Tempus fugit when you're having fun

I'm writing this with a snotty nose, glass of wine, Warm Vanilla splatted hands and Muriel's Wedding on DVD. Tim's in New Orleans and has left me home alone.

So I now (having done my painting tasks) have a few minutes to catch up with the last few weeks.

Autumn is definitely here - we went conker hunting and came back with three huge bags of them. I haven't had a chance to put them onto strings yet but the children seem to be happy just carrying them around in their pockets. Lots have found their way into the washing machine, I'm wondering if it will improve their chances in conker fights (easier than baking or soaking in vinegar).

Tim is now the same age as me (the past three months, as every year, he has been taking all opportunities to mention that he is a year younger than me!). My Mum came up for the night so that we could go and see Michael McIntyre in the NIA.

We had a fab night (finished off with a curry) but while I was watching the show I was getting irrationally irritated by various things - 1. The spelling of Michael - it's a really silly name to spell and I feel very sorry for small children called Michael who have to learn to spell it! 2. He had a whistling nose - you know when you breathe in and there's a bit of a noise, this nose noise was boomed around the whole arena, to make it worse it was still there after the interval. 3. I kept laughing at the wrong bits. 4. From the photo you can see just how far back we were, there were three huge screens and a tiny man on the stage - I kept panicking about which bit I should watch - I thought I should watch the tiny man as I'd paid to watch him. 5. Throughout the whole performance I was thinking about what I could write on here and that was completely the most irritating thing!

We've had a very sunny September and so have been on loads of ice-cream eating trips. Patrick says he "loves school", Euan has had two new teeth, Anya has started keyboard lessons at school and we've had some lovely new bathroom flooring (still waiting on the playroom floor - hence the painting).

Quotes of the weeks - "Mummy, are you 63 or 36?" ~ Anya

Patrick - "I put 2 marbles in the jar today"

Me - "Excellent, what did you do?"

Patrick - "I teased Mrs teacher. She told me to put one in but I put two in".

Mmmm, I'm sure I should have made him own up but I didn't think I could have kept a straight face. A future in politics or banking await I think!

Me - "Don't pick your nose"

Patrick - "But I'm hungry"

Thought of the week - "Time flies like the wind. Fruit flies like bananas" ~ Groucho Marx

Skywatch Friday - merrily, merrily, merrily

The village I live in is on the Junction of two canals - I've just looked them up on Wikipedia and didn't realise how important the area would have been. I'm always amazed at how the canal were built by hand, the were finished during the 1770s. Over 200 years later they are still busy - although the narrow boaters today are more relaxed and more dogs walk along the tow paths than horses.

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Skywatch Friday - fade to gold

We are very lucky to have lots of nice walks right on our doorstep. This week I got to escape part of the bedtime routine and take the dog out. I hadn't realised how close to Winter we were getting until I saw all the Autumn colours along the canal.

Autumn always used to be my favourite season. I once told a friend this and she said "oh no - I look around and all I see is death" - this has just about spoilt the whole thing for me! (I have discussed the Autumn thing with her again since and she said she must have been having an off day!). But even with all that death hanging around - Autumn sunsets sneak up quickly and provide a great show.

Even Ruby enjoyed the view.


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A big fat SMALL

Today I bought myself a skirt, I spotted it a while back but it took until today for me to decide that I might actually get some wear out of it (skirts are not practical in soft play areas). The lady in the shop pointed the rack out, I went to pick up a Large, she gave me the Small. There was no medium so I took both sizes to the changing room. The small not only fit but looked pretty good.

This happy event is the result of a nearly two year diet (with a break when I went back to work after maternity leave, I needed the cakes to get me through the day). At the beginning I would have been happy losing a stone, now nearly 3 and a half stone lighter I still look in the mirror and see just as many lumps and bumps as there were before. In fact in my hyper critical eyes some bits are worse - the bingo wings were kept tort with a layer of fat and my rounded tummy didn't look quite as saggy (it's amazing how much carrying around 3 baby elephants impacts on the skin!).

So, I'm 2lb away from my Fat Fighter goal, this time last year I would have never thought that possible. I've never been a size 10 before, going straight from age 10 labels to size 14. I think I need a bit more practice at self love and accept that although my bikini days are behind me that I'm actually in pretty good shape.


Thought of the day - "Now crisps are high in fat, but they're also low in protein and low in
fibre! See, it's not all bad!" ~ Marjorie Dawes

Getting to the bottom of it

We've spent another busy week with another quiet weekend to recover!

Work saw very little of me (again) - don't want them to get too used to seeing me around. Anya was sent home with a rotten cold on Wednesday, I would have just dosed her up with Calpol but didn't want to risk disapproving looks from baby police. I had to take Thursday off to take Patch for a hearing test - he was referred in April after his 4 year check because of his poor speech, although in the last 5 months his speech has improved drastically (most of the improvement seems to have happened in the last two weeks). But rather than discover a problem later I thought it was worth taking him.

He was asked to play with toys and do various things with them to check he could hear the instructions. He looked at man and lady doing the tests as though they were from Mars! Eventually with a bribe of Series 4 Go-Gos and seeing the test as a competition with me, he completed all the activities. It turns out that his hearing is fine, and that he just chooses not to hear us!

The highlight of my weekend was clearing out my mobile skip or car as some may call it. I had a keen helper - who discovered a hat from last winter under one of the seats!

We tried Patch without any stabilisers on his bike but his balance (or more likely his ability to look where he's going) still weren't up to it, so he got the rebound ones from Anya's bike - these make him much more wobbly and so these took lots of shouting and getting used to.

Quote of the week - "today I had pasta and marbles for lunch" ~ Patrick managed to eat his way through the meatballs.

Thought of the week - “No one is as deaf as the man who will not listen.” ~ Jewish Proverb

Skywatch Friday - those magnificent men in their flying machines

While the older two were at school, Euan and I (having one child is so easy - we move quickly and can get so much more achieved!) went for a walk around the lake at the JCB factory to feed ducks and run away from the scary geese. On our walk we saw a group of very important looking men getting into a helicopter. As Euan's favourite book is currently Harold the helicopter (from the Thomas the Tank Engine series) we stopped to watch.

Euan wasn't too impressed with the engines at such a close range and he now tells anyone who will listen "very noisy" every time he sees anything in the sky.

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A bit of a pants week.

This week has been really hard work. It was my first week back at work after the summer holidays (11 weeks off) and I returned to a course in Birmingham, meaning I had to leave before 7am each day. Tim was also away for a few days so it meant a lot of juggling children. Patrick has, luckily, settled into school life really well and took to going to Pat, the childminder's, equally well (I think this is helped by the fact that "she gives me toast and biscuits"). He is completely worn out now though and after a week and a half of school I think we're all ready for half term!

On Friday night I suffered from a very uncharacteristic case of being sociable and, together with another mum, organised a Class 1 getting to know you night at the local pub (mums not children). I have to say that I was lead astray and completely blame the other mums for my struggling home at past midnight.

The weekend was a very lazy affair - Bike rides, walks, ice creams, beer gardens and a visit to the magic climbing tree.

Quote of the week - "If there were no schools to take the children away from home part of the time, the insane asylums would be filled with mothers" ~ Edgar W. Howe

As happy as a horse in a hat

Real life once again gets in the way of my virtual one. So instead of trying to clear the house of a layer of debris, making the lunches for tomorrow and sorting out important parcels to get to post box in the morning, I've sneaked onto here!

The big event in the last couple of weeks was Patrick starting school. He began the school holidays by saying he wasn't going to go. Rather than argue, I just told him he didn't have to go yet. He continued this all through the holiday and until the morning he was to start. The evening before I laid out his uniform - he looked at it and said "I'll put it on but I'm not going". The day arrived he put his uniform on and I asked to take a photo. His response - "You can take a photo but I'm not going". So we got him out of the front door, shut the door, then he started screaming "Let me back in the house, I'm not going". We dragged him up the road, luckily his friend heard him screaming and waited for us. He went very quiet until we arrived at school and then he gave us a kiss goodbye and ran inside without looking back!

He feed back on the day was that there was a very naughty girl in the class who had broken his friend's model, scratched someone and had thrown a ball over the fence. And that he was going to go back as the jar of marbles wasn't full, when it 's full the class gets a party. He's been really happy going in and coming out every day since. I'm slightly worried that he seems to only be playing with Anya and her friends but so far she hasn't complained, I think she's enjoying playing the big sister!

Other exciting things:

I grabbed another day western riding (I so want to grow up to be a cowboy!). This horse is the very lovely Carlos.

Tim and I had an evening to ourselves, we saw Dave Gorman a very funny man who happens to be from Stafford. He is currently on a stand up tour of the UK and is cycling from one venue to the next. He had cycled 68 miles the day we saw him, I would have had to take the next year to recover!

We all dug up the 'bounty' of vegetables in our garden - should keep us fed for at least one meal!

Anya and I went to the party in the park, a celebration of the 100th birthday of the girl guides. Anya went as she's a rainbow, I went as I seem to have been sucked in as a leader - I'm Rainbow Butterfly (named by the girls - I had a near miss as Rainbow Dolphin!)

Including this photo as it makes me smile.

Skywatch Friday - Thunder in the mountains

Taken during a thunder storm in the South of France. Sat with a camera poised for ages but didn't get the lightening!

After the storm.

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Happy Birthday to Eu-Eu

I can hardly believe that you are only two - I can't remember the family without your energy. You light up rooms with your smile - pretty ironic given your current love of light switches.

I think you also struggle to believe that you are only two - you are always drawn to the more exciting older children. You have a school boys love of plastic gimmicks and would do anything for a new go-go. A go-go in a wheeled vehicle (train/car/motorbike) is your variety of heaven.

In the last 24 months the whole family has fallen head over heels for you and your dancing, singing, cuddling, twinkly eyed, yellow loving, happy ways.

xoxo