Clay Bank

Today we decided to go up to Urra Moor and appreciate the purple heather.

We were not alone! When we got to the car park, it was full of canoes and people in lycra. We chatted to the guy parked next to us in very fine campervan conversion and he told us all about the multi-discipline coast to caost that they were doing. Across the country along the standard Coast to Coast trail but running, mountain biking and paddling! It sounded so much fun! He was waiting for his team mate to arrive at the end of the first run of the morning and then he was taking off on the mountain bike.


Here ends today's edition of "Remind Nimmy that people do cool stuff in the UK".

We set off up the Cleveland Way, and indeed the heather was wonderfully purple. But the wind was also wonderfully strong and we spent a good amount of time trying to keep Nathaniel from getting earache.



Then the sun came out and we all got very hot and the heather was even prettier!



Eventually the trail dipped into a plantation and we enjoyed the shade. We would have enjoyed the views too, but we were all getting curiously tired!



All in all it was a very pleasant walk, though not a step too short! Some people found it more tiring than others:



A fine view:

Impending birthday

It is quite amazing - Nathaniel will be one year old in a matter of weeks! Its all gone by both very fast and extremely slowly!

A couple of people have asked what he would like for his birthday, so we have put together an Amazon Wishlist to give you some ideas. There are a good number of books and a selection of toys. Please read the comments on each item, because sometimes the item is just an illustration of a type of thing, eg the rubber duck represents bath toys in general. Also, you can't link to Early Learning Centre (ELC) items, and the amazon equivalents are very expensive, so the item may just be an example of the type of toy eg the lift out puzzles - ELC does much better and simple ones. But of course, don't feel that you have to buy him things - he'll not really know whats going on this year, and he'll enjoy the box the best anyway!

After spending many months simply eating them, Nathaniel now loves books! He is probably beating me in bookworm status. Here is him enjoying his present favourite:

Reenacting fun

One of the great things about York is that there is always something going on, and it is more often than not much more exiting than a continental or farmers market.

This weekend we stumbled across the largest civil war reenactment this year! This is a few of them practising - we missed the actual thing, but we heard the cannons and muskets!

Tom and Jen's Wedding

Today we went to Tom and Jen's wedding in Saltaire. I really like Saltaire! It's a model village built in the 1850's by Sir Titus Salt to house all his workers right next to his mill. At the time it was ground breaking - all the houses from those of the lowest paid workers to those of the executives had running water, an outside toilet and enough bedrooms to fit a family into. The streets are really wide so that all the houses get enough natural light despite mainly being terraces. There is a park and a church and a school and an institute (with gym!) - all so that the workers could live a pleasant life whilst they worked their fingers to the bone for Sir Titus!

Now its a World Heritage site so it is always clean and in good repair and no-one has been allowed to add tacky conservatories onto their beautiful stone teraces. The mill now houses a Hockney exhibition, high-tech companies and poncy shops (including the wonderful early music shop). There are independent coffee shops and off licenses and the whole place feels decidedly pacific north-westy. All in all, a lovely place to have a wander and a wedding!

Nathaniel was remarkably good throughout the whole thing! He had a bit of a wobble when he first realised he didn't really know most of the people telling him how big he was, but then calmed down and did a lot of eating cake and running around! He found some other children to chase after and seemed to have lots of fun.

He even managed to go to sleep in his buggy so that we could stay all evening and then didn't even protest as we moved him into the car and then into his cot. What a good child!

Horsey, horsey

This week was the Ebor Festival which is the biggest race meeting in York. This means that South Bank is full of drunken race-goers, all of whom want a lift on your bike or directions to town (which they ignore). The pub is heaving from 10am and you can't get into the butcher at lunch time because everyone is getting their over priced roast sandwiches. (I once asked Sean how much it would cost me if I ordered a roast beef sandwich on race day. I was gratified to hear that it would be the normal price!)

We decided that going to the family enclosure was slightly pointless as I have no interest on gambling my money away, and all you ever see are drunken race-goers and the very end of the race. Instead we walked across the Knavesmire and watched the start (very exciting - one jockey even waved to Nathaniel) and the horses walking back to their stables afterwards. Much more fun and totally free!

Weekend

Its been a pretty typical York weekend. We spent some time in the park with friends, did some sailing and attended the appropriate council sponsored festival. This weekend it was the turn of frisbee in the Museum Gardens accompanied by pasties, chocolate goo cake and lots of climbing! Nathaniel climbed on bits of ruined Abbey and lots of different people - liberally covering them in whatever he was eating at the time. This is after he removed Mikey's hat and started the assault on his glasses!


Sailing was reasonable - there was a good amount of wind, but it was from an irritating direction resulting in frustrating sailing through giant gusts and totally dead patches. Ian tried a Topper, got rather squashed, and resorted to crewing a Wanderer which was a rather sedate experience! Nathaniel enjoyed the wind in the trees and watching the flags flutter.



This week's festival was the Festival of Cycling, so we watched some BMX stunts and had great fun on the try-a-bike track. There were loads of weird, wonderful and normal bikes to try. I liked the one where the wheel axles weren't at the wheel's centre so you bounced up and down as you went along. There were a few with giant tires that looked like motorcycles and several penny farthing types.


Nathaniel was seriously non-plussed by his experiences. He tried two different sorts of front-mounted child seats, and although he didn't make any fuss about being in them, he didn't seem to be having as much fun as us! He was most interested in the bell on the handlebars which he pinged all the way round!


Ian managed to find a new bike for commuting that could be easily stored in the office:

Abingdon

Nimmy came home from North Carolina for a couple of weeks, so we all descended on Abingdon for general merriment, Nathaniel admiring, and doing very British things!

We played in the garden and ate lots of bread and cheese (apologies to pretty much everyone in this picture - you are all pulling rather silly expressions!):


Followed Morris Travellers along typical Oxfordshire roads to typical Oxfordshire villages where we climbed "hills" and drank ale:



Learnt a new cheeky grin:


Did some exploring:


And read some books (mainly about frogs with long tongues that stick out):


It was a lovely week!

Sunny Day

What do you do when your baby wakes up at 4am because he is teething?

You spend the next 1.5hrs holding his hand while he drifts off to sleep only to be rudely awakened by the need to stuff his entire hand into his mouth and gnaw on it, and then give up, get dressed and go for a walk in the sun. Then you sit on the bridge, drink your flask of tea and greet all the dogs as they take their owners for a walk.

Much better than mooching round the house!

Playing on the bridge


Appreciating the bridge in the sun


We spent the afternoon in the park sitting around and chatting to a succession of friends. Nathaniel watched dogs, walked, climbed up people, stole jewelery and ate ice creams.


Walking is more satisfying when there are no walls in the way


Dogs are endlessly fascinating


Nathaniel's toys are shared with the older childen!

Walking

Nathaniel has been using everything in the house to walk with. Leave a box or a basket on the floor at your peril, as when you turn around it will have been pushed to the other side of the room and Nathaniel will be standing up against it ramming it against the wall/sofa/other obstacle.

So we decided that it was time for a walker. He was very excited and now his only complaint is that our house is not big enough to get up any speed!

Vrooom!


It also carries useful gnawing materials!

10 months

Nathaniel is now ten months old, and I can honestly say that his tenth month has been great fun! He has really become a proper person now and does all sorts of fun things. He understands when things are likely to happen - when he hears the bib song (sung before dinner), will put out his hands to be bibbed. He knows exactly what he wants and will ask to be picked up to "play" the piano, or will crawl to the toy box for a particular toy. He likes handles of things and likes to play with the nappy bucket and the lego bucket.

He really likes books and crawls over to the bookshelves in the bedroom and the living room to pull out all the books until he finds one he fancies. He will then happily turn pages for some time before he wants you to read to him. He likes the books with mirrors at the end, and will kiss the baby he sees in them.

He has become all affectionate and will climb up you to give you a hug and a sloppy kiss and his favourite game is when you lie on the floor so he can rampage all over you.

He can entertain himself for quite a while and will often play with the curtains and the turned-off television (he laughs at his reflection) while I read for 5 minutes.

He talks constantly. This week is being brought to us by the consonants b and m. He likes to sit in the middle of the room, waving his arms above his head and opening and closing his hands while loudly proclaiming "Ba ba ba ba da da daaa!". Its really loud. Seriously. You have to stop talking coz you lose your concentration and forget the end of your sentence!

Crawling has enabled him to find interesting things to pull himself up on. But he has Ian's cautious streak, and will carefully tug on things to assess their pulling up merits, and find the centre of gravity before he stands. He very rarely topples.

He is the jolliest man and has discovered a new smile - a grin that involves squinting and tipping his head up.

In all he is great fun!


Having chased him loudly around the room, Nathaniel sees Slinky out of the door


Nathaniel's favourite grin

Musical Perils of Movement...

Nathaniel has found the piano...




He also enjoys playing it "properly" when he gets the chance...





All those with pianos in their houses, beware!

Face painting

Kilroy-Silk, eat your heart out! The only way to a good fake tan is pasta bolognese!

Music

Today Nathaniel and I ran our first music session. Normally we go to a group called Song Box where we do a lot of singing, but as it is now the summer holidays, this isn't running for a while. This might be handy when you suddenly have older siblings home from school, but when its just the two of you, this sudden lack of groups makes the week a little direction-les.

So we decided that we would sing anyway, and invited all our friends to join us! We hired the local community centre and sang lots of songs, played lots of instruments and had great fun with the Grooving Toddlers' animal masks for "Old Macdonald". Nathaniel was good as gold and played happily all the way through and didn't require any attention at all! Even when he banged his chin on the instrument box, he stopped crying when I picked him up, and by the end of "Here we go round the mulberry bush", there was not a tear in sight!

Now all we have to do is to come up with some fun props that we can create for next week that won't cost money!

I'm afraid that there are no photos to accompany this, but lest we disappoint you all, here are some of Nathaniel and a friend playing later that day. Some babies' names have been changed to protect their identity.