Photo Finish

Jess going to her first ever fancy dress party
when we were living at my Mum's in Kent
She was nearly 5 years old and so very excited

The First 25th

Time to get up

Walking to the car

Well - at least one of the girls let me
take a photo of her before school

Dropping the two youngest at school
Cello and violin lessons on Fridays

The view of myself that I see the most these days

Mmm - salami in a fresh crusty roll
Breakfast before the gym (no I never do
manage breakfast before getting the kids to school)

Caroline was off school today so we went to Costas for lunch
Don't tell Iain she was wearing his shirt all day

Paying in a couple of cheques

Kitten gets to help out in the library after school on Fridays
She loves doing it and she really doesn't take it quite
as seriously as it seems from this photo

The mask display in Kitten's classroom

The dragon in Toni''s garden looking gorgeous
in his forget-me-nots

Dilly coming to see who is passing by as always
He lives with Jan and Dave on Halcyon, three boats away from us and he *always* comes to window to say 'Hello' whenever we walk past to go out or to get home

Got to karate to discover it had been cancelled so we just
played on the field in the evening sunshine

The kids posing for the camera

Caroline being bendy again

She loves me!

Time to go home

It's been Emily's week to do the gates this week.
We've had so many arguements about who gets out of the car to open the gates to the Marina car park that now the two youngest take it in turns each week (the oldest two get the bus home from school now) and our little pipe cleaner letters remind us whose week it is.

Pizza for dinner on Friday - not always but just often enough

Jessica and Iain managed to hide from my camera all day. Never mind - I'll catch them next month!

Save the Day

I've decided to join in a project that's been set up to celebrate the everyday. the things that we all do that we never notice and certainly never document. The details are all on here. The plan is to take photos of everything, from the alarm clock in the morning, meals, work (not that I do any of that:) ) and anything else our day brings along. I guess we'll all get a few strange looks taking cameras to everyday places but at least I'll know that there are other poeple all over the country, no - all over the world, getting the same strange looks as I am.

I'll be posting the pics on here tomorrow so you can all see what a boring life we have in our little boat after all :)



"Tomorrow is the day. We’re snapping away all day on the 25th of the month for an entire year starting tomorrow. Are you with us? All you gotta do is take pictures. Lots and lots of pictures."

Sewing holiday

Spent the last few days in Brackley with Bob and Meg so that I could get some serious sewing done for my Mum's wedding next month. It's ages since I did any serious sewing and Meg's support and help was desperately needed. As was her machine seeing as my Nan's faithful old dear managed to break it's belt last week. I love that sewing machine to bits and I was so glad that I managed to find a guy that would fix it for me. He even came to pick it up from my home (and he found us first try :) ).

Everything went pretty well - Emily and Katheryn's outfits are finished (except for the hemming - that'll have to wait until we've been shoe shopping). Caroline's things are made but not lined yet. Her suit was the thing I was most worried about but it went together like a dream. Thank the gods for Vogue patterns! They cost more but they do make up easily.

While we were up there Jess spent a day at the local airfield working on the planes there. A friend of Meg's works there and managed to get Jess a bit of time on work experience. She had a whale of a time - in fact, I think she'd have stayed there if she could have got away with it. For some reaosn school doesn't seem to be half as much fun as getting up to her shoulders in engine oil and stuff...

Emily's Day Out

Once a month I take out one of the girls on their own - well, usually on their owm. Emily chose to take her school friend, Amy, with her this time. We got quite a shock when we got up because the ground was covered with a thick layer of snow! In April! Yes, I know it snowed at Easter and that was only a couple of weeks ago but that didn't settle here and it's been so warm and sunny over the last few days.













We went out anyway - takes more than a bit of snow to keep us in and we had the extra fun of being able to make snowmen and a great excuse to go for hot chocolate (as if we actually need an excuse).



The trip was to the Natural history Museum branch in Tring. I've never been there before but it's well sorth a visit. There are six galleries full of all sorts of animal specimens: mammals, fish, butterflies, birds. The girls got to meet a polar bear, ten penguins and a lot of sharks (amongst other things)!



There's a selection of quiz sheets for kids of different ages which get you actually looking at the information that is there rather than just wandering aimlessly. There was also a great dressing up kit with lots of Victorian clothes in all sorts of sizes and a special Discovery Room to find out lots of intreresting facts about your own body. I had a great time and I think that the kids did too :)

Missing Ella...

Our cat Ella died today - six days after her 20th birthday.

We loved her lots and we'll miss her daft ways - her chasing her tail and slipping on the wooden floor, then looking up innocently hoping no-one had seen her being silly, waking up to find her sleeping almost on top of your face, waking up at 6am to hear her talking to herself loudly!

It's hard to believe how long she's been with us - we weren't even married when we got her. She moved onto our first boat with us and even travelled on the coal boats for 15 mpnths with us - she held us up more than once by getting out and going for one of her wanders just as we were ready to set off. Her little presents of baby rabbits (alive and needing rescuing from under the floorboards) and spread-eagled stiff seagulls will always be remembered.

Miss you, Ella. Thank you for being our cat...

Photo Finish

This was taken in our garden summer 2005.
Aren't they just the cutest?

Happy Easter

OK - So Easter is early this year, but it still shouldn't be snowing!!! Not that it's settled here so no snowmen building for us. The weather this weekend has been really strange, exhilarating but strange. huge fluffy snowflakes from a steely grey sky followed ten minutes later by bright blue skies nad beautiful spring sunshine. Is this global warming or maybe some higher power with a sense of humour trying to show us that they still rule this little planet we like to call home?

Ah well, the Easter Bunny still came and our boat is filled with chocolate eggs - at least for a little while. I'm sure Katheryn will make it her duty to try to solve that problem as fast as possible. Hands off mine, Kitten!


A snowbunny pic from an RS friend

An Evening of Music

This evening Emily's and Katheryn's orchestras joind together for a concert at Bishopshalt School. They rehearse in the drama studio there every Tuesday - it's the worst day of my week usually. Pick them up from school at 3.30 and drive to Bishopshalt nice and slowly to get there for 4.20 (plenty of time for Emily to get her violin out and ready to start at 4.30) then home for a little while. Back to Bishopshalt for 5.30 to pick Emily up and drop Katheryn off then home for dinner before picking Katheryn up at 7pm and getting her instantly to the pool as swimming starts at 7pm and it's the most important swim training session of the week so she can't miss it - ever! Actually, reading that it doesn't sound so bad. At least it doesn't unitl I remember the added mayhem of Katheryn having cricket training at school until 5pm every Tuesday evening last term - meaning another trip back to Coteford after dropping Emily at her orchestra rehersal.

How to get off the subject! Bad me!
The concert was great - both girls really enjoyed it and so did their Mum. My favourite pieces were Trumpet Parade (strange chice for a string orchestra) and John Ryan's Polka. I can see so much improvement in them already; I so hope that they keep playing for a long, long time.

Photo Finish

Emily (age 5) looking sweet and innocent - she usually needs to to cover her tracks!

Suffering for beauty

Calli got her braces today. Not the usual train tracks that Jess has but removeable ones that push her bottom jaw forwards to encourage it to grow more. They seem huge and really affect her speech, as well as being really painful at the moment. She has to wear them constantly, even at night, as soon as she can although the orthodontist said it'll take a few days before she gets there. Her only time off is to eat or to clean her teeth. She's being really brave and accepting about it - I'm so proud of her. The end result will be worth it all but it must seem a long way away right now.

Sorry!

I've been such a slug about posting on here recently. I'm always a slug in the winter though - just like curl up somewhere warm and wait it out as much as I can. We seem to have been totally busy just doing our everyday things and living our lives. It never fails to amaze my just how much time *that* can take up in itself. Anyway from now on I'll be better.

I promise!