The Briar Patch

It’s far too hot to do very much at the moment, not that I’m complaining about that for one minute though especially since ten minutes walk away is this sort of fun to be had…

The boys both had new ‘crocs’ from their dad to wear on the beach. I still think they’re ugly but I know the stones hurt their feet so it makes sense to buy them. I was almost tempted to buy some myself after wearing J’s for five minutes…. Almost.

We’ve been relaxing in the garden, which seems so much bigger now the shed has been moved. I need to get a stand for the parasol or a gazebo though cos it’s a complete sun trap, can’t quite make up my mind which yet.

The boys have both done some more of their Galore Park English books and a bit more of their CIMT maths (still on the linear equation section). In addition to that they’ve done quite a bit of music practise. J wants to learn another instrument and quite fancies the violin for some reason, or maybe the clarinet. I don’t know how to play either so it would mean paying out for lessons if I could find any…

The rest of the time they’ve just been playing and reading out in the garden. I’ve solved the problem of Calli being in season again by employing Tessa’s dog crate as a small cattery for short periods of time. Once she is no longer lactating the vet will spay her but not until then and as we still have the two most adorable kittens here I think we’re going to have to be extra careful for a while yet, lol! Calli doesn’t mind being in the crate at all just in case anybody is concerned, she’s just glad to be able to be out in the garden with us all (and is no doubt hoping a tom cat could squeeze through the bars to her, lol! ).

Dylan has been able to go out in his run again over the last few days and its great to see him hopping about a bit after so many weeks of barely moving. I honestly thought we were going to lose him and am so glad I was wrong. Hopefully a friend’s rabbit who is suffering form a similar complaint will also improve soon.

That’s about it for now, nothing very interesting by all accounts but its life and its good.

A fabulous weekend was had by all here!

Friday we baked. It’s quite amusing trying to bake lots when you only have a mini oven but we managed…

On Saturday the whole family (dad included) went off to Bicton Park and had the most amazing day. I took loads of photos as you’d imagine so I’ll just let them do the talking…

This is the view that greets you as you go in through the main entrance, spectacular isn’t it?

I love that the boys can just be children here, there are no ‘keep off the grass’ signs so you can really get the feel for the place. The boys both love it here.

Both the boys spent ages admiring all the flowers and trees, they’ve been here before (we’re members) but it never seems to fade for them…

Mind you who can blame them when there are blooms as beautiful as this…

Not at all posed this one!

How beautiful is this?

After a delicious lunch in their restaurant J and I went into the glasshouse to look at some more flowers. Loved this paper plant, which is actually real but looks so much as if its made of paper that you are tempted to touch to find out!

M waited outside with his dad and I snuck a quick photo of them chatting through a tiny gap in the window.

We popped into the museum for a look around at all the traction engines and steam rollers etc

The boys were both asked by the engineer to start one up! J’s chuntered into life almost immediately but the belt kept slipping on M’s so XDH and the engineer tried to fix it to no avail…

You can’t come to Bicton without having a go on the train…

And ice skating has really got to be a must too…

All topped off with a visit to the outdoor adventure zone before it was time to head off home

I love days like this, its great that xdh and I can get on so well because its better for the kids. I also like that just for a few hours we feel like a proper family, although its always quite weird when xdh goes home to his ‘real’ family…

On Sunday I spent most of the day in the garden just pottering around. Used hedge trimmers to get the ivy into some sort of control and moved a six foot shed on my own as my charming sons both declined when I asked them to help! Needless to say I declined to buy them ice creams off the van five minutes after I’d finished - cheeky monkeys!!

Somewhere there must be a rule that says you cannot live within spitting distance of a beach and not go down for a visit when the weather is as glorious as it is at the moment.

Being the sort of person that follows rules, rather than break them, we of course had to spend the last couple of days and nights at the beach.

Jack busy hoisting his trouser legs up cos he’s grown out of all his shorts!

The sun maybe really hot at the moment, but the sea is still freezing and this is as far as he was willing to go with no shorts and no towel…

Most of the beaches around here are pebbled, but if you look really carefully you can find a bit of sand…

The boys decided they would like to take a trip to the harbour yesterday, all this Swallows and Amazons has given them a bit of an interest in boating so they wanted to see if there were any boats for sale in the boatyard. We found one or two small ones that we liked, but then a much bigger one which was ten and a half thousand pounds. Think we’ll have two…

Or we can settle for just looking at them and taking photos like this one…

We took the books down so they had some ‘beach ed’, much to the amusement of the elderly people sitting on the bench behind us, lol!

Just to show we don’t spend our entire lives relaxing at the beach, here’s a few of them at a park…

And, erm , er… back to the beach for crabbing with friends from scouts…

Altogether around 50 odd crabs were caught, 15 of those by Jack and 2 by Mickey. Every single one of them was released back into the river when we had finished. The local fishmonger had been kind enough to supply bait for the entire troop.

By the time they were ready to go home it was almost too dark to see!

Today we found out that Jack had won first place in his age group for a competition on the Structured HE forum and Mick had won third in his age group! All done by polled voting so very fair and above board. Jack is over the moon and can’t wait to get started on this month’s competition.

Up to the docs in a minute. Jack has got very bad hay fever which really is making him feel poorly so we’re off to see what the doc suggests. I’m thinking that my continual sneezles may well be hay fever too so we’ll be exploring that avenue a bit further…

We’ve had a blissful long weekend. Nothing to do but hang out and have a bit of fun which has been great. Very relaxing and just what we need as a family. We’ve even sat around and just watched TV together for a couple of hours - a great film called The National Treasure, which the boys had apparently seen at a friend’s house in Exeter last year.

We’ve bakes buns and bread and ate the same within hours of them being baked. We were going to make some scones for a cream tea but found we didn’t have baking powder just bicarb and I wasn’t sure if you could change so we left them for now. Must remember to put baking powder on the shopping list.

The weekend here was cold and muggy so we didn’t get out anywhere. How marvellous that the sunshine has come out now we are back to the books, lol! We start first thing with recorder time using these books which were kindly donated to us by Ellie. I love that they do not expect you to already play an instrument or read music like many other ‘learner’ books do. They even have a CD accompaniment which means I do not have to play through each piece first (lucky for our neighbours, lol!).

The kids are waiting for me so I must be off to get them started, hope we all have good days.

It’s been a bit busy around here lately. So busy in fact that this weekend I wanted to just stop the world and get off for a couple of days so that’s exactly what we have done. It’s been great for the kids to able to just slob about in pyjamas and great for me that I am not rushing around to prepare for the next visitor or next activity or group type thing. I’ve had time to think, lol!

One of the things I decided was that my blog would be public again. I’ve been thinking about it for a while now and have just been waiting for the kids to come up with nicknames for themselves. M wanted to be Anakin, which I draw the line at, lol, so they will remain initials for now at least…

Oh no wait for it, they have decided on Jack and Mickey from Doctor Who… (Cap’n Jack and Mickey Smith). I’m sure they’ve had these nicknames before…

Right, so there is no misunderstanding, J is Jack and M is Mickey.

Are we sorted now? Good…

One of the things we have been busy at lately is fundraising for our scout troop. The lads have all been busy sticking up skittles at a local(ish) skittle tourney from Friday nights through to Sunday afternoons, which has lasted a few weeks now. We raise on average between 3 and 4 hundred pounds a weekend so its a pretty cool thing to be part of. Hopefully some of it will enable us to take all the scouts and cubs away for a few days camp later in the year.

So, our weekends have been full of scouts things lately, but our weekdays have been devoted to learning. We finally seem to have gotten into the ‘groove’ again, thanks in no small part to our new Galore Park English texts which the boys both adore. Since most of their ks2 stuff was based around CGP/Letts workbooks, I was really concerned that they had missed tons of important stuff so we went back a year from what they would have been if they were at school. They are both finding it incredibly easy and probably could have coped well with the right aged stuff but this will be a marvellous confidence booster if nothing else so I’m happy to continue with it. Its great to see them actually getting stuck into something and feeling a sense of achievement when each chapter is finished.

They have also been busy with linear equations in maths. They still seem to be doing well with the CIMT books and I can’t thank Sarah C, who introduced them to us years ago, enough. Of course we also get in plenty of real life maths experience too.

Jack is getting into his GCSE science work really well, he has an absolutely brilliant ability to recall what he has just read which should set him in good stead for exams when they come. Mickey wanted to get stuck in too but I have asked him to wait another year. Not sure if this is really wise but I want to be able to devote 100% to each child at one time not be running between them both.

The boys are also well into doing all the little experiments we have to so its not all book stuff.

Like this experiment to show Newton’s 3rd law of physics, better known as “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction” ..

We’ve also been busy in the garden. The carrots and onions we panted are doing really well as are most of the shrubs, including the Escalonia which I cut back to virtually nothing last month. The courgettes were not quite as lucky and 7 out of the 8 potted on have died (eaten by slugs - gah!). I did take pics but cannot find them. Yesterday we also smashed down the awful pallet-made fence that was put up by the previous people to keep their dogs off the garden. A bit more work out there now and it will soon be looking lovely. Its great to be able to sit in the lounge and look out at all the beautiful flowers and shrubs. I feel as if we have it all here, and every day thank the turn of events that made us decide to move out of the city and back into the countryside at long last. A wise decision it turned out to be.

Herbs wise, the Rosemary is flowering beautifully and looks so attractive. I cannot imagine why somebody would plant it by the front door and am hoping to be able to transplant it without killing it off (its quite a mature plant at around 3- 4 foot tall at estimate) . Any advice from the gardeners amongst you? I would much prefer to have it in the back garden and have more decorative shrubs in the front.

Kittens - we only have these two adorable bundles left now…

Other stuff - Jack has been saving for months for a new game for the wii and finally got the seventy pounds needed on Thursday to buy this. When we got to the shop they had it five pounds cheaper so he was an extra happy bunny.

We have all spent ages playing on it, so well worth the money. I just love this pic so had to share.

(I *so* need to paint over that awful green and tidy up before I take photos in future, lol! )