Bannister Percussion

Sometimes (well, ok, quite often) when I read forums, books and blog posts along the lines of "Children Don't Need Toys", I get a little irked..... Not majorly, because as long as there is something to play with the Greener smalls will entertain themselves. But sometimes, there are situations only Lego can fix..... and then there are squawks over who had it first and the smugness of my imagined online advisor - "a handful of acorns amuse mine for hours on end" - grates.... All in my head of course...

Anyway - just demonstrating that this post is rooted in happy incredulity, not smugness.

4 chairs, 4 kids, a variety of sticks that started life as wooden meccano called Baufix, and some bannisters. They played so happily for so long, taking turns at introducing each other's solos, and then joining together for a grande finale. And I made dinner, tidied bedrooms and pootled about online. A lovely rainy afternoon....


The band:



The soloist:




The audience:




(Oh, and Noah does have some clothes - a whole wardrobe full. He just chooses not to wear them most of the time.)

Swimming

Here's our swimming pool.
(Well, it's not ours, but it's the one we always go to, if you see what I mean......)

It is not very big, and was very quiet this afternoon because it is getting towards the end of the season, getting a bit chilly for most - but the littles are still pretty hardy from their early days in North Shropshire, so they are still up for a swim.

It looks really quiet and tranquil, doesn't it, but it gets very busy on hot days. Imagine 12 sunscreened toddlers and their various grown ups swimming, jumping, splashing, squabbling over inflatable toys, gossiping about favoured cafes and planned strikes by the Maoists.

Today, the boys fell asleep in the car on the way down and were clearly still knackered from the 5 hours of trekking (in the rain) yesterday, so we let them snooze in the shade for an hour or so...... Unsurprisingly, Noah woke up as soon as the pot of Masala tea arrived. (And biscuits.)







Big sister was, meanwhile, swimming entire lengths under water, then gecko-ing on the sun-warmed slabs of marble around the pool's edge.





Life here is hard at the moment - I am talking myself down from panicking and running for the airport sometimes (often) - so, focussing on the positive is helping - a therapy.

Dhulikhel

Around the Ring Road

So, we're back in the 'Du, and have been for a month or so, but just BUSY starting / resuming school, and having our family from Canada staying.

Oh, and I have also been working for the last 4 weeks.

Since I have clearly demonstrated myself to be totally crap at the 'catch up' thing, I am just going to move on and stick to my New School Year resolution of showing more of KTM in the blog. Lists and background is on my to do....

Here are some pics of Kathmandu Ring Road....










And here are two of the Greenerlets a la 1975, sans car seats, au naturel, snoozing on the back seat of the Maruti Gypsy.......




And a windswept Eve, who'll still hang her head out of the window like a dog given half a chance.....