Brothers

This isn't quite the moment but it's pretty close...... I looked out of the kitchen window early on Sunday morning and saw Noah and Thom on the trampoline, laughing together, and felt suddenly very external to their relationship. Iknow it's been happening subtley since Thom was born - the little smiles, the head-strokings, the looking around the room for each other, the hidey-boo, the belly-laughs, and more recently, the wrestling and games of 'fighting ball' (a football game devised by Eve and Noah which mainly seems to involve falling over on the grass and rolling around squealing).
And I have watched the relationship between Eve and Noah grow strong and sure (albeit littered with dispute) over the past three years.
But it caught me unawares to suddenly feel so utterly surplus to reqirements. No one was asking for a cuddle, or a biscuit; no one was needing toilet help or a nose wipe. So I just watched my boys, completely happy in each other's company, and fleetingly daydreamed about the men they will grow into and the relationship they will have as brothers.

So, the photo's not so great - and has missed the moment - but it's recorded mine as their mum, and the slightly painful pride and heart-swelling I felt.

Camera Cosies

I haven't done a crafty post for ages, but not because I haven't been doing anything - I have really been enjoying my knitting. I am currently working on some trousers for Thom - my first project on circular needles - I promise to post a picture when they're done, however dodgy they turn out.....hmmmmm......

Here are 3 camera cosies I made recently. The pink one is for Eve who got my old camera for Christmas. It includes my first ever button hole, which I made rather a hash of - I guess I'll get better with practice....??
The orangey one's for my camera and the creamy one is a gift. They are both based on a pattern for a techno-cosy in the Stitch and Bitch book, but I didn't want a velcro fastening, so instead have used a thread of the yarn with a bead on the end to wind around a decorative button. It's only slightly fiddly and very effective as a closure. I am kind of chuffed to say that I got an 'order' for another one from a mate last night, too. I really like knitting them - so simple and quick - just right for a starter-outer.

Silver Lining by Carol Ann Duffy

Five miles up the hush and shush of ash,

Yet the sky is as clean as a white slate -

I could write my childhood there.

Selfish to sit in this garden, listening to the past

(A gentleman bee wooing its flower, a lawnmower)

When the grounded planes mean ruined plans,

Holidays on hold, sore absences at weddings, funerals ... wingless commerce.

But Britain's birds sing in this spring

From Inverness to Liverpool, from Crieff to Cardiff,

Oxford, Londontown, Land's End to John O' Groats.

The music's silent summons,

That Shakespeare heard and Edward Thomas and, briefly, us.



I heard this on Radio 4 a couple of days ago and really enjoyed it. (A degree of novelty is involved - not to be teaching a poem.) I wanted to share it because I think it captures the past week or so so well. All over now....

Just because he is SO yummy

Don't you just LOVE a slippery chub of a toddler to cuddle......

So I am back at work

and it's ok. I was dreading it a little bit as we'd all definitely got into holiday mode over Easter, with Thom waking up at 8.30 or later, and those kind of one activity / outing a day is quite enough sort of days. I do love my job but it does turn life rather treadmilly.... So it is lovely to have these sorts of days to fleetingly remember until our next bunch of them.

This was our Saturday - Eve, Noah and my mum made miniature gardens - just like I used to make in the seventies, then we played on last year's waterslide, which had managed to survive the winter somehow, then walked through the woods to the park.












This was Sunday. A bit of morning artwork - Noah's painted dinosaurs, and a meal of sausages, peas and scrambled egg from Eve. She even cut out tiny black dots for black pepper. They both came up with their own ideas and just told me what they needed - I had no imaginative input whatsoever! Then playing in the garden on a greyer-than-expected afternoon.

Down South

So, this is what all the packing was about..... A fantastic few days at Grandma and Granda's house. It was lovely to have all the family together again after the few days we'd spent apart.

We didn't get to wear many of the t-shirts and shorts that I'd packed but nevertheless had lots of fab seaside fun.

For those of you who grew up in the 80s....

Remember The Lost Boys?

I was a bit obsessed with this film in the late 80s - goodness knows what I would've been like if Twilight had been around then.....

This is Clarence pier in Southsea but I was struck by a memory of The Lost Boys - the bit where Michael meets Sky at the fair, I think - so thought I would give it a post to itself, as a nod and wave across the years to my 15 year old self, and to share with anyone else out there that might've loved it as much as I did...

Can I just...

... moan a bit? I have just stopped packing - I can't say finished, because I haven't. I fact I have still to iron Noah's clothes so that I can pack for him. (Please don't despise me - some things - not all - I just have to iron......)

How... how is packing so tiring? I wonder around rooms, up and downstairs, and whenever I walk through a doorway it has some kind of Harry Potteresque charm on it and consequently my brain is emptied of the very reason I walked into said room. Bah!

And this is just for four days away at Grandma's house. Admittedly I am packing for five people, two of whom who are not even here but have emailed me a list from Eve's godfather's in London - I MUST NOT forget Eve's flamingo - but still..... I guess it's a pretty hard time of year to pack for - given that we had snow just over a week or so ago and yet the boys have been running around the garden, wearing only their lunch and some dirt smeared over their feral little bods, this aftrenoon.

Is it just me who is this inept??

I would love to leave it until tomorrow - but know that Thom and Noah will eagerly unpack faster than I can pack in the first place....

But I feel better for the moan so I shall now get on with it.... Enjoy the sunshine everyone!

Easter - sorry I'm late......

Here are the rascals waiting for the egg hunt to begin......and then enjoying their hunt and collecting their treasure.
(With special thanks to Neil for showing me that my camera has a 'Children and Pets' setting and how to use it. ahem.)












And here are the eggs we decorated (free range from my school's farm). Harv explained we had to draw characters on them - then bash them against each other, a bit like conkers, until one of the eggs 'could take no more' (the slightly subjective judging criteria). Noah and I both dropped ours before we even started! And I can't remember who won..... But it was lots of fun and we made them into egg mayonnaise sandwiches for lunch