Some cute kids

Olivia in her new hat -



Aisling in a good mood (not that rare in life, but she does NOT like to have her photograph taken so it's hard to get a good shot - I surprised her here - she didn't realise I had a camera) -




Alex and Aine showing off one of their creations in the sand.

These photos are from the Diana Memorial Playing Fields in Kensington Gardens - the one with the Pirate Ship - we've been before. It was a lovely sunny day, so we wanted to do something outdoorsy. Needless to say, the playground was crowded - but not too bad. For all that it was sunny, it was also fairly chilly, so we then moved on to other pastures. A few more photos over here on Flickr.

Happy birthday cake

Here's Olivia's birthday cake, a few days past the event - no time to make one until today. And of course the kids all wanted to help decorate it - and as we have extra kids at the moment, a LOT of decorating was done. It was chocolate inside, with (vanilla flavoured) purple icing. And of course, all the decorations in the world.

Birthday treat

Today in lieu of a birthday party, I took Olivia and her friend Nina for a day out. We started by going to Guildford Spectrum to go ice skating - no photos of that, sorry - and then went up to Kingston for some lunch and a bout of shopping at all my personal favourite shops - Build-a-Bear Workshop, the Disney Store, Woolworths, Claire's Accessories and so on... Needless to say, I didn't buy much. The hats came from Claire's, and I think were an excellent choice - they really suit them.





Here they are in Woolworth's, being silly with a small car (they didn't put money in and ride on it, which is probably a good thing) before browsing through all the black pre-teen clothes and eventually buying matching toy stuffed turtles. Ah, the joys of being 9 (or 8)!

After the dinner party

We had a dinner party with friends tonight for Geoff's 50th and just left the kids to amuse themselves in the living room with DVDs, etc (they did come in an say hello and chat occasionally, and stuff, but didn't sit with us for dinner - for one thing, with 8 adults, not space enough for anyone else at table!). One by one, they dropped off - funny thing is, Alex was the last one to fall asleep. Olivia has had a bad cold, so is probably more tired than usual and Sarah was out all day with Guides at a concert in Birmingham, so perhaps she is more tired than usual as well...

Pizza night

The girls (including Sarah's friend Jess, who is sleeping over) do their pizzas first...



and now the boys!

Bits of my day

Dress as a book character day at school - give a nominal donation and you can come as a book character instead of in uniform. Alex was a "Red Indian" from Peter Pan, Sarah was Lyra Belacqua from the Dark Materials Trilogy, Olivia was Pippi Longstocking. Hers is my favourite. Especially the hair (we did it with strong twist ties).



Great sky tonight - I missed the birds flying across it, but it still was lovely. We are having (and here I hope I don't jinx things) the BEST weather this autumn. My very favourite - chilly to start, then sunny later, with gorgeous deep blue skies and lots of SUN... Cold at night, of course, because no cloud cover, but heck, it's worth it.



Just filled this in a little while ago and it's ready to go off in the post tomorrow or early next week - I have to get the right postage of course, as I am outside the US. I should think it highly unlikely my little vote will make any difference at all in Maryland, which tends to vote Democrat for President even when almost no one else does (except Reagan in 84 - well - no one voted for Mondale, really!) but I still want to make a statement. And, if (God forbid) my guy doesn't win, I want to be able to complain long and loud - which I hold you shouldn't be allowed to do unless you vote!

African animals

It's such a busy week (or two) here, but without much to say, really, so I thought I'd just share this lovely masterpiece, which Alex did yesterday after school. He got nearly as much paint on himself and his shirt as on this picture (not quite) but I think it was worth it - be sure to spot all the camouflaged animals!

Lotsa cooking today

Here's Sarah putting the finishing touches on her birthday cake (we decided to make it today rather than yesterday, as yesterday was a pretty busy day) - there's still about half of it left, but I shouldn't think there will be at this time tomorrow...



And here's some chutney, made to use our many many green tomatoes - in a couple months' time, I'll let you know if it's any good or not!

I didn't take photos of the roast chicken, roast potatoes & cabbage we had for dinner - perhaps I should have!

11 years ago today - more or less

Not precisely, because this photo was taken at age 3 or 4 weeks, I think. I used it partly because it's cuter than the newborn ones anyway and partly because it was easily accessible, as it's on the wall in a frame. Many of the others of that era are in an album on a top shelf somewhere - yes, Sarah predates digital photography - as does Olivia, for that matter. The photos of Alex are all on the computer, or at least on disc somewhere...

Anyway, happy birthday to my eldest - oh, and please don't remind me how few years I have until she's a teenager!

Very busy

... and here are two of the reasons - having the hallway redecorated (luckily, I am not actually doing the work on that) - and a birthday girl - just got her ears pierced yesterday for the occasion (11 tomorrow). I'm looking forward to things settling down a bit. Maybe it will happen in October. Hah.

Garden visitors

Sarah snapped these chaps in the garden today - they hung around for quite a while. No ponds or anything particularly near us, so not too sure why they were here, but it was nice to see them!

A very quiet house...

Because the smalls are back to school today - here they are about to set off this morning. This will be the last first-day-of-school photo of them all in their matching green jumpers as next September, Sarah will be at a different school than the others. We don't know which school yet, but whichever one, it won't be the same as the other two.

A day at Knebworth

Here's a photo of us out today with my friend Margery - thought I'd share this one as it has me in it (which is something you don't get a lot of as I usually take the photos) and Sarah in it as well (she doesn't usually let me take her photo). This is in the centre of the maze in the garden at Knebworth House, where we went today with Margery, who lives up that way.

And here's my girls - the one who always likes having her photo taken and the one who doesn't...




Lots more photos over here.

Day out in the Gardens...

... Claremont Landscape Gardens, that is.

Today, something happened which has been far too rare here this summer - the sun came out and stayed out for an entire day. I know, amazing, right? It was actually warm enough to wear shorts (well, I didn't wear shorts - not a shorts person, really, but I did wear short trousers and a sleeveless shirt!). Anyway, we decided to get outside, so after lunch we headed out to Claremont, which we had some tickets for. It's only about 20 minutes away and it's a nice, fairly small gardens, with just enough things of interest to look at. And just over the road is our local pick-your-own farm, so we stopped on the way home and got some raspberries and some sweetcorn, and some lambchops from the farm shop. Mmm.

More photos over here.

Who?

Another busy week - can't believe we are nearing the end of the holiday - amazing! Last week on Wednesday we went to the Wetland Centre, but I didn't take many pictures, so didn't share before now - this is Alex and McKinley doing some pond dipping - we went with a big group - we had 13 kids between us - and had a lovely time, despite the average weather. At least it didn't rain...

Today, I took mine to the Dr Who Expedition (as Alex called it) at Earl's Court, which they (and I) enjoyed - lots of models and so forth from the show. There are a good handful of photos over in my flickr album - some with the kids in, and some just of Dr Who Stuff, which may be of minimal interest to many of you :)

Gerbil pile

Haven't had a photo of the gerbils in a while - so here's a cute one - they are sleeping all in a big pile - not even in the corner or anything, just piled up in the middle of the bedding. I feel sorry for Ozzie (the black and white one) as he's the littlest, yet seems to have ended up on the bottom with big tubby Billy on top. Oh well, I suppose if it really bothered him, he'd protest more!

Day out at Leeds Castle

Okay, I know, this doesn't look much like Leeds Castle - first, we went to Whitstable in Kent to eat some oysters and other things, and then we went over to Leeds Castle after lunch. As it happens, this was an excellent choice, because the weather was a bit dodgy in the morning, but cleared nicely in the afternoon and evening, so the time at Leeds Castle was very pleasant indeed.



Much more castle-ish, don't you think? Anyway, some photos of the kids at the castle are over here...

Horton Park Farm

Alex and I spent today at Horton Park Children's Farm with my friend Sharon's kids and their nanny. Sharon had some errands to run and probably needed a bit of a rest (this is my friend who I've mentioned, who has Hodgkin's Lymphoma). The photo above is McKinley (Alex and McKinley are in the same class in school), Alex and Edie - we had another child with us - Baby Beau, who spent most of the time in the pushchair, but enjoyed looking at some animals.

Here they are having dressed a scarecrow (or more precisely, they directed me while I dressed the scarecrow and they ate icecreams).



I took loads of photos - they are over here on flickr.

The first tomato

...was eaten with great ceremony. It was nice - quite sweet, not very big (slightly larger than cherry tomatoes - maybe golf-ball sized - they are obviously a small variety). There are several others which are almost ripe on the vines, so there will be more to look forward to eventually. There are LOTS which are still green, so we may end up with a glut eventually. Though with the weather the way it has been, perhaps not. If need be, I shall make green tomato chutney...

Here there be tygers

Went to the zoo today with friends. Loads of photos here. Three happy kids below - the other was refusing to be photographed, as usual.