn't have enough paint, so he could only do half until I made it down to B&Q to get more. That having been accomplished in the week, he duly finished the fence yesterday. That was the easy thing. The next task was to replace a hinge in the front door which keeps falling apart. You'd think this wouldn't be that hard. After all, how many different types and sizes of hinges can there be? We took the measurements, made a note of the number of screws, and off he went in search of one.

The first one, the hinge was too big for the door - it was a special strong type, but had a bigger diameter than the ones in there already, so wouldn't fit (unless we changed the other two). So, back he went to get the regular kind, which seemed fine, until we realised that the configuration of the holes was backwards to what was in the door already (ours goes top left, then right, then left and bottom right - the one he brought home was top right, left, right, bottom left). And unfortunately, just turning it upside down didn't work. We didn't realise this until we had the old hinge plates off the door, so at this point, the door is only connected by two hinges. This is of course when people keep coming to the door and wanting in or out!

So back to B&Q - and well, they didn't have the type we needed, so he had to go down to Homebase (different DIY shop) which I like better, but which is further away, so isn't the place to go for quick things... Luckily, they had the right kind. And after a lot of work and my managing to hit myself in the finger with the hammer, we did get it to fit. And now the door closes properly, but holy cow, what a palaver.

After the hinge was finally fixed, I put a new coat of paint on the door (the kind that supposedly only needs one coat, but really ends up needing two) and proceeded to have to leave the door standing open for the rest of the day so it could dry. But it looks much better, and as soon as I go back to B&Q to get more paint, I'll do the gate as well, which looks really old now, especially compared to the shiny new door...

Oh, and once it's completely dry, I'll put some new house numbers up - I have a shiny new pair of numbers waiting. Maybe Monday as we'll be out doing stuff tomorrow.

Alex rides his bike

He's been pretty good at doing the pedals for a while now, but it's only recently that he's mastered steering, which is good for my back...

Easter baking

So, the Easter holidays have begun, and astonishingly, the entire bank holiday weekend looks to have good weather. Yesterday we went out in the morning to buy Olivia a new bike (photos of that to come, I'm sure) and then spent a few hours in the park and riding bikes (a video of Alex on his bike later, once YouTube has processed it). Then in the afternoon we made some Easter cookies - I had some cookie cutters in spring/Easter shapes - egg, bunny, butterfly, chick, flower, lamb - and decided I should probably do the biscuits now before the cutters were no longer topical. Anyway, we made lots of colours of icing to go with them - spring colours work very well, nice pastel colours are usually what I end up with when making icing - it's the darker ones I have a harder time with.

And here are some of the finished results - yum!

An Alex Day

This is Alex, with his friend Alex. She came around to play the other day after nursery and they had a great (and somewhat silly) time. Here I think they are pretending the little bowls are hats, though that doesn't really explain why my Alex has his on the side of his face. Oh well, four-year-olds, what do you expect...

Change all the clocks...

I wonder how often we realise how many different time-telling devices there are in the average house - or perhaps mine is above average. There are 5 downstairs (kitchen and computer room wall clocks, VCR clock (which in theory changes itself but in practice has the auto function turned off as it's unreliable), computer (which does self-adjust) and the clock/timer on the oven. On the first floor, there's my sewing room clock, Alex's Bob the Builder clock, and three alarm clocks in my bedroom (I have two - one's a radio, one's a battery powered backup). The girls have 3 - two alarm clocks (again, one a radio) and a wall clock. And then there are watches (I have 2, Geoff and Sarah each have one). Oh and heck, I haven't changed the clock on the central heating/hot water - see? there's always one you miss!

edited to say - the day after I wrote this I realised I hadn't changed the clock on my phone or in the car...

More funny names

Or rather, one - just had to add that today's bulk mail contained an item from the sender "Misquotes G. Bracelet". What program would generate that as a name? Although with the names some kids have these days, maybe you never know!

Crooner O. Footing

Lately Yahoo has gone through a spate of dumping a number of messages that I really wanted into my bulk folder, so I've been having a quick look through that folder every day to rescue things from my friends, etc. Most of it is spam, of course, but once in a while there's something in there I want. I have to laugh, though, at some of the "names" that the email is purportedly from - some are ordinary enough, but today contained a real gem - Crooner O. Footing. Frankly, I'm just glad I don't know anyone called that - can you imagine the ridicule?

Perhaps spring...

After what seemed like interminable rain, to the point we were getting ready to build arks, we have finally had a small (so far) spell of sunny - and dry! - weather. I think this is the third day in a row that it hasn't actually rained. Hoorah. Anyway, the kids are taking advantage of it by being outside as much as possible, though it's still a bit chilly - early spring always is, of course.

The photo is from Thursday afternoon - the mattress was supposed to be collected by the council on Friday - I was told to have it out the evening before because they could come as early as 6am (in theory - in reality, the mattress is still sitting in our front garden, but that's another story). So anyway, I put it out Thursday afternoon so the kids could have fun playing with it, which they did. Here are most of the neighbourhood children playing on the mattress - my three, Gabriella and Katarina, who I child-mind 3 days a week (and who live a few doors down), Thalia and Keir (three doors the other direction) and Eliza, who lives over the road and is mates with Olivia and Gabriella. Only Eliza's brother and sister missing, really. But they had fun with it, which is what matters.

Catching up, again again

I know, I know - I have been terrible about blogging. And it's not that we haven't been doing anything - there was an entire half term holiday and my mother's visit during the non-blog period. Basically, I think it's just laziness or inertia.

Anyway. Both of those things went well, though it rained for most of half term (indeed, most of February - and shows not much sign of stopping - I keep meaning to take the camera out to show everyone the mud and puddles that our poor park has become). But we kept the kiddies entertained - went to the Natural History Museum, the Wetland Centre, went bowling, went to Tiger's Eye (an indoor adventure playground). The main problem with all the rain during a holiday is that you have to go places that cost money (well, the museum is free, but we can't do that every day - it's too much for the kids, and for that matter, the grownups).

Mom's visit was very nice - we even had a couple of days where we did stuff together without kids - spent one day browsing around the V&A, which was lovely to do without any kids needing toilets or getting bored or getting too close to touching things they shouldn't touch. And one day we went up to Islington to meet Geoff for lunch in a very nice GastroPub (The Elk in the Woods).

No New Year's Resolutions, but a March resolution - try to blog more. We'll see!

More snow midweek

The kids were dressed, finished with breakfast, had teeth brushed and out playing before 8am - that's what snow does, I guess. If we had it all the time, it probably wouldn't be all that thrilling.

Make a wish and blow out the candles...

Birthday party boy

Yesterday was Alex's birthday party at the Malden Centre. It went really well - all the kids were really well behaved - I was impressed. They get an hour at the start to run around, use the bouncy castle and soft shapes, slides, little cars, etc. After that, they get an hour in the creche to have some food and play games or whatever. There were no big fights, no crying from the birthday boy because he didn't win the games, and no one got sick. One little girl forgot to go to the toilet and had an accident, but luckily her mum was there and could help with that so I didn't even have to deal with it. A video of us singing happy birthday and Alex blowing out the candles will follow later, once YouTube processes it, but here are a couple of photos - the table laid out for the meal before it was attacked by kiddies, and Alex with Geoff and Katarina - they are talking to a little girl called Natasha who we can't see, but who obviously is about to eat a jam sandwich - that pretty much sums up kids' parties! Alex has anothe one to attend today - we still have a huge stack of presents to open from yesterday - we only opened about 4 last night and there were about 18 kids at this party!

Gotta love those local papers

Headlines in particular. My current favourite is "Cafe thief in jail". Yeah, yeah, of course I know what they MEAN, but the mental image it conjures up is priceless. Wonder how far he managed to get before it got too heavy?

Never mind the Hand of God, it's the Hand of Sarah

Years 3 & 4 are studying India as their topic this half term - and this week they had an Indian day. Unfortunately, I don't have a photo of Sarah in a sari, though one might be forthcoming later, as I understand the teacher did take photos, but here's her hand the next day - great henna job, really strong colour. She loves it, of course.

Who needs huskie dogs when you have little kids?

This is Alex pulling all the bags in the sled on the way to school on our recent snowy day... He's so cute.

Bob's the man!

Hoorah! Just had an IM conversation with my friend Cathi in Ireland, who is my co-conspirator in sad Dylan fandom (were not that bad really, we just both like him and have a history of going to see him in concert together). Anyway. I recently found out he's got some UK tour dates in April, over the kids' Easter holiday and suggested she & her family come for a long weekend so we could go see the show - her hubby saw the e-mail and thought it was a good idea (bless the man) so they are coming to visit & Cathi and I are gonna see Bob. That'll be twice in 12 months, which is pretty good for me - I hadn't been in years before my trip to Ireland to catch him at the Kilkenny Festival last June. With Cathi, obviously! At least this time, the girls won't nag me about why they can't see Cathi, Dave & their girls...

Let it snow!

Much to the delight of the children (and the grownups too, I rather fancy) we woke up this morning to a blanket of snow. For once, it was not in the least bit difficult to get the kids up, dressed, breakfasted and ready to head off to school. My friend Sophie had a small sled, and they all took turns pulling one another (we have four families of kids who always tend to walk together as we live just a few houses away - between us, we have 10 kids between Alex at nearly 4 and Thalia at nearly 10 so it's a great gang for things like snowy days. Out of those kids, only 3 are boys!). They also took turns pulling all the mummies as well - surprisingly they managed to pull us all, not just Lana, who is pretty small for a grownup, but bigger people like Sophie (quite tall) and me (not nearly as light as Lana!) too. It was fun, actually. This kind of snow always puts me in a good mood...

There was a quick meeting at school about some teacher changes going on in Olivia's class (in which Sophie and my friend Lorayne - also one of this pack of families - have daughters) so after the meeting, we all decided to go up to the high street in Worcester Park and have a coffee. It was all very civilised, even if we did feel a little silly carrying a bright red sledge around the high street!

More photos of the trip to school here.

"Just like Daddy"

Haircut day today. I usually cut Alex's a little longer than this, but today he insisted he wanted his hair as short as Daddy's, and with another round of nits for the girls (hopefully) just finished it seemed a sensible choice. Isn't he a cutie (and Alex isn't bad either!)



And to make up for not blogging for ages, here's another little taster of what the kids get up to when they aren't fighting with one another... For those of you without young girls, this stuff is called Ello, and it's a bit like Lego, only with lots of interesting shapes - you can make buildings out of it, and people, and it comes in funky colours - it's a building bricks set, essentially, just a bit weirder and funkier than Lego. Obviously aimed at the girl market (that said, Lego is a lot more girl friendly than it used to be, too!). Sarah and Olivia made all these people last night on their Ello table. Cute in a kind of weird way...

The games kids play

I feel somewhat guilty for not blogging for so long, but it never seems as though there is anything specific to say - the kids basically do the same kinds of things they always do - go to school, play, argue with each other... We haven't been anywhere interesting or done anything unusual. I considered blogging about the weather, as we had a big wind storm which brought some trees down on cars in our road (but not our car, luckily) but I kept forgetting to take a photo of the trees down and it seemed silly without it.

So anyway, today I thought I'd show a few of the things they do when they play. All three of them were playing with playdough on and off this morning - Sarah was helping Alex make a cafe (with playdough food) and then she went to play on the computer and Olivia decided to make playdough pictures - this is her creation above- a playdough girl skateboarding and a playdough lion in the grass. Very creative, I thought.

And this is one of Alex's favourite things to do - make a "train" in his room from the little chairs and add passengers - he is the driver of course! Today he was doing this while I was sewing and I had to keep getting up to see which passengers he ha changed for which other passengers. He has a lot of stuffed animals, so there is no passenger shortage.

Some christmas karaoke cheer...

Olivia got a special karaoke microphone thingy for Christmas, so we had lots of singing...

Mummy's taking us to the zoo tomorrow...

Here's Olivia on the bridge crossing Regent's Canal, on the way to the zoo - we had to take Grandma Lucy up to St Pancras Station to go back home, and it was a very nice day, very mild, so we decided to head up to the zoo, which is quite close to St Pancras. Olivia had been before on a school trip, but none of the rest of us had been. London Zoo used to have a reputation for being one of those dismal Victorian Zoos (which it probably was, to be fair) but they've obviously put a lot of work into making it a nicer place, and I enjoyed the visit. We didn't manage to see all the animals, even, so we may well go back, perhaps when Grandma Kathy is here in February. Apparently, if you save your tickets, you can get re-admission for half-price within the next 12 months, and as it's not cheap, I think that might be well worth doing.

They had a number of seasonal activities on, as well, including having a photo taken with a reindeer (which we didn't do, though I did take a photo of the reindeer - Alex kept telling me that the reindeer wasn't supposed to be here, it was supposed to be at the North Pole) and making Christmas crackers for the squirrel monkeys (which we did do - with nuts and seeds inside) - then you can watch as they give them to the squirrel monkeys, who of course fight over them and tear them apart - worked very well, I thought. Alex wouldn't do the activitiy, just wanted to hold onto my legs, but the girls enjoyed it. At Easter next year, they are opening a new gorilla area, and reopening the small mammal house, which should be fun. Perhaps my friend Barbara, who is into gorillas in a big way, will come visit and take a trip to the Zoo...

Tis the season to... bake!

Well, here's a sample plate of this year's Christmas baking. Sarah and I (and the other two kids, off an on, but mostly off) baked up a storm yesterday and ended up with all these: Butterscotch shortbread (the shapes), Butterhorn cookies ( the crescent shaped ones - a family tradition & my dad's favourite, not that he gets them very often any more), Candy Cane cookies (which are a bit of a fiddle, but look so pretty with the others), fudge meltaways and no-bake peanut butter squares (neither of which is cooked, and both of which are easy and done in trays), coconut meringues (a change from all the heavy chocolate stuff) and orange cranberry bread. We like a variety, but to keep up all from gaining even more weight than normal during the holidays (or rather, to keep ME from that weight gain, Geoff being one of those annoying people who never seems to put on weight regardless of what he eats) I make up plates of goodies for a number of my friends & neighbours, to share the wealth. We also send a few to school for the teachers. Then we can have great variety without huge numbers of goodies. My friend Lorayne was delighted when I showed up on her doorstep this morning - she said "Oh lovely, I was hoping you'd been baking this weekend." And she promptly hid the plate from her kids. A girl after my own heart!

December strikes again

You'd think I've been round long enough to know how much December just eats up your time, but somehow I always manage to forget... And isn't it funny how I can be so busy and yet still never think of anything to blog about! This week is the week of Christmas plays - this year, I am only going to one, as Sarah is singing in a Carol Concert - or rather, she isn't singing in it, as it's on the same evening as her Brownie Christmas outing, at Build-a-Bear Workshop in Wimbledon, which she's been dying to go to for ages. But Alex and Olivia are in the same play, which is nice, and Geoff and I are seeing it on Thursday - Alex is a shepherd, Olivia is a reindeer (the Boss reindeer - no typecasting there!). Will let you know how it goes and if she remembers all her lines.

Alex dances to X-factor

OK, so I'm trying out this whole You Tube thing - we'll see if it works...



This is Alex dancing around to someone on the X-factor singing. He's got his own unique way of dancing!

Hey, hey, the gang's all here..

well, except for Hannah S, that is. But these are the fearsome foursome - all of Olivia's little clique of friends, many of whom live in our road - Nina lives near us, but not in the road - Hannah, the remaining member of the group, lives in the opposite direction from school, so doesn't get to hang out quite as much. Left to right, they are Nina, Olivia, Eliza and Gabriella. Trust me when I say, none are as angelic as they may look in the photo!

Happy birthday dear me

Well, another year older and strangely enough I feel exactly the same. :) No suprise there - it's not quite like when you are a child and so excited over turning whatever the next number is (for Sarah, the next one is 10 - not til the autumn, but still, the idea of double digits is exciting for her - and scary for the parents - where did THAT time go?)

Had a nice quiet birthday, as Sarah was away for the weekend at Brownie camp - this meant that we didn't have all the usual bickering all weekend long. It didn't start until the car trip home from Brownie camp... (I let her take the old camera with her and she had fun taking lots of silly pictures with her friends - here she is with two other Brownies, not sure who.)

Anyway, opened my presents when we got back from collecting Sarah, and I got some very nice things - a nice pair of "earwigs" as Olivia put it (luckily, they were really earrings, not insects), a couple of CDs, a magnetic pincushion and a kit for making a Jacobean Pomegranate Wallhanging. I won't start that for a week or so, as I have some stuff to finish up, but I'm looking forward to it - it's different from what I usually do, but I do adore the fabric.

Blog lag

Keep thinking I should write something, but I'm not inspired - and none of the kids have been doing anything particularly cute lately, so I don't really have amusing anecdotes to share... But I thought I should at least make a note that we are here, and more or less back to normal (or what passes for normal around here) after our trip-- it seems months ago in many ways. Sarah's away at Brownie Pack Holiday this weekend, so it's fairly quiet around the house, although Alex is whingeing for England, which is fairly boring. Hopefully it's a short-lived phase.

"It's nice to see you back"

- this was what Alex said to Daddy when we arrived back home. Never mind the fact that it's not very accurate - it's pretty cute when you're 3 (or 3 1/2 as we are constantly reminded).

Anyway, we are back safe, with no breakages and nothing lost in transit except possibly Sarah's book, which we can't find anywhere. We are pretty sure she had it in the airport, and I know I checked the seat pockets, so we're thinking maybe it got left in the airport. One kid's paperback - no big deal! As Sarah said, at least it's not a jacket (Geoff left his on the plane on the way over).

Getting back into the swing of things, a little slowly, but getting there nonetheless. It's nice to be back - I think three weeks is about the right length of time to be gone - any longer and you really start to get fidgety for home - or at least, I do.

A note on the website: I have re-uploaded my site (good thing I keep a local copy, as lycos seems to have just deleted it entirely) - the only thing is that I can't get the index page to upload called index.html, so I have just renamed it - the site can now be found at http://members.lycos.co.uk/thenorths/main.html.

The joys of website maintenance

For some reason, Lycos seems to be playing silly buggers with my website, giving an "unauthorised" message when anyone (including me) tries to see it. Of course, there's very little technical support, as they are a free service, and being at my mom's house, it's a little harder to sort things out - no FTP, for instance and the Web FTP at Lycos isn't working at the moment. Presumably the stuff is still there, just not accessible, though I do have a copy on my desktop at home anyway. I guess it's time to finally move it somewhere else, which I've been thinking about doing for ages anyway. But it's still annoying... It also means some of the photos on my blog template show as broken, as they are located on lycos.

a bit later: had a browse through Lycos's help forum, and this seems to be a wide-spread problem with all accounts starting with T, U, V, X, Y and Z (but not "W" - wonder why not?). We're "t" (TheNorths) so I guess all I can do is wait until it's been sorted out. Which is not so good for my impatient self!

Far more treats than tricks...

Well, the kids have now experienced full-on American Hallowe'en... And it was really fun, actually. It's much bigger than I remember from when I was a kid, although this may be partly just that this neighbourhood is particularly good for it. Also, it was really warm yesterday - got up to 23 or 24 yesterday during the day, so that the evening, while not particularly warm, was fine for sitting outside with a jacket. (more Halloween photos here)

This neighbourhood is really good for Halloween - lots of houses with kids and lots of people sit out either on their own or with friends or their neighbours. Lots of decorations, and a number of very nice hand-carved jack-o-lanterns. My mother's neighbour, Patty, carves really spectacular ones. But there were also a number which had obviously been carved by or with children, which is always fun.

A few houses had gone all out and set up scenes - one with a spooky campsite with dry ice and a severed head in a tent with a guy who jumped out at you with a chainsaw; one with cobwebs over the whole yard and a skeleton coming out of the ground and one which had lots of gravestones, and a flying bat (this one spooked Alex out a bit, but that was at the end of the evening, and he was really tired).

The kids got absolutely masses of "candy" [Alex was very cute - he learned all about Halloween in about 1 day and could tell you just what happens: "You dress up in a Hayoween cosyume and go to eddybody's house and say trick or treat." "And then what happens?" "Then, they gives you CANDY!!" - this from a child who hadn't heard the word candy a month ago (we say sweets or chocolate).] which I guess will have to be packed in the suitcase to go home as there's no way they will get through it all before we leave, even if I let them eat more than I really want them to.

We carved our own pumpkins on Monday morning; we didn't want to do it too early as the weather was due to be very nice, so we didn't want to risk them going bad too quickly. It was actually fairly hot in the sunshine when we were working on them. Sarah did hers entirely by herself, and Olivia did hers mostly alone, with only a little guidance with drawing the features. Grandma Kathy carved most of Alex's and all of her own and I tried my hand at an artisan pumpkin (above) for the first time - I'm pleased with the effort, I have to say, and I may well try it again next year.

The weather here has been absolutely gorgeous - Sarah and Grandma went out yesterday afternoon after we went up to the local elementary school to watch the Halloween parade to take photos of the autumn foliage. This tree is a photo taken by Sarah - and there are more here. It's really lovely, and very warm.

Swarm of kiddies

Spent yesterday afternoon at my friend Debbie's house; the kids, especially Alex, had a blast. Debbie and Kurt have two little boys - Zach, who is nearly 3 and Leo, who is 8 months and quite possibly the cutest baby I have ever seen. Except my own, of course! And we were joined by her brother and sister-in-law, Josh and Kristin, both of whom I know a bit as they both went to the same university I went to and I was close friends at uni with Kristin's older brother Eric... Anyway, they have Ian, who will be five in January, and Riley (a girl) who is 18 months old. So with my kids, that's 5 under-fives and the two older girls (Sarah keeps complaining that none of my friends have kids her age - like I can do anything about that!). Anyway, the girls were a little bored at times, although Kurt, bless him, played Scrabble with them for a while, but Alex was in heaven, as Debbie has even more trains than we do...

Day trippers

Drove down to Hampton, Virginia yesterday (3.5 to 4 hour drive) to visit my Andy (my former step-dad) and Robert (step-brother) and his wife Susan and daughter Brenda, who is just a few months younger than Alex. It was a lovely drive, through a lot of rural southern Maryland and Virgina (we went the scenic way, not down I-95, which is mostly trucks) and we had a good time with the guys down there. I hadn't met Susan or Brenda before, and hadn't seen Robert in years - the girls loved him of course and he's a big kid at heart and happy to play games with them and chase them around... and I enjoyed getting to know Susan a bit and meeting Brenda and seeing their house and where they live and so on. They live really close to the water, which is nice in principle, but unfortunately it was a little too close earlier this year when their house flooded - once again, I am glad to live somewhere where natural disasters are few and far between. Anyway, a lovely time was had by all, and next time we visit (which could be ages, of course) we will try to schedule a longer trip to the area, which has lots to do. (More photos here)

We were lucky to have Robert on vacation for a few days, and therefore able to spend time with us, although the down side of that is that he's in the navy, and the leave was essential demob leave, as Monday he is leaving to report to a new command - 6 or 8 weeks training in Texas before returning to Iraq for another tour of duty - this time on land rather than on a ship, which of course none of us are thrilled about. I think he said it was 450 days - so we'll be thinking about that whole situation a lot. I don't think I'd have the fortitude to be a military wife, personally, but we all do what we have to, and Susan is lucky to have her parents and Andy both very nearby. OK, it's not the same thing, but I'm sure it helps a bit.

Happy birthday to Olivia...

So, today is Olivia's birthday and what she wants to do is go ice-skating, so we are off ice-skating later. Right now, we are hanging out waiting for Uncle Steve to leave to go to the airport - he's been here for about a week. Which is part of the reason I haven't blogged much - not just Uncle Steve being here, but Grandpa Karl and Grandma Nancy, too. So we've been busy! On Friday we went up to Baltimore to a place called Port Discovery, which is a fun kids place, kind of combination adventure playground and museum - it has a three-story climbing thingy in the middle, and the fact that Daddy and Uncle Steve were both here meant that I actually didn't have to climb around in it.

Saturday was a lovely day, so we just packed a small picnic and went to one of the large playgrounds in Columbia, Centennial Park, and the kids spent an hour or two climbing around the playground stuff, before we went over to Columbia Mall to ride on the restored Carousel and have the grandparents buy presents. (photos from those events here) Sarah decided she'd rather go back to the house with Daddy and Uncle Steve, who was planning to make a lasagne for dinner. She adores her uncle and he's been very good at putting up with them, I have to say. Even if he does tend to make them hyper - I guess that's uncles for you, though! Geoff was due to fly home later that night, so after dinner, Karl and Nancy left to go back to their hotel (they were due to leave early in the morning anyway) and the kids and I took Daddy to the airport. They don't really miss him too much when he goes, because there is so much exciting stuff still to do after he leaves - including Halloween this year, of course.

On Sunday, we met up with my friend Kristen and her mom, sister & niece, Kestrel - Kes is four and a half - at a Fall Festival at Homeland Gardens (a large garden centre). Lots of little rides and things. It was really sweet, actually, and again the weather was fabulous, so the kids had a great time. Then we went out to dinner together - a lovely day. Yesterday we kind of took it easy, just ran some errands, including me getting my drivers' license renewed, and some shopping my mom needed to do. I love being here and visiting, but there are so many things to do and people to see that in some ways, when we get back we need a holiday to recover from our holiday! (Tried to upload a pic from the Fall Festival here, but Blogger wasn't cooperating. Or it might be my mom's connection, which is slow. Anyway, lots of photos here...)

In and around the harbour...

Spent a nice day yesterday in Baltimore - Andy came up from Virginia for the day and we went up, had lunch at Phillips and then went to the Aquarium. Tiring, but fun. Here we all are (except me of course) at lunch - Andy being silly as usual. The kids adore Uncle Steve, so they had a brilliant time, and he's very good with them, probably because he hasn't really grown up that much himself! More photos here.

Zoom, zoom, zoom, we're going to the moon...

Poor Alex was a little disappointed to discover that we weren't actually going to go in a rocket ship to the moon, but he was happy to see rockets and planes and to be able to walk through one (Skylab) at the Air and Space Museum. He really enjoyed it, and particularly liked the section about planets - he seems to have an obsession about Mars at the moment - I'm wondering if maybe he's seen a cartoon about someone going to Mars or something. The girls enjoyed it as well - I think Olivia read nearly every sign in the section about early flight and the Wright Brothers. It's a good museum, and of course different from anything in London.

We also ducked briefly into the East Wing of the National Gallery and looked at modern art (Picasso, Matisse, a few others) and into the Natural History Museum to have a quick look at dinosaurs and the Hope Diamond. We may go back there another day, as the kids (and Geoff) were really enjoying that, but we did have to leave to take the Metro back to meet Grandma at a set time. And Alex had reached the bursting into tears for no reason stage, too, which is always a sign that it's time to go. A few more photos here from yesterday's outings, and Sunday, which we spent locally and with my friend Kiki and her little boy Kenny, who is nearly 2.

A trip to the pumpkin patch

Another gorgeous day here, and we took advantage of it by going down to a little local festival - Riverfest - in Laurel. This was a nice small affair, a little like a county fair, only tiny - local vendors and businesses took booths along the riverside path in old Laurel. A few things for kids, like a hayride and a puppet show - and facepainting, of course.

We went home for lunch and a little rest, and in the afternoon, Geoff and I took the kids to Clark's Elioak Farm, which is a little petting farm, with various other attractions. It was crowded, in a good way, as it was a lovely afternoon, and the kids had fun looking at the various fairytale related sculptures and petting the goats. Very low-key, unlike so many American attractions, which all seem to feel compelled to be Bigger and Better.

Pictures from both of these places, as well as more pictures from Patuxent Wildlife Refuge (where we went yesterday) are here. Oh and in the way of kids everywhere, Olivia was just fine this morning and totally back to normal today.

Autumnal Walk

Local time: 7.15am. Yesterday, after meeting up with some friends of Mom's for lunch, we decided to head out to the Patuxent Wildlife Refuge. We were originally intending to take their little tram tour around the area, but found they weren't running on weekdays after school started, so we ended up doing a nice walk around the lake - much prettier than the tram ride would have been anyway. We saw a large variety of birds, most unidentifiable, except for the heron, and a chipmunk and the coup de grace of wildlife - a black snake. Poor snake, Mom stepped on him. Geoff was disappointed not to see him, as he's never seen a snake in the wild (England not being big on snakes). It was a lovely day until the end, when Olivia got sick - I think this is the bug that Alex had last week and Sarah had Wednesday on the plane - Olivia always gets these things worse than the other kids. She's fine now, though she spent a long time yesterday evening throwin up, poor thing.

A long (but nice) day

After the early start, we decided to do some grocery and other errand shopping (first time in ages I've been shopping by 7am, but we were all up, so why not) - Alex fell asleep on the way home in the car. I let him sleep for an hour, but around 12.30 had to wake him up to eat, and so we could go do something else, otherwise his schedule would be really off. Forgot to take my camera, of course, but we ended up at Brookside Gardens/Wheaton Regional Park. They have a nice selection of playground equipment in addition to the garden stuff - the narrow guage railway and carousel weren't in operation today (to Alex's disappointment) but as the playground is pretty good, there weren't too many tears. Apparently they are going to have a ghost train ride/scary carousel in operation from tonight, so they were getting ready. It's a little far away and probably a little scary for my little ones, so I think we'll skip that, but we'll no doubt do something else Halloween related. There are a lot of Halloween related things here, more than I remember from when I lived here - I think the holiday is bigger than it used to be. The kids are looking forward to it, that's for certain.

Touchdown!

Local time: 4.30am. Yes, the joys of kids and jetlag. Although Alex stayed up to 7.30pm last night local time, he was still awake early this morning, so here I am, awake, too. Luckily, I had gone to bed at 9.30pm, so I won't be quite so sleep deprived as I might otherwise be. 5.30 would have been better, but you do what you have to. But we are here safely, with not too much trouble - Alex threw up all over me on the plane, but that was the worst of it. Luckily the plane was a new one and had individual screens in the seat backs and entertainment on demand which is the best for kids - kept the girls happy for most of the flight with very little adult input. The only other thing is that Geoff somehow managed to leave his jacket somewhere - we think on the plane. "Why didn't you check to make sure I had it" he says, like I wasn't already trying to keep track of nearly everything else we brought! Anyway, nothing too serious, and we shall just add a jacket to the list of clothes we were going to buy for him in the US. Hopefully tomorrow the sleep patterns will be a bit more normal...

A less drastic solution, possibly...

So today I was in the kitchen rinsing out some dyed stuff in the sink when Olivia comes in, streaming tears. "What's the matter?" I finally, finally get her to speak, and she says "look what happened to my fringe (bangs)". I look, and notice it's a bit shorter than it was, and not quite so even. She has two friends over, so I immediately suspect hairdressing games, even though we've made it quite clear that there is to be NO haircutting. Anyway, I finally get out of her that it was she herself who cut the fringe, not Nina or Gabriella, which is good in a way, but bad in another way. "Why did you cut your fringe, darling, you know you're not supposed to use scissors on your hair..." "Because it was all sticky, Mummy, from the Golden Syrup" (they'd been eating waffles earlier). I literally had to stop and take a deep breath. "Olivia," I said, "Don't you think it would have been a little simpler just to wash it a bit?". Luckily, after being trimmed up by Mummy a bit, it looks ok, just a little shorter than normal. At least it was her OWN hair.

World of Adventures

Well, we went ahead and went to Chessington WoA on Saturday, despite dubious forecasts, and it was a good thing we did as the weather was ok on Saturday (one heavyish shower, while we were inside having lunch anyway, and a few sprinkles, lots of sun) and absolutely foul on Sunday (thunder & lightning, hail, bucketing rain, you name it). The girls - my two and Thalia, Sarah's best friend, had a blast and frankly, I had fun, too. It's been years since I was on a roller coaster that could actually be called such, and I find that I still enjoy them. And I still can't handle those rides that spin you around (I didn't even try - I feel sick just looking at them, frankly), but I was never very good at them, even as a kid - even little merry-go-rounds in the playground made me feel ill (they still do). Anyway, it was a good day, though very tiring, and I'm already getting "can we go to Chessington next year" (maybe). Here's the girls at the bottom of one of those water rides (the third time - they went 4 times in a row as there was almost no queue at all - I only went twice myself...)

Surviving the life...

Well, birthday tea over and done with, and house in one piece, more or less. They are all pretty good kids, but when you get that many of them in the room at once, they do get a little hyper. And it's not like in school, where they expect to have to be calm, so you don't feel like you can just make them sit still the whole time (more's the pity). But I think Sarah had fun and the rest seemed to as well, so that's ok. Looks like we might have to postpone the Chessington trip until next weekend, though, as the weather looks like it's going to be foul.

Glorious weekend

We had some friends around this weekend - Geoff's colleague Heather, who works in the Boston office and his colleague Florian, who works in London. Also, Florian's girlfriend Alice, who I hope had a lovely time despite being somewhat overwhelmed by my kids and us all talking quickly in English (she's German and speaks good English, but it's one thing to talk one-on-one and quite another to keep up with a rapid, far-ranging conversation involving lots of obscure American and English cultural references - Heather and I had a conversation about Jon Hughes films in conjunction with proms, for instance...)

Anyway, the day was glorious, so after lunch and before dessert we decided to go for a walk over the park and past the school to the new development called the Hamptons - they had what appeared to be from a distance a rather good playground, so we thought we'd check it out. Poor Florian ended up carrying one or the other of the girls most of the way - here he is, carrying Sarah - photo taken by Olivia, believe it or not.

And here are the other two kiddies - Olivia posing in her usual manner, after having scraped her knee rather badly (I'll spare Heather the embarrassment of blogging to the world that it was all her fault due to an abortive attempt at swinging Olivia like an aeroplane) - silly Mummy was out without her bag, but the resourceful Alice had a pocket full of plasters in her bag, so all was well in the end. And Alex playing Mr Cool leaning up against the wall outside the school - very sweet! Thanks to Florian for the photos - for once I didn't have my camera with me...

Let the birthday season begin...

Tomorrow kicks of the birthay season in the North household (except for Alex who is in February by his lonesome, we are all within about 7 weeks of one another) - Sarah will be nine. Yes, nine. Hard to believe, I know. Where did those years go? Not much special planned for tomorrow, as it's a school day and Brownies night, but Thursday she's having a bunch of friends over after school for pizza and a movie and on the weekend, I'm taking her and Thalia and Olivia to Chessington World of Adventures for a treat. Hopefully the weather will be as good as it was last weekend...

Look out, Adam Ant...

This is what happens when one of his sisters leaves makeup lying around. Personally, I think it's kind of cute, though I appreciate it won't appeal to everyone. If he's still doing it when he's 10, I may feel differently...

I a schoolboy now

Well, Alex's first week of nursery is gone and he had a fabulous time - really settled in well. He's thrilled to be in big school, and loves doing all the stuff they do in nursery. He's a bit tired some evenings, but that's only to be expected. Once the newness and excitement wears off a little, he'll be less shattered at the end. And of course, there's the added excitement of having extra children in the house in the afternoon 3 days a week - with Gabriella and Katarina, the two little girls I am childminding after school (and before). He loves playing with Katarina, who is only a year and a bit older than he is, and of course Olivia adores having Gabriella here - she's one of her best friends anyway. Now that we're into the routine of it, it's going well - I won't pretend there isn't a little chaos involved, but it's organised chaos, so it suits me fine.

Official First Day of School...

The girls started on Wednesday last week, but we decided to wait until today, Alex's first day of nursery, to take the official first day photo - aren't they cute? And isn't it amazing how close Olivia is to Sarah in height? Alex had a lovely day - settled right in and was very happy. One of the other little boys was a bit clingy and kept saying "I want my mummy" - Alex turned to me (he was playing at the playdough table - surprise, surprise, he went straight for it) and said "I don't want you, Mummy." "OK," I said, "Shall I go?". "OK," he paused and then said "But I WILL want you when you come back." Sounds like a good compromise to me...

Can't live with 'em, can't shoot 'em...

And today, I'm referring to computers, not husbands. Opened the main email this morning (Outlook Express) to find that everything, including thousands of old, saved messages, that had been in my inbox and the subfolders thereof, had mysteriously vanished. After some exploration and frustration, we eventually decided that what had happened was that the compacted backup files had corrupted, which could happen either if the computer crashed while Express was compacting (maybe) or if the compaction process was cancelled partway through (more likely, we think, although we did have a crash yesterday, but the email was still there afterwards, we are pretty sure). Not to name any names or anything, but some of us are more patient than others of us, so...

Luckily, I managed to find all the old compacted backup files and download a piece of freeware that extracts the messages from them, back into email format. The downside is that you don't seem to be able to then move the messages en-masse back to your email, but only one message at a time - fine if you have 20, not so good if there are years' worth. But at least I know where the stuff is and can get at it, to dig out the stuff I need (photos from friends, usernames and account numbers for online businesses, and so on). I did need to clear out old folders anyway, but this is sort of an extreme way to go about it!

Back to (what passes for) normal

Well, that's the end of the first (half) week of school - they started back on Wednesday, and have had a nice three days, complete with lovely sunny weather. Sarah adores her new teacher (which is great, although I think Sarah probably has a pre-disposition to like teachers anyway) and Olivia seems happy - she knew her new teacher fairly well before, so I don't suppose she feels that "new". I haven't done a "first day of school" photo because Alex doesn't start until Tuesday, so I'll do the three of them together then.

He's excited about "big school" - we went today to an open day in the nursery, and he painted, rode bikes and played with some plastic fish in a water table - so he'll be well in his element!

Windmills in my mind

We went up to Wimbledon Common again today, this time specificially to go to the Windmill Museum, which is only open on weekends. We've never been before, and it's one of those things I always mean to do and never quite get around to. We wanted a small outing with Grandma Lucy today, so this was just right.

Very interesting place, actually, with lots of working models of different kinds of windmills - Alex in particular enjoyed pushing the buttons to make the sails go round on the models. I learned that the earliest recorded windmills in history are from Persia, of all places - 400 or more years before European ones were recorded - very interesting.


Anyway, Sarah got a paper model of the windmill to build, so when we got home, I helped her with that - I think it came out well, and the sails do move, although they aren't that smooth. The entire top assembly of the mill moves around the vertical axis, as well, so you can turn the windmill to catch the wind. You can see for yourself how it compares to the original!

Champion tree...

which is apparently what they call any tree which is the largest recorded specimen of its species. Not sure precisely what species this is - some type of pine - but as you can see from Sarah beside it, it's big.

This was from our visit to Wisley (RHS Gardens) yesterday. They still have a lot of stuff in bloom, despite it being end of summer (my garden always looks a bit done by now). We took Grandma Lucy to see the gardens & ended up doing quite a lot of walking, including seeing part of the garden I'd not been into before (the Pinetum and National Collection of Heathers). More photos in my yahoo album (a few of the kids, but mostly, just flowers).

Bankrupting the tooth fairy

This seems to be the goal of the household this week - poor Olivia has lost two in two days. The first one, which came out last night, was very loose and had got to the hanging-by-a-thread state. Today's tooth, which was a bit loose, but probably had 3-4 weeks left in it, came out a bit early, aided by Sarah's foot. You will understand that of course they had been told dozens of times to "stop romping before someone gets hurt". I suppose if something like that has to happen, it's just as well it was a tooth that was loose in the first place, but still... I rather think the tooth fairy will bring a little extra for this one, more than the standard 50p.

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.

2 down, 42 to go...

Well, we have just successfully completed day 2 of the summer holidays without any child killing any other child (or any parent doing so). The girls' task for this summer is to try not to argue with each other for no reason all day long - so far, I've only had to remind them of this about 10 times. Someone should remind me again why I thought it would be nice to have kids close in age... Oh well, it's not quite as bad as a friend of mine who has twin girls a bit younger than Olivia. I can't quite imagine two Olivias in my life.

Vital questions number 12 & 35

Today's vital question: "So Mum, if you were going to name a penguin, what would you name it?". Important enough to interrupt a conversation between mum & dad, apparently. She didn't like my answer ("Alfie"), which I admit, wasn't all that inspired.

Paradox of Sleep

So why is that when you quit watching television in order to go to bed because your eyes are shutting every few minutes, that you then lie in bed awake for an hour?

A trip to the beach

Had a semi-spontaneous trip to the beach yesterday (decided on Friday evening to go) - West Wittering is a beach a friend of mine told me about, totally sandy (unlike many of the beaches on the south coast), just south of Chichester. So we decided to go down for the day - the kids had a blast. It's one of those really shallow beaches, which is great when you have little kids - you can wade for a long way before the water gets up to even your knees. Even if you are only 3. It was a lovely day, though of course the entire house and car seem to be covered in sand now...

Truth stranger than fiction...

So the other night I had some friends around to sort out the school fun day (sports day) and we were sitting at the dining room table with the French doors open when there was a loud thud. "Neighbour's cat," I explained. "It's called Dave." My friend Karin says "We used to have a cat called Dave". "This one's a girl, though," I said. "Oh," says Karin, "so was ours."

World Cup Semi Final: Nits 1, Sarah 0

Among my least favourite aspects of parenting (right up there with diarrhea in a toddler and vomit, which probably will always be number one) is dealing with nits (head lice). They aren't really as icky in terms of absolute values of ick (although don't ever look at one under a microscope when your child has a microscope obsession - that's pretty ick) but they are just so incredibly tedious to get out. And despite the fine teeth of a nit comb, you still can't get all the eggs. So I ended up watching the football (uninspiring) because I had to do something while dealing with Sarah's hair. Luckily, Olivia seems to have escaped this time around.

OF course, while I was doing this, Alex decided to wee in the bed (he was asleep - don't get me wrong, he's not THAT naughty). Not something he does very often, but he's got a bit of a cold and probably isn't quite himself. Not a big deal, except that Geoff had let him fall asleep in OUR bed. Let's just say, he won't do that again in a hurry. At least it wasn't 3 am. He says "now all we need is for Olivia to throw up in the middle of the night" - as I said, whatever the opposite of "from your lips to God's ear" is; that's my response to that"...

Just like Washington DC Weather Blues

One of the things I was glad to leave behind when I moved away from DC was the weeks on end of weather and humidity both in the 90s. It's been over 30 here for nearly a week, which in a country of very limited a/c is pretty dire. Yeah, I'm sure it's worse in India and China and lots of Africa, so I shouldn't complain, but you'll notice I don't choose to live in those places - coincidence? I think not.

Luckily, today seems to be delivering the promised thunderstorms (though a brief one before I got up this morning did absolutely nothing except wet the pavement) so hopefully things will cool down a bit. The worst part is night, of course. It's been so hot, I've been letting the kids sleep on the sofa bed downstairs (the girls' room is in the loft and very very hot) which is fine, but means I can't spend nearly as much time on the computer as they have to be REALLY asleep before I can type without waking them. Shame really because that room is nice and cool at night with the back doors open (hence the kids sleeping there).

Oh well, there's the English for you - if it wasn't hot and sunny we'd be complaining about that instead.