My birthday cake

I made a cake and let the kids loose with the decorations - a collaborative affair!

Longer Days

Having endured a week of absurdly storng winds and rain - we lost a couple of fence panels, today was gloriously sunny and calm. Raff had finaly made it to the final square of his star chart (slightly engineered by us obviously!), in which is a picture of a castle. So we headed off to Bodiam Castle which I feel sure I must have visited as a child as it is so close to Battle and not far from Wally Hall, but I don't remember it at all. It is however the perfect castle to take a knight obsessed boy to as it just looks so text book- moat, square plan with a tower on each corner, portcullis etc etc.


We had great fun climbing up and down the vertiginous spiral staircases and popped out of the tops of a few. I suddenly realised why Mum hated taking us up the Chateaux near Soulatge and it dawned on me that I am not sure I ever want to take the kids to Peyrepetreuse, my heart was in my mouth all the time and Bodiam has probably been thouroughly risk assessed and poses none whatsoever!

Flowers on December 23rd

nasturtium rose
calendula candytuft

winter viola sunflower! and canterbury bells
cornflowerrambling rose
periwinkle

This will be out of synch dates wise unless I can change it around, but I captured these pics of things flowering in the garden on the 23rd of December - most of them shouldn't be!

Festivities

Here I am at the end of the festive fortnight. There's too much to write about everything but the highlights .

We left here on the 24th for lunch with Katy and Kev which was delicious, the big kids had their own private table with fabulous choc mousses for pudding!

Then on to Nick and Geo for a couple of nights and lots of wonderful food. It was the first time we had seen we had seen their great new kitchen which is such a great family space. Nick cooked a wonderful Christmas lunch helped by his beautiful assistant - we need the secret recipe for that amazing mash please!

All 7 of the Gibson cousins were together on Christmas Day for the first time in years,

with a very proud Grannie Annie!

Memorable moments included Stanley's appreciation of the wonderful Gingerbread house Mum had made - he particularly liked the roof tiles whilst Raff went for the walls!!

Boxing Day and a trip to Kew Gardens where they had an outdoor ice rink in a beautiful setting, All of us except Stan could go on the ice - although Raff wasn't convinced and came off fairly quickly! Skating with him was a bit like holding a very slippery piece of elastic! Georgia was really beginning to get the hang of it by the end and would love to go again.

Suitably worn out we then loaded them into the car to drive down to Devon and this time even Georgia managed to sleep (on her brother!) so it wasn't too arduous.

Our days in Devon were mostly spent doing nothing much but eat and sleep which was fabuously idle, we caught up with David who had fun with Raff and met Lucie, David's girlfriend, who he proposed to the next day; so now we have to see if we can make it to the States later in the year?

We also had a big Somerville gathering with a huge feast and much jollity, the boys discovered they go in a loop around the house as it has two staircases!

Georgia and Penny had some time in the studio which was lovely, making a wooden dragon - only 78 more pieces to go girls!

Then back home for New Years Eve which this year we spent at Polly and Simon's with Rutty and Anna, great fun and pretty late! Only to be capped off by our annual New Years Day open house which started at 12 and ended at 8.30 pm when the last guests left. I was absolutely shattered which has rather undone all the good resting in Devon. Hey ho! Back to work tomorrow and I hope to really begin to get my teeth into the job. There's still so much to sort out not least a desk/computer/phone etc etc. Watch this space because I am going to give it another month or so and then start looking for somewhere that might appreciate me!

I think I may have failed to mention the single most exciting thing that happened at Christmas and that was my new Digital SLR camera. Hooray for Michael I can now get back into some proper photography!

Looking back over these few pics all I can say is what a smiley time we had!

Freecycle

Hooray the cot has gone and I am no longer a freecycle virgin. I was going to stick stan's cot on ebay but given that we bought it for just £20 8 years ago and it has happily contained all three kids, I thought it would be better karma to freecycle it. I have long been chasing various great sounding things there, but am always too late, hopefully now my luck will change since I have given something away.

December starts

It's the 2nd of December and the roses are blooming, nasturtiums going strong, geranium flowering for third time this year, not to mention a sunflower in Dot's garden surrounded by a sea of Larkspur. I still haven't planted my broad beans which I absolutely must do today, but am quite glad that I never planted any garlic, I think it would have rotted in the ground by now!
So I started my new job this week and it was truly baptism by fire. First day discovered boss is #**&&$$£!.
Stanley coped with his first week of not much Mum, although he was so shattered by Friday that we didn't get up to much (he wasn't the only one). I am going to have to be far more organised about boring domestic planning so that I can still give the kids decent attention at the end of the day. Getting the meals sorted for the first few days of the week and washing and ironing all done at the weekends - although Michael is going to be finishing early on a Monday so perhaps I can look forward to some of his cooking!

Perfect Sunday

A few pics of a lovely day. Swept up some autumn leaves then had Gavin et al around for roast pork. India was looking lovely and the boys serenaded us with their Mariachi band whilst Gavin and Georgia battled it out in Trivial Pursuit. Some very fine Rioja was drunk too!

apropo of nothing, but made me laugh!

I think it should say Meditation, but I still love it

Raff's new bed!

He's done it again, Michael the wonder-builder has made Raff a fabulous new bed. Using the old storage units from our room as a base (which now means an unorthodox approach to clothes storage for us)
and the top half of an IKEA bunk bed, Raff now has a wonderful bed with a 'cave' underneath, which is guarded over by a fearsome dragon. Soon hopefully we will put all of his toys on the shelves, then all of his clothes in his room, so that Stan can have somewhere to put his clothes!!!! It's a never ending circuit of change. Stan is also now looking forward to having Raff's old bed - I just need to flog his cot to make space - Ebay here I come.

Meanwhile my darling is making a whole new built in cupboard for our clothes so that we can have the spare bed back... I am reminded of the amazing dressing room which he constructed for our first flat which was genius!

The DIY skills also had a new outlet in Saturday night when Michael and I indulged our passion for sushi by preparing oursleves a sushi feast. With some really yummy tuna from our local fish man and salmon too, we had sushi rolls, sashimi and Nigiri. I think we may have made a little too much...but I ate most of it and was a truly happy lady (it doesn't take much!) Here's our proud selection


As a footnote to my last post, global warming brought huge benefits yesterday when i picked 2kg of raspberries from one of the fields near us, I finally caught up with the farmer to find out why it hadn't been picked all summer - they are trial varieties apparently - well I think they're all yummy, some are the size of loganberries, so big helpings all round and then 7 jars of free jam - hooray. I hope to get one more picking session in before the cold weather really hits. Stan and I had fun making Sloe vodka last week - I pricked the sloes (7 times each is apparently the tradition) and he popped them into the bottles. It will be ready for Christmas 2007! So we can be self suffcient in jam and vodka, not exactly a balanced diet?

what global warming?

We had friends for lunch yesterday, on an another impossibly warm day and I picked a small bouquet for the table. If the flowers in this don't demonstrate climate change then what does? It's the 30th October, we haven't had the heating on yet, the back door is wide open all day long - yes we are hardier than many but it's really balmy, until the sun goes down. Today Georgia is off school for an inset day so we have been planting crocuses (her) and sweeping up leaves (me) plus I finally got some wallflowers and tulips in the bed by the front door, so it will stop looking so dreadful, plus an old tin bath full of winter pansies. Stan is sleeping and the house is quiet so a chance to catch up with the world of blog.

Life is about to get a whole load more complicated though as last week I was interviewed for a job, which I got! I am going to become a Knowledge Transfer Co-ordinator at the University College for the Creative Arts at Rochester - it will be a long skinny business card I think!! Now I have to begin the search for childcare to fit in with the kids three different days, two different schools and Stan just starting at playgroup!

autumn colour

A friend who saw the kids and I walking across the fields today said we looked like something out of a lifestyle magazine with our vibrant colours and a thoroughly country look about us. I think the praise for colour should go to the landscape which looked awesome today. My favourite light, super high tide bouncing it everwhere and all of the plants on the turn into autumn.

Stan has a room!

After two weekends shifting furniture around the place (Michael) and planning the decor (me) Stan has his own room, and therefore so does Raff again. I have to admit to being rather over emotional about it all. It seems quite something for Stan to be sleeping all alone for the first time in his life, and the end of babyhood! But since I was the one to push, weedle and nag for it, I can't be too tragic about it. Stan getting a room forms the primary plank of my master plan entitled "get the toys upstairs and reclaim the living room and dining room". So thus far it's looking good. Stan is in love with the idea of his own room and Raff loves the extra space, he has said " please don't let's put any things in here" - I think I may ruin his aspirations to be the next John Pawson when I explain the thing about all the toys coming to live upstairs! Michael now plans a trip to IKEA, ooh lucky us!
We will have been here for 4 years in January and I think it should be my goal to have painted the raw plaster and delightful tester paint patches all over the walls of our bedroom (sickly jade courtesy of previous owners!) which is our current decorative finish. M is going to make built in storage and then I think we should splash out on flooring - crazy! It's amazing to think what the domino effect of doing Stan's room could lead to....

Now we are 8.......

How do you go from this


to this


well via some of these...








Wow, what a beauty. Georgia, you make us sooooooo proud.

On the eve of Georgia's 8th birthday and therefore the 8th anniversay of our lives being transformed forever into one of chaos, love, mewling, bickering, joy and pain (and that was just her birth ha ha!!), it's a good time to reflect a little on what being a parent is all about. Somewhat serendipitously (if that is in fact a word) this week I received from Mum the letters which Granny Creek wrote to her parents, from India, which Rosemary has been typing up. They are facinating, engaging, full of detail and interest , but most strikingly to me, they have revealed how, whilst our methods of parenting and the lifestyles were very different from ours, the funadmental preoccupations of being parents haven't changed in the slightest. One of the funniest passages was,

"We took the family out, and it seemed to grumble and whine all the time. George said we’d better re-christen them “Lollipop”, “Gimme” and “I wanna”, or perhaps the first word should be added to both the second two, then Liza could be called “T’isn’t”. She’s in a beautifully contradictory stage nowadays of self-assertion, so everything anyone says must be the opposite according to her."

This could have been taken from anyone of our recent family scenes and Stanley would be Liza! He is in a stage which can be very trying as he says "T'isn't" or words to that effect to practically anything Raff says, without any malice or indeed having any idea what he is saying, but Raff takes it to heart and so answers a back and a circluar "tis/tisn't" goes on for hours!! We have tried to coach Raff to ignore him, but he does it by saying " Stan, you don't mean it, I'm going to ignore you" to which the reply comes "no you're not" " yes I am " etc etc etc !! aaaagh

To be fair they all bring us so much joy and pleasure as well as a pretty good dollop of frustration, but we wouldn't be without them. I'm getting soppy but there you go.

Here are the boys so they don't feel left out