The usual blog inertia

I have to admire these people who manage to blog daily or near daily - don't know quite how they keep the momentum up as I always seem to run out of things to say, or at least, not be able to think of anything at the points I actually have time to type... But I'm playing catch up tonight. With my mother visiting at the moment, there's been slightly less time for computer stuff than normal (which isn't a problem, just a fact) and with half term holidays coming up (last week in May) I'm sure I won't have a lot of time then, either. Of course, if the weather stays this rainy we won't be able to spend much time outside, so that will help me keep in touch!

For all in tents...

Ta da! We managed to get it up with very little problem (other than the fact that our garden isn't really quite big enough for it). It took over an hour, but that was the first time, and doing it with no instructions, so I don't think that was too bad. Next time it will go much faster because I will know which poles go where, having done it before.

The bit to the left is a "kitchen extension" - it zips onto the main tent, so you put the main tent up first, and then add that bit, if you like. Inside, there is a separate sleeping area, which is self-contained and then the main tent area. I think when we go camping, we will probably put the kitchen extension up even if we aren't going to cook in it, because it makes the inside of the tent really roomy. More photos are in my yahoo album.

A multiwash day

I'm sure there is something inherently sad about measuring how nice a day it is by how many loads of wash you can hang outside to dry, but after so many "don't even think about it" days, it's nice to have one that's only limited by the length of the clothesline or the amount of dirty washing in the house (not usually something one is short of, as once the clothes are done, there's always towels, sheets, duvet covers, and then sofa covers, etc). I did three today - two clothes and one sheets, etc with some fabric thrown in - I don't mind using the dryer in the winter or the rainy part of spring, but once the good weather is actually here (which it seems it may finally be) it seems wasteful not to take advantage of it.

My friend Mandy and I were talking about hanging out washing earlier (her comment being that her sister told her she was "such a housewife" when she responded to "isn't it a nice day" with a comment about how much washing she could hang out - but we all do it!) - that was what made me think about measuring good weather in terms of washing. And then I thought I should blog that. And then I thought, it's just as sad to plan to blog about washing as it is to measure the weather in washing in the first place. Possibly sadder. But there you go - there's the excitement otherwise known as my life...

A-camping we shall go...

So, we seem to have acquired a tent. This has come about because some friends of ours are planning to (eventually) move from a rather large house in the country with lots of storage space to a not so large flat in Belgravia with rather less storage space, and so are clearing out their stuff, of which after many years and four grown up kids, they have rather a lot, and redistribute it among said children and anyone else who will take it. Geoff made the mistake of mentioning that we were thinking about trying out camping as a family activity, and hey presto - tent. If there's good weather this weekend, we shall try putting it up in the garden and see how it goes. Photos (if successful) to follow.

And now for some real news...

In as much as anything I blog can be called real news... I think if there is actually a God up there watching, he wasn't paying much attention yesterday, as although the kids had the day off school (polling) and Geoff had arranged to take the day off, it was absolutely amazingly gorgeous - mid 20's and sunny all day. We went to Bekonscot Model Village in the morning (I had tickets won from the Christmas Fair) and in the afternoon, after a brief encounter with some ugly traffic (remind me never to listen to Geoff when he and I differ about which road route to take - he is, poor thing, invariably wrong), we hung out in Richmond Park, mostly in the Isabella Plantation, which, being full of azaleas, was pretty nice at the moment. The kids spent an hour or two playing the water with other half-dressed children - kids do love that sort of thing, and it was so nice out, we growups were content to just sit and soak up the sun and keep half an eye on the littles to make sure they weren't going all Lord of the Flies on us. Usually when there's a day off school it pours rain, so we were all well pleased.

And to top that off, it was lovely today, as well - a little cooler, but still gorgeous, and after school, the kids all went off to play together in the front gardens and on the pavements. I went out around quarter to six to have a quick word with a couple of neighbouring mums - Lorayne and Karen - to thank them for keeping an eye on my girls, and found three of them out front drinking wine and chatting. Well, I couldn't let that pass my by, so went back and got MY wine glass (already full, of course!). Lana & Rod peeked out a bit later and suddenly appeared with two glasses and another bottle, and gradually, impromptu street party, with most of 5 couples (the men kept disappearing and re-appearing) and Sophie, who isn't a couple... And a couple dozen kids - well, between us we have 14, plus there were at least 2 or 3 others, whose parents weren't out... It's one of the reasons I love this street - so many places, you barely know your neighbours, let alone, want to socialise with them. When most of us dispersed around quarter to eight (it was getting kind of cold, plus all us grownups were starving!) the kids all complained we "never let them play outside and always made them go to bed early".

If I wanted to sound like an old fart, this is the point where I'd say "Honestly, kids these days..."

Because men are basically sad gits...

Here is a photo of our friend Alex. Because most of you won't know him and won't care, I won't even bother to suggest a caption competition for this photo, it's just here to sooth his poor little ego - he's concerned I haven't mentioned him much in my blog. [Obviously, the poor soul hasn't really worked out why it's called "Kate's Blog" and not "Kate's Blog all about Alex Gann"]

Spring Cleaning

Not that I do a thorough spring cleaning each year or anything, but today is one of those days where I just need to get stuff sorted out - miscellaneous drawers, the top of Alex's cupboard, stuff like that. It's always nice when you get that stuff done... And of course, there's the general hoovering. I'm trying to get the kids involved in doing some of the cleaning, but there's a limit to what they can really help with and what just gets annoying. As you can see, I'm procrastinating going back to it...

Easter in Barrow

Along the canal in Barrow over Easter - one of the nice things about Barrow is walking along the canal. Here we are perched on and around one of the lock gate handles (or whatever they are called) - we had just watched and helped someone go through the lock. Barrow is on the Grand Union Canal (Leicester Branch) and has a nice deep lock and a canal basin. The canal side of Barrow is rather pretty, actually...

It's fun, Mummy, but is it really art?

It's a good question, isn't it - and one which I didn't really answer, just something neutral along the lines of there are a lot of different kinds of art, which are interesting or important for different reasons...

Yesterday I took the girls to the Tate Modern, which is in the most fabulous building, an old power station. The bulding itself is worth a visit. In the main hall, which used to be the turbine hall, they have an installation piece, which changes periodically. At the moment, it's an installation by Rachel Whiteread, which is just the kind of thing that kids like. I know they'll remember it for a long time...

To sleep or not to sleep

The irony of course is that the past three days or so, I've had to drag Alex out of bed to get ready for nursery or the school run. Today, Saturday, he bounces out promptly before 7.30 - how does he know to do that? He's only 3, he's got no concept of days of the week... At least with the other two (and Geoff) still asleep I can have some quiet time on the computer. Tomorrow, though, I'm kicking Geoff out of bed and making him come downstairs while Allie watches telly. (You can't leave him completely unmonitored anymore - he gets into stuff too much).

However, the day looks to be a nice one shaping up - no rain predicted, so we're going to finish sorting out the garden for spring (and the shed) and I've promised Alex to take him out to buy some new sand for the sandpit if we get it all cleared up. He's excited about that, that's for sure. Sand is one of his favourite media.

Issues with time...

Yesterday morning, Olivia got herself out of bed, got her uniform on straight away and was downstairs watching telly before I got up. I hardly had the heart to remind her it was Saturday, poor thing. She doesn't quite have the whole week sorted out yet - and as they went on their school trip on Friday, I think that confused her a bit as to what day it was. She ought to know that any day I don't have to drag her out of bed when the alarm goes off, isn't a school day...

I'm not that much better myself - despite reminding myself all week that the clocks go forward this morning, I managed to forget to turn forward last night, and indeed, didn't think about it this morning until a friend arrived to take the girls to a birthday party at quarter past what I was thinking was 10, but what was really 11! At least they were more or less ready. Glad I wasn't the one doing the driving.

New glasses

And here she is...So far, so good - she's managed not to lose or break them yet. And yes, I do think she looks like me in this photo. (Indeed, all the time.) 

Christmas in March...

One of the strange things about watching American television series in the UK is that they often don't run at the time of year they would have run in the US. This is not a problem for shows like Lost, where seasonality is irrelevant, but for stuff like ER, which tries to more or less keep to the seasons of the real world, you end up watching the Christmas show in March. In a way, this is a good thing, because sometimes there's way too much Christmas at Christmas time, but it's also kind of surreal. Of course, it's cold enough here to be Christmas - in fact, to be Christmas in Chicago, so it doesn't feel nearly as odd as it might do in March in London...

Haircut!

This was entirely Olivia's idea - she's been talking about it for a few weeks, so we decided to go out today to have it done.

She has another big change coming up as well - her eyes have been bothering her a little (she complains about them being "smudgy" quite often), so we took her to have her eyes checked, and in a week or so, she'll be getting her first pair of glasses.

Apparently, she is just slightly long-sighted in her right eye, which means her left is trying to do all the work. Children's eyes are still quite "plastic" until about age 7, so the eye doctor said that even when it's only a mild prescription, they do prescribe to very young children, as there's a good chance the eyes may fix themselves, or at least, not get any worse.

She'll have to wear them at school and when reading or watching telly at home, but not when just playing, etc. Luckily, she is happy about this - maybe partly because they are Barbie brand glasses and have pink metal frames... Luckily for her parents, the NHS covers eye tests and glasses prescriptions for children under 16, so her basic glasses & lenses are free - although I did pay a little extra to have them coated with that extra tough coating - I'm sure they'll get some wear and tear! I'll upload another picture when she gets them - she was very disappointed she didn't get to take them home today...

Two out of three tigers...

Actually, the third one wanted to be Scooby Doo, but I didn't get a picture of that. I did them at home on Monday, and then went and did all the Rainbows in Olivia's group. [Not all tigers - I did one dalmation, a punk rocker, a floral garland, a black cat (which looked really good - must remember that one), a princess, and several hand decorations of various types. Oh and a butterfly, of course - always!]

Nobody here but all us chicken carcases...

So I was reading this thing in a magazine with tips for home cooks from well known chefs - most of them fairly sensible, but one of them was not to buy chicken parts, but to buy a whole chicken, as it's better value and you can make stock from the carcase. While in principle I approve of stock-making and certainly do so when I have roast chicken, etc, this little tip got me wondering what planet this chef lives on - must be Planet Much Larger Freezer Than Most People Have. I mean, let's say you are a family of 5 (ok, one of mine doesn't eat much yet, but hey, just for the sake of argument) and you're making tandoori chicken, which you don't want to do with the breast, as it will dry out. So you need at least 3 chicken legs (or 6-7 thighs, even less practical!) - I make that at least 2 whole chickens. And what if you don't have time to make the stock right away? Not only do you have to dismember the bird (which one can learn to do, readily enough, I suppose) but then you have to store the parts you don't need, make stock from the carcase(s) and then store that. What if you want to cook up a mess of chicken wings? Wonder how many chickens I can fit in my freezer...

...the size of golfballs...

I appreciate it's usually hailstones which are described as being "the size of golfballs" (golfballs being one of the standard units of size, along with a clenched fist and Wales, for geography (as in "flooded an area the size of Wales")) but in tonight's instance, it's lumps on the back of a child's head...

Poor Allie - various romping resulted, as one always fears it will, in one child crashing into another and sending him flying into the corner of the wall - flat wall is not so bad somehow, but the corners - ouch. Poor thing was complaining his head hurt - well, not suprising, as there was a lump the size of (you guessed it) a rather oblong golfball on the back of his head - luckily the skin wasn't broken, but it was a near thing, really. However it seems to have gone down in swelling a bit now and hopefully will have settled down even more by the morning.

I wish I thought this would actually teach any of them the lesson I am always trying to instill - that too much rough-housing will result in injury. I have very little hope it will, though.

Nothing particular to say

But I feel obliged in that blogging kind of way to post something every once in a while whether or not I have anything to share. So today's gem of excitement is that things are normal here, with no one ill (which is good) and lots of stuff to do (including writing a newsletter for school about waterproof, fleece-lined jackets - a prospect so exciting that I have resorted to writing in my blog when I have nothing to say!).

Did some tie-dyeing with Alex's nursery on
Thursday last week - here's a sample - this was a shibori piece, tied around a piece of PVC pipe. This one almost didn't make it back to nursery, as it came out really really well :) Must try that technique again - I've done it in the past with mixed results, but this one really worked, so there's hope yet. They had lots of fun and were really well behaved - it wasn't at all messy, which I thought it might be, but I guess they are so little that they are better at sitting still and not touching things when told not to, than, say, 8 year olds.

I will survive

Actually, the half term holiday hasn't been too bad - only a few fights and spats. This has been accomplished by a combination of keeping them quite busy and major incentivisation and threats - Sarah had a friend over last night for a sleepover (as always, the wisdom of using the term "sleep" is debatable) so that was a big incentive to behave well early in the week.

Tuesday we went to the Tropical Forest at Syon Park (used to be called Aquatic Experience), which has animals - mostly reptiles, amphibians & fish but also birds and some mammals in tanks and display cages - that part is interesting, but not terribly exciting, but they do a really good encounter session which lasts about an hour and you get to see lots of different animals - the kids really enjoyed that. There are some photos from that in my album. We had won a free family ticket to that attraction at the school fair and we took a picnic, so it was a nice day out for very little money, which is always the problem with the February half term - it's usually too cold to do much outside, which means it can get really expensive to go places.

Wednesday Alex went to Carousel (his nursery) all day and I took the girls up to the museums (Natural History Museum this time). We skipped the dinosaurs, since Dinosaur Boy wasn't with us and looked at the mammals (including the blue whale model, which was suitably impressive, even for my easily bored 8-year old) and the creepy crawlies. We then had some lunch (they have a picnic area in the basement - more museums should do this) and looked at the earth galleries, including the one with all the cystals and gemstones in it, which they loved, and the room that simulates an earthquake. We then caught a bus to Oxford Street, visited the Food Hall in Selfridges and got some deli stuff for dinner, caught another bus to Daddy's office (their favourite part, I think) and all came home together - a good, but tiring, day.

Murphy's Law of Sleeping In

Annoying, but not surprisingly, the toddler who has to be dragged out of bed on the last morning of school before the half term holiday is the same one bouncing in to one's room at just past 7am on the first day of the holidays - so much for sleeping in! He was so tired last night, I'm surprised he was up quite so early - yesterday he not only had an hour in the swimming ("fimming") pool in the morning, but then he went to a party in the late afternoon and spent an hour running all about an adventure playground place called "Merlin's Magic Castle" - I thought he'd be out until at least 8 (which for me, is sleeping in!)

Today, later, we are off to spend some pocket money and get haircuts, no doubt with a stop for lunch in their favourite place (the "M" word) - not my favourite of course, but we only get there a handful of times a year, so I guess it's not really that bad.