Ah my poor abandoned blog. Sorry about that. The last few weeks have felt fuller than usual. Even the stuff I do all the time seems to have taken up more time. Anyone else get that? I don't really have anything to show for it or anything exciting to report either! But, in spite of a wine meets phone, wine wins incident, I still have some photos to remind me of where we've been and who we saw and what we did. Bear with me whilst I leave the phone to upload and I go and bathe the girls.
Aaaand,two three days later, here I am. I think that is the biggest thing about having kids, just having so little time to yourself. The reason I am typing this now, in the middle of the day, is because poor Taya has fallen asleep on the sofa, snoring with a heavy cold.
Some good news to kick us off:
Remember my old friend Noel? Well after 6 months in hospital, contracting c-diff twice and having his mobile phone stolen, his evil neighbours destroying his window boxes and outdoors plants (this makes me so angry I can't say) and generally having a really rotten time, he is now in a rehabilitation unit, learning to walk again. I am amazed by his resilience, his tenacity and determination to simply get through this. What a legend. I hope I am like him when I am 81. I need to start making plans for helping him get home, not least getting his front door repaired. Here he is a few weeks ago when we took him out for lunch.
April was hectic, in a great way. We got to spend some time with our fabulous Cornish friends Hannah & Jack and their kids, hanging out at the Science Museum and at Kew Gardens. In all the years I've lived in London and not been to Kew Gardens before... what a waste! Happily we were able to by-pass the steep entry prices (legitimately!) and the kids enjoyed the wonderful playground, ice cream and face painting. Brooke and I did the treetop walkway whilst Chris cradled a sleeping Taya on a bench below. I'll say this for anyone going there - it is WOBBLY! We went round quite quickly to get back on solid ground! Anyway it is a beautiful, beautiful place and if you go from June onwards you can check out the excellent David Nash exhibition.
April also meant Easter, and spending time in the lovely seaside cottage with Cuckoo and her boys. I wouldn't want to do 3 hour journeys on the train with the girls on a regular basis but this was well worth it. Taya has taken to approaching strangers with an accusatory pointing finger asking "Are you a girl? How old are you?" before regaling them with information about MY age in a loud voice. Thankfully her retraining has gone well and both girls now tell almost everyone we meet that I am in fact twenty one. Anyway, back to the seaside cottage. Well as expected, the girls went slightly bonkers in that brilliantly overexcited way. Firstly, claiming in the car from the station that they were "trabble sick" and then forgetting all about it and leaping down the stairs with the boys. We went crabbing twice, throwing bits of bacon into the harbour and then instantly reeling it back in again to see what we'd caught (answer - nothing). However we did get to see someone elses's crab, and also a lobster (a few weeks ago Chris was drawing a lobster for someone in Draw Something and I scoffed loudly at the vast number of legs he had drawn. Before you look at the picture, honestly, how many legs would you say they had?) We also had an excellent afternoon in a beer garden. The drizzle held off long enough for us to send the children to look at the chickens, climbing frame, boat seats and other people whilst we hastily sank some white wine and debated whether or not pork scratchings were delicious or a bit grim. (answer - depends how much wine is involved) Of course there was also plenty of crochet and photos and trunki races and the whole thing was over far too quickly and we were back on the train, asking strangers how old they were.
Easter holidays meant I got to spend some time with my 8 year old niece, and we took a day trip on the rollercoaster train (DLR) out to Mudchute City Farm. Before we even got there we were waylaid by two playgrounds and having to stop for the picnic at 11am. I have to admit I'm always a little bit "Is that it?" when we run out of animals, but this place is lovely. It's pretty cool to see a llama with Canary Wharf in the background. It was so ridiculously cold that we called into Asda afterwards to see if they were still selling hats, gloves and scarves. They weren't, but we did buy some cool "grow a sunflower in a pot" pots, which I have now mostly killed. My fingers are decidedly not green, it would seem. Post Asda, we walked back through the Isle of Dogs and headed for Masthouse Terrace Pier. We saw a boat approaching so we sprinted, Alyssa zooming off ahead, Brooke crying out in that panicked way of hers and Taya screeching with delight at the buggy having some kind of speed seizure where the front wheels just can't handle it and twist every which way. Needless to say we missed it and sat on the chilly pier for 15 minutes awaiting the next one. Thames Clippers though, how fabulous are they? It feels so novel, such a treat to travel on the water and they have a Costa Coffee onboard. We were all happy, me snapping away, them grinning from ear to ear (perhaps helped by the stash of chocolate from Asda). I'm itching to do it again. Anyway, we got off and impulsively turned right to check out Cleopatra's Needle. This made for some great pics despite the little voice in my head saying "please don't fall in the river, please don't fall in the river" as they clambered over the sphinxes. Then my phone packed up. Undaunted, I decided we should walk towards Trafalgar Square with the vague notion that the no.9 bus ran from there and you could still get the old Routemaster buses on that route. (This was one of Brooke's inclusions on their 2012 bucket list) Of course I couldn't check on my phone so we walked up. Lo and behold, there was a routemaster, heading for our bus stop! Over three crossings we sprinted, little legs racing... and MADE IT! (Only for the bus to then spend ten minutes waiting at the stop before starting the route. Toast, butter side down etc..) Anyway, the girls tried out a variety of seats, asked some strangers their age, did a bom bom dance with builders bum (builders bom bom?) and lapped up the novelty before we got out in Kensington and tried out a third playground of the day in Hyde Park, by Edinburgh Gate. That was a good day.
We also visited Holland Park again, this time with my Mum who also loved it. One of the photos shows Alyssa moving a "shrimp" on the giant chessboard. There was another visit to the zoo with Becky, Millie and Grace but those photos are largely lost due to the aforementioned wine in phone incident. (More fun lines recently have included Brooke asking me if her Grandad was in "the wall" (the war) and Taya referencing Mr Tumble in the Chronicles of Narnia.)
April also meant Taya's birthday. She was three, and got a keyboard from Noel which made her look like this:
We took the girls into town, first to Hair By Fairy in Covent Garden where they both had a haircut. Well Taya had a tidy up, so as not to feel left out, but Brooke went for the chop and now sports a cute bob. Then onto Ed's Easy Diner for lunch (largely uneaten, but the milkshakes went down a storm) followed by a trip to Hamleys with Taya's birthday money. A man at the door heard it was Taya's birthday and the staff who perform at the entrance all surrounded her to sing Happy Birthday. She stood there shyly, slightly bewildered but very happy to get another helium balloon. She opted for a Disney Princess telephone and Brooke got some beaded bracelets which turn into cats. Both girls had glitter tattoos applied, Brooke had her photo taken with the Lego Queen (they also have a Lego Royal Wedding display which is pretty cool) and they ran amok saying they wanted pretty much everything they could reach. So hard when you want to say "Here you go, world's biggest toy shop - go for it kiddo!" whilst not wanting to take home some piece of overpriced plastic which you know they already have in another colour at home. Aaanyway, we went home after that and then Taya had a little tea party with a few friends. We did more tattoos, my friend Frankie did hair wraps (during which Taya did that rolling-eyes, desperately trying not to fall asleep routine) and there was a game of musical statues during which Chris couldn't bring himself to eliminate anyone so they just took turns getting consolation packets of jelly sweets. Of course now that she is three there are quite a lot of paddywhacks. Terrible twos are overrated, I honestly think threes are worse. But we've got through that with Brooke, and on the whole she is delightful at the moment, so I am going to do my best not to do that whole "argh, she's a nightmare, what am I doing wrong?" line of thinking again.
The next day I gave the girls my old farm set, parts of which were made by my late Poppa. A small part of me worried that they wouldn't fully appreciate it but that was quickly eliminated by their enthusiasm. "Amazing!" "So cool!" and "Gorgeous" were how they described it, endlessly rearranging the hundreds of animals and farm hands. The farmer with a shotgun has been recast as a burglar, which I guess is a sign of the times.
Finally, I have got back into my crochet. I finished a ripple cushion a while ago and Brooke has now claimed it for her bed. Now working on a granny square blanket (slow going) and also another project I don't want to elaborate on just yet. Also picked up a sweet embroidery set for £1 at a car boot sale this morning so I may even venture into other mediums. What a rock and roll lifestyle I have.
Oh no, look at that, I did go rock and roll for a day. Or rather shop and drink, when lovely Sarah was in London and Cuckoo, Clairey and I managed to all meet up for a rather extravagant Liberty-shopping, Browns-cocktails-and-lunching, more shopping and more drinking kind of day. That was wonderful, very refreshing for the soul to see my old friends in a relaxed way like that.
In other news, Brooke got into our first choice primary school! Feeling very fortunate about that since I've heard of other kids not getting a place at all. My 40 minutes each way journey will be replaced with a 5 minute one, and in January Taya will join the nursery in the adjoining classroom! So looking forward to the new routine, I rather like change!
Oh and can I just say how much I'm LOVING Instagram? What a great community of like-minded ladies I've met on there. I even discovered this morning that one lady I share photos with lived in the same area and went to the same primary school as me! Also it's great for quick microblogging (?is that a word?) on the go, brilliant when the time it takes to compose a proper post is lacking. LOVE iphone technology. My name on there is kmmms if anyone wants to follow me.
Right, in between photo-fiddling and broadband outage this has taken me FOREVER to write and I am now desperate to hit the publish button. Hope everyone is doing fabulously, I am in need of a blog reading catch up as usual.
Aaaand,
Some good news to kick us off:
Remember my old friend Noel? Well after 6 months in hospital, contracting c-diff twice and having his mobile phone stolen, his evil neighbours destroying his window boxes and outdoors plants (this makes me so angry I can't say) and generally having a really rotten time, he is now in a rehabilitation unit, learning to walk again. I am amazed by his resilience, his tenacity and determination to simply get through this. What a legend. I hope I am like him when I am 81. I need to start making plans for helping him get home, not least getting his front door repaired. Here he is a few weeks ago when we took him out for lunch.
April was hectic, in a great way. We got to spend some time with our fabulous Cornish friends Hannah & Jack and their kids, hanging out at the Science Museum and at Kew Gardens. In all the years I've lived in London and not been to Kew Gardens before... what a waste! Happily we were able to by-pass the steep entry prices (legitimately!) and the kids enjoyed the wonderful playground, ice cream and face painting. Brooke and I did the treetop walkway whilst Chris cradled a sleeping Taya on a bench below. I'll say this for anyone going there - it is WOBBLY! We went round quite quickly to get back on solid ground! Anyway it is a beautiful, beautiful place and if you go from June onwards you can check out the excellent David Nash exhibition.
April also meant Easter, and spending time in the lovely seaside cottage with Cuckoo and her boys. I wouldn't want to do 3 hour journeys on the train with the girls on a regular basis but this was well worth it. Taya has taken to approaching strangers with an accusatory pointing finger asking "Are you a girl? How old are you?" before regaling them with information about MY age in a loud voice. Thankfully her retraining has gone well and both girls now tell almost everyone we meet that I am in fact twenty one. Anyway, back to the seaside cottage. Well as expected, the girls went slightly bonkers in that brilliantly overexcited way. Firstly, claiming in the car from the station that they were "trabble sick" and then forgetting all about it and leaping down the stairs with the boys. We went crabbing twice, throwing bits of bacon into the harbour and then instantly reeling it back in again to see what we'd caught (answer - nothing). However we did get to see someone elses's crab, and also a lobster (a few weeks ago Chris was drawing a lobster for someone in Draw Something and I scoffed loudly at the vast number of legs he had drawn. Before you look at the picture, honestly, how many legs would you say they had?) We also had an excellent afternoon in a beer garden. The drizzle held off long enough for us to send the children to look at the chickens, climbing frame, boat seats and other people whilst we hastily sank some white wine and debated whether or not pork scratchings were delicious or a bit grim. (answer - depends how much wine is involved) Of course there was also plenty of crochet and photos and trunki races and the whole thing was over far too quickly and we were back on the train, asking strangers how old they were.
Easter holidays meant I got to spend some time with my 8 year old niece, and we took a day trip on the rollercoaster train (DLR) out to Mudchute City Farm. Before we even got there we were waylaid by two playgrounds and having to stop for the picnic at 11am. I have to admit I'm always a little bit "Is that it?" when we run out of animals, but this place is lovely. It's pretty cool to see a llama with Canary Wharf in the background. It was so ridiculously cold that we called into Asda afterwards to see if they were still selling hats, gloves and scarves. They weren't, but we did buy some cool "grow a sunflower in a pot" pots, which I have now mostly killed. My fingers are decidedly not green, it would seem. Post Asda, we walked back through the Isle of Dogs and headed for Masthouse Terrace Pier. We saw a boat approaching so we sprinted, Alyssa zooming off ahead, Brooke crying out in that panicked way of hers and Taya screeching with delight at the buggy having some kind of speed seizure where the front wheels just can't handle it and twist every which way. Needless to say we missed it and sat on the chilly pier for 15 minutes awaiting the next one. Thames Clippers though, how fabulous are they? It feels so novel, such a treat to travel on the water and they have a Costa Coffee onboard. We were all happy, me snapping away, them grinning from ear to ear (perhaps helped by the stash of chocolate from Asda). I'm itching to do it again. Anyway, we got off and impulsively turned right to check out Cleopatra's Needle. This made for some great pics despite the little voice in my head saying "please don't fall in the river, please don't fall in the river" as they clambered over the sphinxes. Then my phone packed up. Undaunted, I decided we should walk towards Trafalgar Square with the vague notion that the no.9 bus ran from there and you could still get the old Routemaster buses on that route. (This was one of Brooke's inclusions on their 2012 bucket list) Of course I couldn't check on my phone so we walked up. Lo and behold, there was a routemaster, heading for our bus stop! Over three crossings we sprinted, little legs racing... and MADE IT! (Only for the bus to then spend ten minutes waiting at the stop before starting the route. Toast, butter side down etc..) Anyway, the girls tried out a variety of seats, asked some strangers their age, did a bom bom dance with builders bum (builders bom bom?) and lapped up the novelty before we got out in Kensington and tried out a third playground of the day in Hyde Park, by Edinburgh Gate. That was a good day.
We also visited Holland Park again, this time with my Mum who also loved it. One of the photos shows Alyssa moving a "shrimp" on the giant chessboard. There was another visit to the zoo with Becky, Millie and Grace but those photos are largely lost due to the aforementioned wine in phone incident. (More fun lines recently have included Brooke asking me if her Grandad was in "the wall" (the war) and Taya referencing Mr Tumble in the Chronicles of Narnia.)
April also meant Taya's birthday. She was three, and got a keyboard from Noel which made her look like this:
We took the girls into town, first to Hair By Fairy in Covent Garden where they both had a haircut. Well Taya had a tidy up, so as not to feel left out, but Brooke went for the chop and now sports a cute bob. Then onto Ed's Easy Diner for lunch (largely uneaten, but the milkshakes went down a storm) followed by a trip to Hamleys with Taya's birthday money. A man at the door heard it was Taya's birthday and the staff who perform at the entrance all surrounded her to sing Happy Birthday. She stood there shyly, slightly bewildered but very happy to get another helium balloon. She opted for a Disney Princess telephone and Brooke got some beaded bracelets which turn into cats. Both girls had glitter tattoos applied, Brooke had her photo taken with the Lego Queen (they also have a Lego Royal Wedding display which is pretty cool) and they ran amok saying they wanted pretty much everything they could reach. So hard when you want to say "Here you go, world's biggest toy shop - go for it kiddo!" whilst not wanting to take home some piece of overpriced plastic which you know they already have in another colour at home. Aaanyway, we went home after that and then Taya had a little tea party with a few friends. We did more tattoos, my friend Frankie did hair wraps (during which Taya did that rolling-eyes, desperately trying not to fall asleep routine) and there was a game of musical statues during which Chris couldn't bring himself to eliminate anyone so they just took turns getting consolation packets of jelly sweets. Of course now that she is three there are quite a lot of paddywhacks. Terrible twos are overrated, I honestly think threes are worse. But we've got through that with Brooke, and on the whole she is delightful at the moment, so I am going to do my best not to do that whole "argh, she's a nightmare, what am I doing wrong?" line of thinking again.
The next day I gave the girls my old farm set, parts of which were made by my late Poppa. A small part of me worried that they wouldn't fully appreciate it but that was quickly eliminated by their enthusiasm. "Amazing!" "So cool!" and "Gorgeous" were how they described it, endlessly rearranging the hundreds of animals and farm hands. The farmer with a shotgun has been recast as a burglar, which I guess is a sign of the times.
Finally, I have got back into my crochet. I finished a ripple cushion a while ago and Brooke has now claimed it for her bed. Now working on a granny square blanket (slow going) and also another project I don't want to elaborate on just yet. Also picked up a sweet embroidery set for £1 at a car boot sale this morning so I may even venture into other mediums. What a rock and roll lifestyle I have.
Oh no, look at that, I did go rock and roll for a day. Or rather shop and drink, when lovely Sarah was in London and Cuckoo, Clairey and I managed to all meet up for a rather extravagant Liberty-shopping, Browns-cocktails-and-lunching, more shopping and more drinking kind of day. That was wonderful, very refreshing for the soul to see my old friends in a relaxed way like that.
In other news, Brooke got into our first choice primary school! Feeling very fortunate about that since I've heard of other kids not getting a place at all. My 40 minutes each way journey will be replaced with a 5 minute one, and in January Taya will join the nursery in the adjoining classroom! So looking forward to the new routine, I rather like change!
Oh and can I just say how much I'm LOVING Instagram? What a great community of like-minded ladies I've met on there. I even discovered this morning that one lady I share photos with lived in the same area and went to the same primary school as me! Also it's great for quick microblogging (?is that a word?) on the go, brilliant when the time it takes to compose a proper post is lacking. LOVE iphone technology. My name on there is kmmms if anyone wants to follow me.
Right, in between photo-fiddling and broadband outage this has taken me FOREVER to write and I am now desperate to hit the publish button. Hope everyone is doing fabulously, I am in need of a blog reading catch up as usual.