Dodging the rain

A half term spent dodging rain showers and avoiding sibling quarrels is a half term rather spent under a duvet. 

Fortunately there were a few opportunities where sou'westers were not quite necessary so we dared to peek out from under the 13 tog.

We dared each other to climb higher up the gate.

We braved it on 2 wheels and didn't cry.

We were duped into starting a World Cup sticker habit.

We sang and danced in the rain.

We got a bit fizzy.

We tried a stealth shot at the park. #fail

We tried our hand at bicycle maintenance.

We also had a training day at our new job. No photo because I thought it was a bit forward to snap on my first day ;-)

Hope you managed to dodge the showers too.

Join The Boy and Me for more 365'iness. It is a real word. Look it up.

Water

When it is hot, and everything is more of an effort than you have energy for, and it suddenly gets dark and rains, big fat raindrops, bouncing on the table and paving stones, and them stops just as suddenly, the sky returning to blue, that is my kind of rain.

We had a couple of showers like that this week. One I watched from underneath a tree with my children, waiting for it to ease up a little so our ice creams wouldn't wash away. Another I watched from my kitchen window, anticipating its arrival and then refreshed as the rain fell.

When it was over, I went outside and took this photo of the table in the garden.

The little pools of water are like continents of the world, but easily transformed by a fingertip, dragging across it's map. The sun shines again, glistening in the puddles marking summer once more.

I am joining in with a new linky on the block over at Cakes Photos Life called Monday Mobile. Just link up a photo you have taken on your mobile in the last week. Easy.

Delicate

It can be as gentle as butterfly kisses on your cheeks.
It can be as fast and furious as a bucket full of marbles being tipped.
It can be as shocking as stepping into a cold shower.
Or it can as delicate as walking through a teasing mist, lulling you into believing it it is weak and harmless, but those minute droplets of moisture have hidden strength, leaving you soaked through in your cardigan, dripping from the cuffs.

Rain.

But my favourite kind of rain is the one that traces delicate streams down window panes, chased by warm little fingers from within.

Joining in with The Gallery at Sticky Fingers and the prompt 'Delicate'

Silent Sunday

#silentsunday

Raindeer (not a typo)

Day 2 of the Easter holidays and there was this strange wet stuff falling from the sky.
I googled it.Turns out it is Rain.

Thing was that there wasn't any rain when we left the house to take our sccoters round Burghley Park.

And it was proper rain too. Real big fat wet drops, that permeate through even the most 'shower-proof' of coats. Ten minutes in and we were seeking shelter. This was not helping my grey brooding mood at all. Nor was the ridiculously expensive apple juice in the cafe. Two quid! Really?

Princess was not impressed, with the rain. The cafe was fine for her. As were the chocolate bars. But the rain. Mais non!

Then the Wee One scooted into a lake. Well not exactly a lake by our standards but when you are only 2 foot tall, big puddles can take on epic proportions. The Big One dived in to rescue him, in his crocs. Fear of trench foot forced us to retreat. Passing the visitors entrance to Burghley House I spotted a sculpture. Seemed apt in this weather. Two giant leaves, dripping with rain.

As we were heading out the gate, squelching as we went, we saw the Raindeer. Yes I do know how to spell REINdeer but surely RAINdeer is far more fitting as droplets fell from their antlers into their eyes. Although one poor fella only had one antler. We had a good look round for his other one, checking that there wasn't a deer looking more cocky than the others with an extra antler perched in the middle of his head. There wasn't.

And I do realise that they aren't even reindeer.

The Great School Holiday Challenge - Week 5

Week 5 already!

I actually think *pauses for breath* that we might just make it. I know I could be tempting fate here but we might actually survive 6 weeks school holidays with no packing cases type holiday, no major injuries or visits to A&E, no major damage to the credit card and, more importantly, survived with our sense of humour intact.
I know there is still time but let me have my moment OK?

Day 29: Car shopping. After 3 months of mostly managing without a car while the Mr is off hunting and gathering, today we went to buy him a runaround so I could have wheels. Yipeee! Interesting experience. First stop, a field and bunker, a moustachioed man and a potential car but the moustachioed man had lost the keys. Second stop, a level crossing and a potential motor with keys. One test drive later, a quick exchange of offers and a passing over of some notes and she was ours/his.

Day 30: Bouncy castle heaven for the kids. Friends had their 2 remarkably well behaved boys Christened and at the party afterwards the Princess and the Wee One had their first successful experience of a bouncy castle. No tears. Not one. I was happy.

Day 31: After an unplanned visit to the local soft play centre (which really must get some investment soon because it is falling apart but they can make a decent cup of tea) our friends from Sant Pol de Mar (Catalunya) arrived for a 3 day visit. Whooo hoooooo! You may have seen my earlier post about houseguests which was inspired, but by no means directed at them. We had a great time. The Princess was in total awe of the Tall One who is 10, my god-daughter, very slim and leggy and also very intelligent. She will go far. The Wee One was in total Awe of the Chatty One, my not god-son, who will undoubtably be in the media with his witty comebacks. The Big One was just as happy as he could be. Sleeping arrangements were tight, with me "shhhing" alot after the Wee One had gone to bed but it worked!

Day 32: I was super delighted and gushing with excitement to be invited to a Mothercare #MummyMeetUp at their Peterborough store. a) This was the first time I had been invited to anything as a blogger and b) this was the first time I would meet anyone in the flesh from twitter. I was surprisingly not nervous and it was a pleasure to meet some lovely bloggers and tweeters. We only had an hour so we didn't exactly have a huge amount of time to get to know each other and the time was also largely taken up by a representative from Medela who fought bravely through the toddler mayhem to educate us on breastfeeding and the equipment that is now available to support you. She did remarkably well given most of the audience was actually beyond that phase of parenting but I did get to play with a fake boobie and breast pump which have improved considerably since I fed the Big One (pumps not fake boobies that is).

Day 33: The sun shone (for once this week) so guess where we went? Regular readers will know that Burghley is my local attraction and I have a season ticket. So off we went. Sculpture garden where the Big One managed to roll around in some nettles (you probably heard his screams) and the water garden where, not surprisingly, we all got a bit wet.

Day 34: I'll let you into a little secret, the best cheese scone in Stamford is at the Stamford Arts Centre. So we went and I had a cheese scone which was still the best in Stamford. The Wee One ate ice cream. And then we waved bye bye to our visitors. Tears were shed when we all looked at each other and thought "Now what?". So we went to bed early.

Day 35: Boring bored sort of day today. Post visitor blues combined with rain and the essential cleaning requirements of a house of 5 people and a molting dog. There is no way I can glamourise the day. It was essentially dull.


And so I return to my hopeful opening paragraph and try not to tempt fate that we are now in the last week of the school holidays and we haven't killed each other. Mind you, there is still time.

Silent Sunday

The Great School Holiday Challenge - Week 4

Welcome to our weekly catch up of what the Five have been up to over the school holidays. This is where I should be referencing back to the list I came up with before the holidays started and keep ticking off all those great ideas we had. *Ahem*  This list is remarkably intact.

Day 22: The good news was that Daddy was going to be home by mid afternoon. The bad news was that Daddy wouldn't be home until mid afternoon. *groundhog day*

Day 23: Yay, nice weather so we headed off to Burghley to the Gardens of Surprise to make good use of the season ticket. We set off before lunch with a plan to eat a picnic before we went in. Finding no where to sit we took advantage of some partially constructed seat terraces for the Horse trials. Who needs parks or water gardens when you can have pull down seats that you can run up and down.

Day 24: For reasons best known to themselves, today was deemed to be dressing up day. We are one the very rare households that hasn't got a dressing up box (I have no idea why) so dressing up involved Mummy popping into Sukies, the local costume hire and party one stop shop, to pick up the required bits and bobs. The result of hours of bending, taping and sewing were a pair of fairy wings and a pirate's bandana. I cheated and bought the eye patch though ;-)

Day 25: MY DAY. I took a day off being Mummy today. Having seen it on Kirstie Allsopp's Homemade Home programme, I went to the Lincolnshire Home and Antiques Fair indulging my crafting, recycling, vintage and thrifty gene. It was the third day of the fair so many stalls were already packing up but it is such a large fair that there was still so much to see and of course bargains to be had. I then had a NIGHT OUT and went to Tolethorpe (a local open air theatre) to see Shakespeare's The Winters Tale. I had a lovely time just being me, suiting myself, and being selfish. *grins* *and ticks off #23* *and finds shoe tidy for the hall (see below) so ticks off #35 too*

Day 26: Back to Burghley (not bored of it yet) to the Sculpture Gardens which are amazing for their originality and ability to amuse children despite it being art and a garden. We took our cameras, one each, and chased around taking hundreds of photos of sculpture (all), the ground (Princess), the children (me) and other unknown people (the Big One). I'm going to do another post on this one because it is worthy of it. (Note to self: remember spare batteries for camera next time).

Day 27: Puddles were splashed in. Snails were tormented. And tea was drunk in large quantities. There may also have been a few DVDs.

Day 28: Paaaarty! Paaaarty! Wave your hands in the air like you just don't care. And eat cake. Nothing like a 3 year old birthday party to make you smile and hit new sugar highs!

Phew. Another exhausting week where not enough sleep was had by Mummy. Maybe next week...

The Great School Holiday Challenge Week 2

Survived another week of the Great School Holiday Challenge. Yes I did need gin round about, oh Saturday night so not bad all things considered!

I interrupt this post to point out that I am not alcohol dependent. Just saying.

Day 8: To Beans Coffee Shop to try to rid my fuddled brain of it's sleep starved state. One Maltesers milkshake and waffle later. Semi-normal service was resumed.

Hit the library and lost (then found) one of Wee One's shoe. "I'm Bored" jar came out today and the Big One picked 'Make a picture Frame' and Princess got 'Paint your toes'. Much cutting of cardboard, hoovering up of glitter, wiping paint off floorboards and painty footprints off tiles later, I started to consider the possibility that some of the 'I'm Bored' suggestions may be a little ambitious :-/

Day 9: Nature trail on Stamford Meadows. Duly printed naturedetectives.com spotters sheets and we were off. Discovered Stamford's Spa, caught (and released) butterflies (unharmed, I think), lost Misty Moo in the stinging nettles (do dogs feel stinging nettles?). I had bigger ideas than the children had attention span for, so we also picked a few flowers from the back garden to press.

Day 10: Is it only Monday? Bribed kids to help me hoover and dust. To be perfectly honest, their help, although valiant, was to very little effect. Changed beds. Lost Princess inside a duvet cover. Walked dog. I was so bored, I reached for the "I'm Bored" jar! So we had salt dough modelling, badminton in the garden, finger painting (I couldn't believe it was the first time that the Wee One and paint had been introduced. Result - messy) and made courgette muffins for tea.

Day 11: Daddy's home! And so to Burghley Garden's of Surprise. A FANTASTIC afternoon was had by all in lovely sunshine. The Gardens are awesome and well worth a vsiit if you happen to be passing Stamford. A separate post on this one for sure. And something ticked off the Challenge list -yay!

Day 12: Mum's gone to ... Ikea! Yep. Another fail as far as the Challenge list is concerned but who can resist hot dogs and Daims. Well you could have knocked me down with a bite size Daim... if you could have found one! There weren't any Daims to be had. Sooooo, hot dogs, plastic beakers, paper napkins, glass tumblers, step stools x2, groovy rug, cuddly rats (?) x2, filter coffee x3 and Pear Cider (yes, I know. Who knew?). A successful trip I'd say. And we managed to miss the freak thunder storm.

Day 13: Princess to nursery and the Big One invited to a soft play place. Result! Me and the Wee One went to Tesco to buy the bits that I forgot in Ikea, namely wine glasses, muffin tin and crafty bits. So I should have been making muffins while the children made a lovely picture for me. The children did indeed use their new metallic pens to do some rather impressive colouring (I'm biased) but I got sucked into twitter and only emerged to cook tea. I blame myself for having started this process probably 30 minutes later than a mother who had been paying more attention to her children would have judged as ideal. Soooo, teatime hell commenced. Damn you twitter!

Day 14: The end of another week. Two down, four to go (not that I am counting). Misty Moo needs a walk every day. The children need to get out of the house everyday. The result is daily dog walking monotony with 3 children in tow. However, today, cunning Supermum pulled it out of the bag. Oh yes. I give you Dog Walking BINGO. Here's what I rustled up over breakfast. (Top left is a map and bottom right is a duck. I do not claim to have any artistic talent.)

So simple. Get the kids spotting things on their walk. What do points make? Prizes. Yes folks, bribery was involved as were sweets but mission dog walk was successful. Oh and we played cricket in the park too. Oh and built a rocket, as you do.

Until next week x

The one where I release my inner child!

Because that little girl who was never too far away from a book or a pencil is still in there.

Given the choice (time), I would be writing or drawing or taking photos or making something. Easy.

But time is so hard to find. It eludes me. There is always something in the way. Something grown up and 'important' and BORING!

Except today. In rained. A lot. Big fat sploshy drops that land and then rise again, bouncing off surfaces to make more drops. From the sanctuary of the door step I watched as they fell incessantly.

I experimented with the settings on the camera trying to capture the scale of the drops and the splashes as they hit the table. I cursed not having a better zoom but continued to snap away revelling in the marvels of digital photography and the gift of being able to shoot 100 frames and delete 98 of them without having wasted money on films and developing.

The kids watched TV uninterested. I had to cajole them into their wellies to go and splash in some puddles. Princess's wellies sprung a leak. The Big One complained that his wellies were too small. The Wee One sat down.

I lifed my chin up high so the water could hit my face, not so heavy now but still raining. I stuck out my tongue to get a drink, licking my lips expecting saltiness but tasting nothing. I looked round to see what the children were doing. They were taking off their wellies, deciding that it was too cold and wet. Even The Wee One with his now sodden trousers looked back over his shoulder and I swear he sighed and shook his head.

I smiled. I executed a near faultless pirouette on the patio for no-ones benefit but my own. With my arms swinging out at my sides I felt the rain against my skin and then I too went indoors, the grown up resurfacing, remembering how frizzy my hair gets in the rain.

Thank you Josie at Sleep is for the Weak and her Writing Workshop prompt: Big Kids

It's raining, It's pouring.

And frankly I'm bored of it. Just Saying...

Mind you my courgettes will be happy.