October 1

There have been new developments this term! Thea has started ballet, which has involved a whole new set of clothes!

Her ballet school is pretty strict (branded everything! Eurgh!), so my careful watching of how to do good buns over many years has paid off and I can produce something quite impressive with Thea's slippy, thick hair. This is not evidenced in this photo which was taken after a day at school with french plaits!

Nathaniel has had to have new clothes too, this time for scouts!

He has joined a newly formed group down the road and is loving it! He is going climbing in a few weeks, a weekend camp including a water park visit, and has even enthusiastically signed up for the night hike! We drop them in a village at 7:30pm on a Friday night, and in teams they hike to a campsite 5 miles away (encountering several challenges on the way), where they build shelters and bivvy over night. Nathaniel thinks that this sounds excellent.

He's going to have to learn to sew on badges though - he was invested this week and already we have four to sew on!

Other things have continued more or less the same. Nathaniel has gone up into the Under 12s hockey squad and is playing for their C team. They played a very, very wet tournament last week and returned looking like drowned rats.

They did well though, and have been promoted into the next division.

I decided all this activity was much too much like hard work and escaped for a day's walk at Flamborough Head while everyone was at school and work. It was lovely as the sea was blue and the sky was blue and you can't help enjoying yourself on a beach.

But it wasn't entirely satisfactory, and didn't go far in dealing with my Polzeath-sickness. From the cliffs you can't hear or smell the sea. And as farmland reaches right up to the cliff edge, you feel a bit as if you are walking through Vale of York countryside with a green screen of sea next to you. It's a bit odd.

Bit of a first world problem.

And it enabled me to restock our east coast pebbles pile for painting. So there was good in it.

September 1

This weekend was the Land Sand Stone arts festival weekend in Bridlington, and despite the weather being glorious on the Friday and Saturday, it was Sunday that we headed over for the Stone day.

There was the national stone stacking competition,

and several of the artists in residence hadn't got the Sand day out of their system yet, so they were still building sand creations.

We spoke to an artist family who had come up from East Sussex to make willow structures for the weekend, but had had so much fun that they were spending their day off making sand art. This was what they ended up with having started with no plan!

(Clearly these are not my photos - there was someone with a kite-mounted camera!)

The stone creations were beautiful, helped by the wonderfully uniform sea-tumbled white stones.

Having chatted to some people and decided that we wanted to get in on the action, we decided to enter the family creative challenge as a rather extended families (3 of us!).

Our plan was to make a lighthouse, but as time went on, we diversified and ended up with a temple complex with a mosaic entrance way, a stunning gatehouse and a rather fine road. I think everyone managed to have some meaningful creative input!

In some ways, the amazing selection of stones available was a handicap - there was always something beautiful that needed to be incorporated.

We hung around for the judging (having done our best to impress the judges with our commentary on how our work represented the instability of power and the rocky road ahead) and were astonished to discover we had won!!!!!

We were presented with money off vouchers to the local swimming pool and splash centre, Sewerby Hall, and a mounted print of one of the artist's work. It is going to be transferred between houses - the start of a joint touring art collection!

We think that we owe our success to our stone stacking prowess (some families just made pretty pictures in 2D), and the fact that our creation was clearly a joint effort. It did kinda scream something you might find when a two 7 year olds, two 8 years olds, two 10 year olds and a 12 year olds allow 7 adults to play too! Although some of the other family things were amazing, they were a bit more carefully choreographed.

New job

I'm rather enjoying my new job (North Yorkshire STEM Hub Manager for Science Museum Group). These are my pictures from this week.

Talking about the learning strategy at the National Space Centre:

And chatting about Drake's equation.

Getting a cheeky free ride on the miniature railway at lunchtime at the National Railway Museum:

Driving to Skipton over the rolling Dales on the most beautiful of days, accompanied by majestic folk rock (makes the scenery even more spectacular).

I think I'll keep this job for a while!

March 2

This week begun with a trip to Oxford so that Nathaniel could go to a NYRO recorder day. He had fun playing recorder all day while I worked in the sun and remembered how beautiful Oxford was. There are no photos of all this, so here is what we found when we went in search of the Headington Shark.

Nathaniel didn't believe me when I told him about it, so I had to prove myself.

On Wednesday, both monsters played in the school Y5/6 B team (Thea had to get special dispensation from the organisers to play as she was so young. However, the organisers were the City of York Hockey Club and so they just giggled when they received the email, teased Thea unmercifully during training, suggested that there were going to be some terrorised Y6s, and gave their permission.) They played well. They won their last match 7-0, and won their group, so they are off to the final in a couple of weeks time.

I took off for the day because it was sunny, and walked another bit of the Cleveland Way. Gradually, I am working my way around the whole path. It was very beautiful.

February 1

This month has been somewhat dominated by science club. Lots of things to play with and prepare and trial. There were motors and cups and pens.....

...which turned into scribble bots.

And a mysterious crate.....

...which contained microscopes that I borrowed from the Royal Microscopy Society.

And then there were lots more stacking liquids.....

....which were played with and then turned into lava lamps (not pictured).

Thea played some hockey (that's her on the ground!):

And there was a bit of snow:

Then, of course, the weather became tedious and february-y - grey and drizzly and cold. I made the most of a suddenly mild and blustery day and found time for a quick walk around the walls. It's easier to appreciate the fun place that we live in from up high!

Saturdays continued with Ian playing hockey and Thea and I finding stuff to do while Nathaniel was in choir. The sweet shop featured highly.

And Nathaniel met Tasmin Little at a violin masterclass. Nathaniel managed to be interested for 90 minutes (not bad!) and learnt all about how some kids don't know how to hold up their violin, and that even famous violinists do the same things for practice that his teachers recommend! He then became all creative in a coffee shop and drew interesting patterns.

Things are still busy!

January

It was a lovely Christmas holiday. Once we returned to York after Christmas itself we managed to do an awful lot of not much. It was wonderful!

The obsession with Pokemon continued and we all practised drawing our favourite Pokemon (or any that we didn't feel were totally silly. I refuse to deal with the creature that is known as "the transport pokemon"!).

We went for a cycle ride along the solar system to have a pub lunch with friends.

And played more board games.

Then term started and everything has become busy again. Everyone seems happy about school. Nathaniel's half-termly topic is Darwin and the Beagle and has already involved a trip to Tropical World to see meercats and poison dart frogs.  Thea's topic is Brazil and she is earnestly learning Portuguese. They are off to a Brazilian restaurant tomorrow to learn some traditional (really??!) dishes. The kids and I have been preparing for science club by doing dry runs at home. This is the one millionth take of our Heath Robinson machine.

We escaped up Sutton Bank for a walk and found something that was almost snow.

We were very lucky - we left York in a January cloud (not metaphorical) and wasn't expecting it to lift. So when we found sunshine we were delighted!

And we took the opportunity to explore new paths and find "illegal" mountain bike tracks.

Two hockey tournaments have been played and enjoyed. Nathaniel has decided that he quite enjoys being in goal as well. It's a shame that the helmet doesn't have room for his glasses. Nevertheless, he is surprisingly good at it considering that he has no depth perception!

Music is up and running. It was a bit manic this weekend, so while I took Nathaniel to multple lessons scattered across town, Ian and Dorothea walked along to the walls and imprisoned Thea in the Castle Museum (her favourite).

Nathaniel is enjoying his first group rendition of In the Mood on recorder (I don't suppose it will be the last!) and we've been dancing around the living room stamping at the right points! Thea is overjoyed to have got onto Hunter's Chorus (Weber).

Choir has started. Here is the traditional what-I-did-while-waiting-for-Han photo Thea was with me this week, so we drank free tea outside the tea shop.

Then she got some good news:

Alison (the conductor of choir) says that Thea can join choir after Easter. This is exciting as the published youngest age is Year 3. She's pretty proud of herself!

Ian has been in Portugal fending off a cold, enjoying the tiles and buying Portuguese books for Thea's class.

Or maybe he was enjoying the tiles on my behalf. I'm not sure.

And now it is Sunday and after lunch with friends, kids around to play and general running around, there is calm. We are listening to Whitacre, I am reading a very good book and the kids are creating their own Pokemon cards with new Pokemon of their own devising. Poor Ian is on a train to London😪.