This is a plant based disaster.
It’s not responding to water. The plant has decided that its stem needs to point across. It will decide later whether any vertical action happens.
We may have to judge on length of stem rather than height. Or aesthetics.
Especially when Lily’s plants look like this.
(Although, to be honest, I think hers look a little dry…)
Edited highlights from our holiday pictures…
It didn’t take any time at all for Lily to jump in the pool. Even though it was slightly cloudy. This is as cloudy as it got.
Actually, I tell a lie – it got a bit cloudy, in that it rained a bit on our first evening. We didn’t let that change our cooking plans, though, oh no.
This is what me starting to relax looks like. Being in my favourite Portuguese restaurant helps.
Joel in the same restaurant, relaxing by eating lemons. I promise, this was voluntary.
We spent half a day at the beach. Joel and I lined up sticks to see how quickly they got washed away. We both nearly got washed away in the process.
…and, what I felt the need to tweet last year compared to this year.
Joel wanted to make something from his cook book (again). The recipe we had the most ingredients for was chocolate chip muffins. The only thing we were a bit light on was 200g of plain chocolate (I KNOW? Who could have guessed we’d have _no_chocolate_ available for baking?). We substituted 100g white choc chips & 100g glacé cherries.
Mixing it all together was super easy. At which point, Chef declared himself “done” and left his sous-chef to put the mixture in the cases.
Consequently, I feel reasonably justified in saying that this one…
…is mine.
So, the next day. It’s fair to say I was very much up for sitting on my arse, however we agreed on a light stroll on a lovely beach – whistling sands.
The Internet was utterly PANTS at telling me where this beach was. I could find out lots and lots about it, but no map with a “go here” big pointy arrow, made even more frustrating by the ropey signal and tortuous download speed I was operating under.
We agreed it was “somewhere near Aberdaron” and signposted, so we set off. As soon as I was sat in the car with the OS map in my mitts, I spotted it, right there on the coast to the north of Aberdaron. Job’s a good ‘un.
Turns out, the adjustment from navigating on a phone with a moving blue dot to using paper with… no moving dot but quite a high level of detail, while initially taking some brain work, was totally fine. I’ve still got it, to the point where I was saying “in about 100 yards there’s a sharp right then left bend in the road, with a road going off to the right”. Arguably more detail than the necessary “stay on this road” but I was enjoying myself.
We got there without getting lost *at all*. Well done, me.
The sand is so called because it makes a whistling noise when you stand on it. Turns out, it needs to be dry (it wasn’t) and probably have the sun on it (it didn’t). So, it was relatively crunchy, but no whistling.
However, it did have the odd exciting rock formation at its eastern end…
@antikaggs any idea what these might be?
I leaned against them while taking this…
You don’t get the same effect on photos but it always fascinates me how the sea looks like it’s going uphill, although I know the water is overall basically level and the sea bed goes down. Unless there’s a tsunami and I haven’t experienced one of them so far.
Anyway, walking back, Lily was in full-on beach combing mode – there were quite a few unusual & pretty stones although to look at the beach you wouldn’t have guessed it.
So, as we went up the track back to the car, Lily was struggling to carry all the pebbles she wanted to bring back. We filtered, yet still when we got back to the car Daddy made a comment along to lines of “oh, we’re bringing (yet more) stones home with us are we?” I just smiled & enabled.
After all, a couple may have also fallen into my pocket as well…
Last winter I made myself some tridactyl gloves. Straight away Steve pronounced them to be “not right”, so in spite of them being big enough for him, I know he will never wear them. Which is a shame, because I’m fairly sure the slight bagginess compromises the warmth-giving. Although its top-quality yarn…
But I digress.
When Joel and I went to school for his Christmas performance (actual tea towels were deployed) I parked a little way away, so there was a short walk to the car from school in the bitter cold (it was bitterly cold that night – quite rare this winter to not be raining). Joel being Joel, he had no hat, scarf or gloves (I’d managed to persuade him to wear a coat, at least) so I suggested a sharing plan with my gloves – we wear one each on our “outside” hands and our middle hands go up my sleeve together.
We like this plan – it worked.
The upshot is that Joel asked for his own pair of alien gloves. As it happens, I had some appropriate yarn so I got cracking pretty much straight away.
There wasn’t very long until Christmas but Joel’s hands aren’t big. I drew round them, then worked with the pattern. They weren’t going to be a surprise because, for one, he’d only just asked for them, and for another, he kept getting up and saw them at the cuff and the almost-done stage.
So here they are, Joel’s Christmas alien gloves.
They are made with some lovely soft acrylic mix yarn which is mainly green, but with a variegated shot of yellow & blue running through them. Hence the colour variation. I used smaller than usual needles so that the stitches are nice and tight, so hopefully warmer.
They have gone down well and have been worn a few times (which, even considering their origins, is something of an achievement). Although one of those times was Sunday when it was snowing really wet snow, and they basically acted like sponges!
The main thing is, they haven’t got lost yet. I don’t think…
update: this evening Joel told me: mummy, my gloves are SO POPULAR that nearly all the boys [in my class] have tried them on! _Even_ _Diarmiud_ !
So yes, they’re very cool. My work here is done.
It seems that whenever I get my colouring or art things out, small people gather and want to join in. Especially if the results are to be elaminated (sic). So when I got out the gear to make some bookmarks, you can imagine the interest levels were high.
A while ago I got some watercolour pencils and a water brush “pen”, and until now hadn’t had a play with them. In fact, I think I got the pen at the pencil museum when we stayed in Keswick with the Dawsons. That makes it 3.5 years old. I’ve used the pen before, but clearly not much.
I wanted to make a marker for Joyce as part of her birthday gift, so went with a food theme. I’m really pleased with how these turned out.
Of course, having cut 2 A4 sheets of card, this is all I got to do. The first batch lined up thus:
I got to do 4/12. I think this one is my favourite.
Of the kids, Joel’s skylanders bookmark was a simple classic. I hope to pinch this for myself when he’s not looking. For the uninitiated, skylanders are divided into elements, each of which has a coloured symbol. I love this.
For the second set I put my foot down with a firm hand, and managed to get a higher proportion of the blanks for myself. I mixed up the themes and added some dolls in the mix…
I may try these on etsy – if I can get some decent pictures!
We had a lovely Christmas gift from my sister. Here it is being used in unintended ways.
Butterfly proboscis
Monkey ears.
Ram’s horns.
Fancy moustache. There’s a bit of camera wobble here, but do you really blame me?
Moose horns. Or it might be heart-head.
Hunting horn.
Pretty hair.
Frankly, I’m surprised she didn’t think of some of these herself. Pot stand, indeed.
Inspired by Ali Edwards, I’ve now got a list of themes to work from for Christmas… Today I’m going with Advent Calendars!
When I was little we had the same advent calendar year after year. Because we were children, we didn’t remember the images that were behind the windows from year to year – apart from the last one, so it was what it was. Only the very lucky or very spoilt got advent calendars with things to eat in them or small gifts, and to be honest they were a lot rarer “back in the olden days” than they are now, so we didn’t feel like we were missing out.
When I told the children this, Joel patted my arm and said “aah”. I felt quite patronised.
We have a plethora of advent calendars. A traditional re-used one.
I think this one dates from early on in our marriage, before we had children. It has been used periodically. I was hoping that I would get to open this one, but apparently not, since Lily has opened the first two already. Still, the delight in the miniscule images of skaters whipping me up into a pre-Christmas frenzy is in no way diminished by that…
Then, we have the re-usable Felt Christmas tree. Sadly, one of the pieces fell apart last year (it’s probably still in my sewing box waiting to be sewn together, next to the Beavers badges I haven’t sewn on yet) so we don’t have one for the first of the month. I might switch out one from next weekend since we’ll be in London and the cat isn’t well motivated to do advent calendars in our absence.
The pieces are really sweet and it’s held up well after a few years of hard wear. My annual dilemma is whether to put the angel or Santa on 24th. I’ve plumped for Santa this year, but the alternative is to have himself on 6th and the angel on 24th. I’m sure I’ll be corrected by my increasingly pious children before too long.
And finally, we have the horribly commercial bought-at-the-last-minute ones with chocolates in.
In previous years we’ve had major traumas finding character based ones which will please everyone – princesses, moshi monsters, you name it, it’s caused tears because either it’s not the right princesses advent calendar or it turns out Lily isn’t a fan of “Hello Kitty” after all.
This year, they “chose” these calendars on the basis that they were the first ones the children saw when we entered the shop (nice product placement, Morrisons) and I realised it was 29th November so I’d better pull my finger out.
It turns out these are the best advent calendars *ever* because as well as a chocolate in each window, there is also a picture *and* a question. Yesterday’s was “Have you sent Santa your wish list yet?” and today’s is “Is it snowing yet?”. I like the application of the word “yet” which is giving a sense of loveliness YET to come.
Which, at the end of the …month is what advent is all about, isn’t it?!
It’s a while since I blogged here.
Another one is this.
And this to-do list, which is… more of the same.
If you look at it from this distance it doesn’t look like I did much today. However, if you look a bit closer, you’ll see I wasn’t exactly slouching.
I’m now going to lie down with a nice gin & tonic and a lamb stew.
Joel’s godparents came for tea on Sunday and Lily did her usual forgetting-names trick. Uncle Kev was called Uncle Bryon. Which, given that Uncle Bryon (and Auntie Debbie) was called Uncle Dave, and we often see Uncle Kev with Uncle Dave, is starting to feel quite circular.
On a trip to the playground, Uncle Kevryonave initiated a race around the climbing frame to see who could circuit the fastest. Sadly for Joel’s ego, there was a 10-second difference in Lily’s favour. They had a second go where Joel tried to beat his own time – and I have to say I’m really pleased with the timing of this shot, if not the framing…
He improved his time by 3 seconds. I reckon he could have shaved 5 off if he hadn’t been told to “be careful” on the back strait.