October/November

Half term arrived and we decided not to trog up and down the country, but to enjoy York. So we took delivery of one dog named Georgie whose family was away for two weeks.

She is a very cuddly dog and likes to spend her day going for walks and then snuggling down for a snooze. Preferably with a patient friend!

She didn't mind the kids going to school as long as there were people working in the house with the right priorities.

Eventually I started to get used to the early morning walks! It turns out that once I'm out of the house, I rather enjoy it and insist on longer and longer walks, exploring all my favourite bits of York near us.

I loved how it made me really notice the autumn weather and the beautiful skies. And appreciate how good the weather is here. Two weeks and I only took Georgie out in precipitation once - and that was snow!

I noticed other things too!

Sometimes the kids came too (though it appears that I took no pictures of Nathaniel).

But sometimes it was just me and the dog. I rather liked the change in light from the morning walks to the evening walks.

We took her to visit our favourite walks - in the Nidd Gorge;

and Hagg Wood.

She really started to become one of the family. She slept in the children's room and liked to be carried up there every night.

We were all rather sad to see her go!

There. Got dog pictures out of my system now!

We did other stuff too. We were inspired by Henning Wagenbreth'spapercut art to do some of our own:

Nathaniel spent a happy morning learning how to draw pokemon and designing his own cards.

It was Halloween, so the kids and their friend carved pumpkins. These have been rather inspired by Red Alert.

And then, to top off a busy half term, Ian ran a hacktrain to Paris and Frankfurt simultaneously with me running a Parenting Science Gang conference leaving two hard working grandparents to care for two children, one of whom had scarlet fever. Easy peasy! (There are no photos to accompany this feat!)