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.