Housey Stuff

Well, I am getting reliably crap at the blogging,eh...
Please allow my excuse of two jobs on opposite sides of a capital city, three Smalls, and darkness in the evenings (power cuts) that are not conducive to blog-chattiness.
I am not especially chatty tonight, but do have some photos to share - haven't shown you the house for ages, so here is Eve's bedroom, much cosier, with new carpet to replace the hideous plastic 'lino' with the blurred parquet floor print. I also bought her two new tables for her birthday so that she can do more things in her room without the boys gate-crashing, so now she has a science table and an art table as well as various bits on the floor as usual.



And here's the spare room on the top floor. I have always felt a bit guilty about not making it look nice for people who have been good enough to come and visit us, so finally got on with a bit of soft furnishing and picture-hanging. Yeah, I admit, just a little bit, but it is much nicer than it was last year.




This is our classiest feature - the indoor washing line on the top floor..... (Dust, impending monsoon and the seemingly ever-present scent of burning plastic are enough to dissuade me from roof-top laundry drying).




And here are the views from the roof this afternoon - such dark clouds.... and amazing lightening..... I really thought the heavens were about to open, but it seems to have rolled on right over and out of the valley.... We'd love some rain! I would like it to dampen down the dust and make the grass grow, whereas Harv, teenage as ever, just wants it because there's more likely to be electricity if it rains, which means he can get intimate with his XBox..... honestly.....







Have a great weekend, everyone, xx

Somewhere lovely......

Gorgeous, traditional style cottages, amazing food, two hours drive from KTM, blissfully peaceful.... God, I needed this.

Harv is still ill, and he actually spent the weekend in bed - but we still managed to have a really lovely time any way - somehow.......

This is Namobuddha Farmhouse...


A play area with a view - I'm still a bit in awe of it!








Lovely quiet time outside the cottage.....




We explored the farm....











We went for a little walk in the woods.









This one still cracks me up.....




Flying...





Now, where did that cat go........?

Happy Birthday Thom Beaner!

Morning present opening....





Monsters of Darkness sent by Grandma Foxy:


These look MUCH too scary for a little three year old, to me but he absolutely LOVES them.

And afternoon cake, once Eve and Noah had got home from school:





Wanting more cake:


(Noah and I managed to persuade him to wait until after dinner for another piece.)



Happy Birthday, Thom! You are a delight to all of us!

The Himalaya by Eve

Crappy Crafts = Eco bags

Here you go - three bags, made from old clothes:




Ok, so they are quite crappy, but I actually quite like them for that.
Big one is for Eve, made out of dad's shirt; middle sized one is Noah's, made from the jeggings(!) I cut off because it's so hot here in the summer that full length ones are much too hot; and the little one is for Thom Beaner, made fom one of the legs I cut off his trousers to make them into shorts - and gratifyingly already full of his little soldiers.

Think the two smaller ones have quite a bit of robustness to them and will last through lots of play - don't have quite the same confidence in Eve's, but I know she'll be chuffed I made it for her and that's the point of it really....

Happy weekend wishes to everyone xx

This is what load-shedding looks like....

Well, in our house, anyway....
There's no mains electricity for 12 - 14 hours a day here in KTM at the moment. We have something called an invertor in our house, which is basically a large car battery; when we're without power it'll run certain lights for us, and one plug socket. (As long as you don't plug in anything too big - I plugged in the electric oven once, in a fit of other-mums-visiting-must-cook-for-them desperation and overloaded it instantly. We had soup. And bread.) But with so few hours of electricity (and often of insufficient wattage/voltage/whatever) it doesn't get fully charged. So we're on candles, and no TV. The smalls seem happy enough though....
They spent ages making this dinosaur land, then asked me for the camera to take photos of it:





Eve designed this picture for the Eco Festival on Friday afternoon:

I have been commissioned to make three Eco-bags for the smalls to take into school. Will post photos as long as I remember....

They had fun pulling faces. (All 5 following photos were taken by the children.):








Then did some more Eco-bag designing by candle light: One with flash so you can see what they're up and one without so you can feel the atmosphere....




So, they are pretty much (albeit temporarily - ahem) weaned off TV. I'm not. Vampire Diaries here I come.......!

Pirates for Breakfast

(Apologies for the blatant product placement, the ubiquitous meal time accompaniment of tomato ketchup. Noah has started a campaign "Ketchup counts as one of my five-a-day, and if I eat five helpings of it all of them count".... I suspect he would have many supporters if only he could find an effective way to target the Primary School audience.)