Summer

Thea has been sleeping a little better this week, and coupled with the fact that we have been in bed by 9pm most nights, we almost felt refreshed when we got to Saturday! So as it was sunny for the first time since 2011, and everyone had woken up late, we decided to take a chance on the Pig and Pastry for breakfast.

The Pig and Pastry is the most amazing place, but it is so hard to get a table, that we hardly ever go these days. We need more seats now, and it is harder to hang around patiently waiting when you have two children. But 10 minutes before it opened we were there, waiting for our table. Along with the other people who had had the same idea! Yes, people now queue at the P&P at 8:45 in the morning!

But we were in luck and got the last seats which made us all very happy.

And we ate tasty bacon and eggs and drank apple juice out of co-op bottles which made us even more happy!

Then we did a bit of shopping on Bishopthorpe Road and ran into Jim and Vicki, so headed to the park for some trampolining, swinging and trying out the new park "reading cafe" which is just code for a tiny little library with a cafe selling good coffee. And just when we thought Rowntree park couldn't get any better!

A fine morning!

Food

Thea's enthusiasm for food has not wained, and she has now added using a sippy cup to her list of skills. Some how she managed to work out how to do it before offered the cup, so there was no learning curve noticed at all - she picked it up and drank from it! Here she is with some recent favourites:
Lasagne and broad beans


Lentil and spring greens jalfrezi and for simultaneous desert, gingerbread babies.

How they are now

Nathaniel at 3 years and 8 months

Dorothea at 7 months

Elderflowers

We have been eagerly waiting for the elderflowers since about April. I promised Nathaniel that they would appear in late spring or early summer, but that assumed we got either of those seasons instead of the perpetual autumn that we seem to have been having. Then, as they appeared, it kept raining, and everyone knows that you collect elderflowers on a sunny day. So we waited and waited and when we prepared to go away for two weeks it became apparent that we were probably not going to get the harvest that we had hoped for. Finally, today it seemed okay to go picking and we were concerned that we wouldn't find any at all. But after a short walk (and bicycle - Nathaniel doesn't normally wear a helmet for harvesting!), we found some remaining on elderflower alley, though they were quite high up..... That evening we made a bottle of elderflower cordial and a vat of elderflower champaine and we now have 9 litres of the stuff maturing quitely under the stairs. And the left over elderflowers didn't go to waste either:

Hiding

It doesn't matter where you put her down, within seconds, Thea will have found some sort of material to put over her head. Its a bit disconcerting when you turn around to see a pillow on her face.

But straight away her legs start wiggling and her face pops out with a big smile. If she could say "boo", she would. Then she recovers herself and does it all over again. And again. And again.

Summer

The packet suggests that sunflowers really need to be planted in April/May, but as this weather in no way resembles June, I figure we might get away with a late start.....

Updates

I've done some updating backwards (Thanks Dorothea for the long nap!). The earliest "new" post is now 19th May. Enjoy.

Playing

Its impossible to get them both in focus at the same time - they move around a lot!

Just because

Some photos for no particular reason:

Camping

As the weather suddenly realised that it should be summer, we decided to go camping and make the most of it. we spent some time finding a new campsite in the hope of not having to camp in a field with hedges round it that feels like someone's garden. We thought that we had ht the jackpot with Willow Garth which looked like it was in a wood, but when we got there we discovered that the wood was in fact Dagobahian!




However, our camping spot in the orchard was pretty ace:




We set up camp and got everyone acclimatised to their new sleeping quarters. Dorothea was highly pleased!




Supper was taken amongst the daisies and Dorothea had her first taste of melon which she was incredibly impressed with.



She ate and ate and ate and ate, and I had pretty much got Nathaniel ready for bed when we decided that she had got too tired to wrestle with it any more and declared supper over.

Everyone slept well and after waking up at 7:30, everyone was jolly!




We decided to spend the morning at a stream on the moors just outside Hutton-le-Hole and due to an early start, we had the place to ourselves for playing the the stream (Nathaniel), climbing hills (everyone), reading books (Tassy) and napping (Dorothea).






Then to Helmsley for a tasty lunch of fish and chips from the second best fish and chip shop in the country in a deserted and sunny church yard. Everyone was then rather sleepy so we headed back to the campsite and hung out there for the rest of the afternoon. It was hot with very little breeze so we were very thankful for the cool bell tent!










 

Next day, Nathaniel sucessfully negotiated a return to the stream, but actually spent the whole time scooty biking through the heather. I discovered a fine swimming hole (to be returned to when everyone is a bit bigger) and we had a very tasty lunch in a purpose built tent.




Roll on some more good weather!

The park

Its been a beautiful day. Perfect for a trip to the park. We joined the other children for the Very Young Friends of West Bank Park to paint old cardboard boxes and decorate them with flowers (and grass and dead leaves!) before using them as tunnels. Well I did. Thea slept. Nathaniel and his friend J spent the whole time running around and comparing their bikes the way that 18 year olds compare cars; J: "Mine has 'tab-lizers" N: "I don't have little wheels - I've got a big boy's pedal bike. I have two brakes" J: "Can I have a go on your brakes?" Everyone else went home and Thea woke up and watched Nathaniel and I climb trees. Then we went to the playground and Nathaniel rode his bike: And Dorothea had her first swing. I imagine we'll be doing more of that!

More food

Food was so the right decision!
Here is Thea after her first proper meal of slightly stewed apple: And here is the apple! There is a surprising amount missing, and it wasn't on the floor! I've never met a baby who gets the injestion thing so quickly! And since then she has been enthusiastically tucking into everything: Steak and potato wedges: Bread, cheese, cucumber and orange: Muesli?

Spelling

Nathaniel has two favourite things at the minute, sounding out the letters of words and singing the months of the year song endlessly. So I taught him a new song. He likes it! For those who haven't heard the months song, here it is: NB This video was from a while ago. He remembers November now! And the wierd hand movements at the end relate to the You Tube video that we learnt the song from (http://youtu.be/5enDRrWyXaw). At the end of the song all the words file on to the screen to leave a static shot of all the months of the year. He is showing how they glide on!