A new roof

It has tiles and everything!


It's actually a great improvement on the previous flat roof, both in the fact that water runs off it and that it looks pretty.


This also means that we now have an "inside". Here is a first look at half our kitchen. The other half is still on the other side of the wall on the right.


There are interesting bits of metal in position to stop our house falling down.

We appear to have lost our roof

It's convenient that the sun is shining!

Monday

Almost a door!

Friday

Walls!

Spot the difference

Unsurprisingly, both Ian and my reactions when we got home were the same: "Why are we rebuilding it? Look how much garden we'd have!"

And so it starts......

It’s been an interesting morning. By 7:30 there were people walking around our garden and sun room and Nathaniel had lost all interest in eating breakfast. He got dressed with no fuss whatsoever (usually this is the sticking point in our morning), and was standing on the kitchen step watching radiators being removed by 7:45. A skip was lowered onto our drive (by a “big lorry with crane on top!”), and by the time Nathaniel and I set off for nursery, sludge-filled guttering was being ripped off the wall by a group of very cheerful builders, and the back door was being unscrewed.

I have no idea what we are going to come home to this afternoon!

Boredom is not an option

Remember that building work that we have been talking about for a year? Well suddenly it is about to happen.

Tomorrow!

Yes, we were a bit surprised too. But when there is an opportunity, you have to take it!

Say goodbye to the lovely (leaking) sunroom.

Drawing

Nathaniel has never been super-keen about drawing. In fact, over the last year, he has spent more time demanding that trains and tractors be drawn for him than he has spent drawing himself.

But now that he has started to develop some control of his drawing, he has become much more enthusastic. And he is doing some pretty amazing drawings.

Yes, we still have to draw a lot of trains (though now he asks for bullet trains or stream trains with red wheels), but now he has started to help.

Ian drew the "body" of this steam train, but the wheels, funnel, window and steam were put on by Nathaniel.

Bliss!!

Aspirations

We didn't really have much idea what having kids would be like before we had them. But somehow I always expected, and looked forward to, days like today. This must have been what my toddler-dom was like.

It's been a drizzly, bleak, but relatively mild day. Perfect for taking an inflatable ball on to the windy moor. Gather some children (borrow one if necessary), and then romp!



Equipment includes several large sticks.





Become fascinated by the antics of over-excited dogs.






After everyone has got thoroughly chilly and damp, return home for hot drinks and snacks and then retire to the kitchen for some cooking. Who says that raw biscuit dough isn't delicious?!

A hint of spring

A blustery south-westerly wind has blown into York, buffeting the house and making cycling in any direction other than north-east an exhausting activity. Although I feel certain that winter has not left us, it's nice to have the wind feel warm against your face, and I can almost smell the green in the air.

Our garden is now full of branches, both substantial and twig-like, so yesterday Nathaniel, "Aun Minnie" and I went and collected them to make a Winter tree for our dining table.



Like all best laid plans, it didn't go quite to plan. Nathaniel enjoyed cutting all my decoration shapes in half, and the picture above is of him systematically unwrapping each one after we had officially finished the activity.

But it's very pretty. I'm sure that if we were a proper Steiner family it would have needle-felted snowdrops on it, but Nathaniel likes stars and moons, and so that's what we've got.

CDs

Poor Nathaniel doesn't get to watch television except for the occasional viewing of our DVD of Camberwick Green (we enjoy the anti-capitalism subliminal messages). So instead he has become very interested in listening to CDs. He got a CD player for Christmas, and has a selection of things to listen to ranging from Rupert Sings an Hour of Nursery Rhymes to Mozart's Requiem.

This morning, while I was pottering around, he sat on the floor and listened very carefully to the Little Red Train on a CD that came with the book. It's read by Richard Briars and has accompanying music with interesting modulations, so many repeats are fine by me! It's nice to see that although mostly Nathaniel has to run around at all times, he can sit still and concentrate if he finds something interesting enough.

I tried to get a picture of him being totally engrossed, but he noticed me putting the telephoto lens onto the camera and so that ended that game. Here he is listening (notice he has got out two CD players!), whilst absentmindedly poking his big toe through a CD:

Not ready for alligators yet

As those of you who had their houses dismantled over Christmas will know, Nathaniel is rather fond of making obstacle courses across the living room. He likes tunnels, bridges, chairs to climb over and cushions to bounce on.

Today we made a fine offering with a bridge.



Nathaniel was enjoying it until I, thinking I'd add some excitement to the occasion, picked up the Spaniel and the Beagle, placed them on the floor, and told Nathaniel that they were fierce alligators, waiting to eat up anything that fell into their swamp. Nathaniel gave me a slightly perplexed look. So I elaborated. "They are very hungry alligators, and will gobble up anything that falls off the bridge".

I realised too late that this wasn't the perplexed look, it was the "I am totally unsure about this look".

"Would you like to do the obstacle course?"

Silence.

In an over enthusiastic voice: "Ready, steady, go!"

Silence. And no movemnet.

"Shall I take the alligators away?"

Nodding.

I picked up the unwanted creatures, and Nathaniel hurredly took them from me (they had obviously morphed back into something that could be safely touched), and placed them face down on the table. They couldn't cause any trouble from there.



And then we were free to have lots of obstacle fun.

New books

Its all very well just getting presents at Christmas and on birthdays, but sometimes it is very exciting to get an unexpected present. While in a joke book shop (the sort that sell mainly very similar cookery books with the recipes disguised to look like new ideas), Aunt Nimmy stumbled on something rather wonderful.

Last year, she happened across Tremendous Tractors, a book about tractors and the things that they do. Now I wasn't the biggest fan initially - I don't really like the style of the pictures, and I'm not a great one for anthropomorphism of animals (the tractors are driven by a mouse, a rabbit and a freakishly overweight green bird). But the whole book is in rhyme, and it is good, convincing and reliable rhythmic rhyme. And the content is superb! We've learnt all about the harrow and the different parts of a seed drill, and what in order all the bits of equipment are used. Its a great little book.

So there was much excitement when Aunt Nimmy produced a series of these books housed in a cardboard truck. We've not been dissapointed - Nathaniel has learnt useful words like articulated lorry, and understands how points work on railway tracks. And we haven't even opened Super Submarines or Roaring Rockets!

This morning, Nathaniel climbed onto the sofa with a warm towel from the radiator and his book truck and anounced that he was reading a bedtime story. He then sat, totally engrossed, for about 15 minutes, reading 5 of the books, his little lips silently whispering something.



Then he put the books away, declared that bedtime story was over and that he was now going to sleep.



Marvellous.

A big improvement

Its been a tedious week. Post-viral Nathaniel involves a great deal of inexplicable crying. Our only clues to the sources are garbled words muffled by sobs; "Mummy not move trains", "Not want a nap", "Not Tuesday. Is Wednesday!". Its all been rather tiresome.

But then today, when he came home from nursery, suddenly everything was better. Nathaniel marched to the fridge, removed a box of eggs and declared "Want eggs for supper please". On closer questioning he revealed that they should be scrambled, and he got out a pan and tried his hardest to crack the eggs. He helped me stir them on the cooker and then proceeded to sit an eat the whole lot as well as most of a slice of toast ("cut in triangles please"), before politely requesting that I go and scramble another egg.

He's like a new child!


Nathaniel with his scrambled eggs

He declined to smile, favouring the serious look!

Plague

Nathaniel has greeted 2011 by getting something flu-like.



Fortunately, after two nights of not much sleep and a day of being wrapped up on the sofa and being cuddled by Ian, he is feeling "better today".

Hasn't stopped him taking a three hour (and counting) nap today!

December

Sorry that there haven't been many posts recently - it's all been a bit quiet here. We haven't been very busy with exciting things as we have been rather preoccupied with Ian applying for jobs and preparing for interviews, and me having a three-week hideous cold and cough and injuring myself in various and amusing ways (its not great that at the tender age of two years and two months, Nathaniel knows that "sharp knifes (sic) hurt lots" and "head wounds make lots blood").

What we have been doing is:

decorating a christmas tree


making villages


and doing lots of cooking. This time, T biscuits.

der Schnee

What do you think we saw this morning?


Are you bored of this subject yet? I think that there might be more to come!

Nathaniel and I got dressed up and went out to play.



The snow on the stray is now up to tassy-mid-thigh level, but the drifts can be anything up to waist height. You have pick spots for Nathaniel to tramp in with some care. Some knowledge of the hidden topology is helpful.

It's all rather pretty.


Nathaniel declined to throw himself down slopes, so I played and he stood at the top and played with the camera. In true toddler style, he is perfectly aware of how to switch it on, zoom in and out, and take photos. Shame he didn't manage to take any of me having fun!




When we got home, we made a den and stuff like that, and then Nathaniel decided that he wanted to "dress up in this dress". So we did:

La Neige

Today, York stopped.

Some snow fell.

At 10:30, my office decided that it was all getting a little silly and that people should consider going home.

Snow fell.

First York stopped running buses through suburbia. Only main arterials were served - you had to walk from then.

Snow fell.

First York stopped running any buses at all.

Snow fell.

The "last" trains were anounced.

Snow fell.

I walked home across the strays, wading through drifts that went over my knees.

Snow fell.

Most of the nurseries closed. Ours (they are brilliant!), didn't even think about it! But at one point, there was the possibility that I would have four toddlers to look after all afternoon until their parents could get here!

Snow fell.

I decided to have a quick walk outside to take some photos.


The dark line of cloud along the bottom of the sky was about to appear and drop, you guessed it, snow on me!


It's almost impossible to take a photo to show how deep the snow is, without someone with you to bury!




These pictures were taken in colour!

It took me 15 minutes to walk the 5 minute walk to Nathaniel's nursery, and if it weren't for the fact that it was already there and needed bringing back to the house, I never would have attempted pushing the buggy!

We came home and cooked pancakes filled with spicy applesauce and raisins. It was a fine end to a cold day!