Thursday 30 September 2010

Autumn

This morning, the weather was so perfectly autumnal that Nathaniel and I just threw coats and wellies over sleepsuits (him, not me), and took the daschund for a walk on the moor.






Wednesday 29 September 2010

Invasion

Seemingly overnight we have been overun by mysterious intruders.....





Can any one tell me how to get rid of them?

Monday 27 September 2010

Birthday

Nathaniel had a great birthday week. Despite us all being very busy, me having the most ridiculously hellish week at work, all of us (except Nathaniel) having a stomach bug that made us extremely bad company for 24 hours, and manic preparations for a birthday party, we all had lots of fun.






Thank you everyone for your lovely cards and presents!

Nathaniel moved up into the big children's room at nursery with great enthusiasm and is generally enjoying romping about with new and complicated toys and reading endless books. He shows limited interest in coming home with us at the end of the day!

The birthday party was a roaring sucess (sorry no pictures, as they all have other children in), and the piece de resistance was Nimmy! Her baking was much admired and commented on, and I'm still getting texts of congratulations for her!


Monday 20 September 2010

Monday 13 September 2010

Bikes

This weekend was the annual Festival of Cycling, and having had so much fun last year, we planned carefully to make sure that we got loads of silly bike fun.


We arrived as they were opening, and got to play on all the bikes with children's seats before there was a great crush.




Mikey and Nimmy demonstrated rather impressive cycling skills on the side-by-side tandem.


I was not so confident!


Nathaniel didn't let the rain get in the way of him trying out the toddler "trac-da-da". We're not sure what makes it a tractor, but he was insistant that it was.


Even the Evening Press agreed that we were having fun, and Nimmy, Ian and Nathaniel appeared in the journalistic triumph which is their coverage of the Festival. (Click on the slide show of images to see them).

Sunday 12 September 2010

Harvest

I have mentioned before that Nathaniel has taken rather a liking to blackberries. He knows where all the good bushes are, which branches he can reach without being "prick-ulled", and exactly how ripe a blackberry needs to be before he will eat it ("little bit of red okay").

He has therefore been overjoyed to find that "Aun Nin" shares his interest in blackberries and will actually go out with the sole purpose of picking them. Aunt Nimmy's obsession with jam-making has meant that we have spend many, many afternoons ransacking the blackberry bushes near our house.


One of the best things about blackberrying is that you have to carry a basket, and Nathaniel is happy to undertake this responsibility. He has done lots of skipping through meadows with his basket of blackberries, pausing only to stuff another handful into his mouth! The basket has now been designated the "eating" pile, and Nim and I have taken to taking another recepticle for berries that we want to make it back to the house.


These adventures also mean that we have spent a lot of time in the woods and fields behind the house. They make me feel so happy that we actually managed to move! I still can't quite get over the fact that we managed to move to a house with enough space that was not far out of town but still have fields and meadows and hedgerows so close. These pictures were all taken within three minutes walk of the house!

Finding sticks (with no autofocus)


After jam (delicious), Nim decided to make chutneys, so we borrowed an apple picker and started to ransack the apple trees on the moor as well. Last weekend, as it was the sailing club regatta at Yorkshire Ouse, we hitched a ride on the rescue boat to Naburn, and as the first race was taking place, walked out to a fine apple tree that we had spotted on our bike ride and filled great bags full of apples.


This resulted in much eating of apples!


Nim is now busy preserving everything that doesn't move, and tonight the house is full of the christmassy smell of spicy apple chutney. It doesn't get much better than that!

Tuesday 7 September 2010

All the horrors of nursery

Nathaniel often comes back from nursery these days repeating things that have been said during the day. Today, he came back saying, "Chay[nge] mappy, chay mappy. Ohhh mye!"

I dread to think what they found in there....

Thursday 2 September 2010

Nathaniel likes food

It is well recorded that Nathaniel likes food, and he has always been fond of things with distinctive (some may say, extreme) tastes. He was the only 8 month old I knew who would happily tuck into a plate of olives, and I've never met another child who will lick mustard off bread (bread only dilutes it!).

He is a big fan of both red wine and real ale (and he'll happily drink lager given the chance). He is unbothered by not-quite-ripe sharp blackberies and gooseberries will be eaten with great gusto. Last week he drank a good few spoons of vinegar (see previous post).

So I don't know why we were surprised at this:


Maybe he doesn't have any taste buds.....