Strawberries

It was a slightly chilly and damp morning, perfect for a bit of picking with Nimmy and James. It's Nimmy's favourite season:



Nathaniel got the idea of this activity very quickly:



We were pleased that they hadn't made us weigh him on the way in! But he got into everything very well and when he wasn't eating, greatly enjoyed carrying the basket to us.



We got rather carried away - no-one had strawberried for a while and we'd forgotten how wonderful it was when they were just all over the place - it's very hard to stop yourself from just picking another handful. And the longer we picked, the better ideas we had of things to do with our spoils. In the end, we sent James back to the shop for another basket, and just went wild!

Nathaniel enjoyed mainly finding delicious specimens for people to eat, and if they refused, did the job himself!





Then we moved onto blackcurrants amid much discussion on most successful picking method, pectin levels, required amounts of sugar to make them palatable and other subjects that quickly dissolved into a need for much more accurate scientific data than we could lay our hands on immediately. Nathaniel wasn't so keen on these fruits (less tasty), and it all started to go downhill when he fell into a patch of stinging nettles, and despite being pretty much immune to the York variety (over exposure at the sailing club has its up sides!), got a very stung bottom.



So we went home with a tonne (small exaggeration) of strawberries and a good amount of blackcurrants. The blackcurrants met a sticky end when Nimmy forgot about them halfway through the jamming process, but thanks to her and James' diligence, we now have a good supply of delicious strawberry jam, and Nathaniel and I have made some slightly dubious, but very munchable strawberry muffins. My gooseberry, elderflower and strawberry crumble was a surprise success (don't knock it til you've tried it!), and the freezer, needless to say, is full of fruit ready to liven up apple crumble for the rest of the year!

Nathaniel Gym

In the last couple of weeks, Nathaniel has show progressively less interest in playing with toys or reading books. Instead, he has run around in circles, faster and faster.

After a bit of thought, we realised that he was obviously going through a new developmental stage, one that was all about physical energy and coordination. Indeed, he is now a whizz at the assault course in the park, and although he still runs like a 14 month old (it's really funny - he looks ridiculous!), he's started to get much better at changing direction quickly.

So this morning Ian invented a new game - Nathaniel Gym. He turned on loud 70s rock (nothing like over-stimulation to wear out a toddler), and then romped around the living room for 90 minutes until Ian couldn't stand up!

The pictures are rather blurry - there wasn't a lot of staying still!





Everyone had a good nap!

Elderflowers

I have raved on many occasions about the bit of stray that is 2 minutes behind our house. Today we made great use of it for elderflowers. I'm not sure how I became such an elder fan, maybe something to do with how many memories I have of homemade elderberry wine spilling all over our kitchen floor when I was a toddler, but I have a total passion for all things elder - elderflower cordial, elderflower ice cream/cheesecake, elderberry jam, elderberry cordial......

Today Nathaniel and I intended elderberry juice which I planned to make up a recipe for once we got home. We got to use all the best bits of the moor, the rabbit-ful meadow with hummocks of springy grass, the woods with little paths and the moor with odd copses.

Nathaniel was in charge of carrying, and he enjoyed his responsibility, using the basket as a battering ram to get stinging nettles out of his way.


We found a good supply of elderflowers, and Nathaniel picked enthusiastically until I explained that if we decimated one bush, there would be no elderberries in the autumn. He remembered all about how much he enjoyed elderberries!




When we had a basketful, we headed up onto the stray proper for buttercup collecting:


running down hills:


tree hugging:


and climbing:


Then we went back to the house and improvised elderberry juice with boiling water, a little lemon and sugar and a big blanket.

It was declared a great sucess!

The Solar System

We've all been pretty tired this week, so we thought we'd deal with our lack of energy and avoid lurking irritably in the house by going on a bike ride with Mikey. We got to use our new toy:





I won't bore you with details, but needless to say, we spent many happy hours comparison shopping and admiring different models and we are confident that this one has just enough, but not too many gimmicks.

One of it's good points is that there is plenty of luggage space.



We set off down the track to the solar system, but almost came to blows with Nathaniel immediately as he realised that this was also the way to the sailing club. We didn't have the keys and weren't planning to go in, but try telling him that! Then he remembered that this route also took in the "big bumps" - a set of lumps for skateboarding over. Last week we extracted great shrieks of excitement and exclamations of "I like this!!" as Ian cycled him up and down while he bounced in his bike seat. How would the trailer cope?

Very well:


Then on to the planets. We again got a very careful look and several minutes of thoughtful silence as Nathaniel's brain tried to cope with our explanation that this bit of metal was a model of the earth, and the one next to it a model of the moon. But then he just reverted to excitement about each new planet.



He decided that it was important to hug each planet. "I a planet hugger!"






He was very interested by the relative sizes of each planet (or dwarf planet - this solar system is a bit out of date). He concentrated carefully as we all had long conversations about the interesting aspects of Pluto and Charon. Not many people can be as interested as we are about massive bodies orbitting their common centre of mass!



We returned via a pint in a pub garden, and Nathaniel convinced Mikey ("You my friend!") to push him for ages on the swing!


I'm a bit tired now after a cycle of 9.1 x 10^9 miles!

Bliss

Fortunately, we didn't end up mortgaged up to the hilt to buy our little (growing!) house and garden.

But if we had, this morning it would have been worth it.

7:30am, sun shining, birds singing, temperature is warm. Time for breakfast in the garden!

Happiness

Just because it has been raining for 24hrs, doesn't mean that the garden doesn't need water.

And a hosepipe is one of the best ways of entertaining a little boy for at least 45 minutes!

The right book

Nathaniel has always been fond of reading and has devoured a good range of books, but recently has been less interested. I've been horribly aware that this is probably because he needs some new ones, but ones that are right. We've been to the library a lot, but unfortunately they don't seem to have a big range of things that overlap with our priorities.

Admittedly we've got a bit fussy.

Nathaniel's thoughts on books:
- ideally they should feature something with wheels or a windmill (his interest in the Cat in the Hat is fueled simply from the last two pages where the Cat's amazing car appears)
- if they are non-fiction, the pictures should ideally be photographs (he's not desperately impressed with Usborne's set of Fimo models. He'll read the books once, but then loses interest)
- fiction should have a good story (though for some reason he includes Mick Inkpen's Kipper books in this category. I just don't get that!)
- rhymes are good
- pictures with loads of detail are best.

My thoughts on books:
- no tv character tie-ins unless the story and pictures meet all the other priorities
- pictures should be life-like - I dislike crazy distorted heads
- colour shouldn't be garish. NO DISNEY!
- rhyming books should scan
- limited anthropomorphism. Especially in wheeled vehicles.
- Language should be interesting and dialogue realistic.

So you can see that we've cut down our options rather. We've had great sucesses with the Little Red Train - the stories are good, the pictures are great and the little red train never speaks!

But then we had a triumph! At the Steiner School spring fair there was a book stall (actually a whole classroom full of books!), so I parked N in a corner and we both rifled through books for an hour. We came away with some gems - a selection of late 70's classics with sensible (and in some cases, beautiful), pictures and great stories. Who says I'm not stuck in the past?!

This was the piece de resistance:


12 pages of car brilliance. Simple text, complicated pictures. The background (the garage and its setting), stays the same but people, cars, tractors move round and the story develops.

And he reads it several times a day. Perfect!

Busy busy wet and wndy wekend

This weekend we have been mostly been either at the sailng club or playing guitars...

Nathaniel has mainly been demanding to get out the "lectrical tars" and "plug in, make very loud noise" so we had to fit that in around all the sailing activities.

Saturday was the second day of the sailing course. Some of you may also have noticed that it was a little breezy. However, despite this we managed to get people out helming in the the morning, before the wind got too crazy. This year we seem to have four people who have taken to sailing rather well and so were managing to helm relatively competently despite the lively conditions.

When the afternoon arrived, the wind had got up though, so we opted for match racing with them taking it in turns to crew/watch from the comittee boat. They all enjoyed it immensly, even when in my enthusiam I snagged a tree during a tack, in a gust and very nearly increased my total number of GP14 capsizes to two! We managed to just rescue it though (I thought we were done for, having been sailing the RS200 recently which goes over a little more quickly!) but we retrieved it from near horizontal. Wetness was narrowly avoided. At least until we stepped back into the bathtub that was the boat when it came back up!

In the middle of all this, Tassy & Nathaniel had gone off to the Steiner Spring fair, where Tassy was singing with the Barberellas. Nathaniel ate much cake, did some good climbing on the climbing frame and bought many crafts. When the came to pick me up afterwards he was fast asleep in the car, clutching an exciting toy and covered in chocolate cake!

After we arrived home and he'd woken up, we then had to indulge N in the loud guitars he'd been asking for all day. He's never seen or heard them plugged in before so he wasn't sure at first how loud it was going to be...


  


But then once it started he got much more interested (though much of the interest was derived from the fan in the back of the bass amp...)






On Sunday, we were down for being OD at the sailing club. On arrival however, we found a fine selection of people who were fully intent on going nowhere near the river in a boat in a steady 20mph gusting 39mph. There were also some of us who were less sensible. The morning looked largely like this..




and this...



and this....





though (at least sometimes) like this...



This is my particular favourite, due to the shape of my boom.....(!)



Nathaniel ran the racing from the rescue boat (which was actually never required) and was particularly pleased when I capsized right next to it then got my mast stuck underneath it. When I say "ran the racing" I actually meant "wash the flags in the river and then eat them..."

  

Nathaniel also got to ride around in the rescue boat, which he enjoys greatly.



So when we'd finished doing this:


we headed back to the house (N promptly fell asleep minutes after setting off). Feeling slightly sleepy, but having planned to go to "wee folk" at 3pm (a folk session which is highly child/baby friendly, organised by some of our more crazy acquanitences in a very fine pub) we decided to revitalise ourselves and sit in the warm sun in the car on th driveway drinking tea whilst N slept.

We then swapped smelly wetsuits for guitars, violins and recorders and headed off for a warm pint, a portion of chips and some singing. Nathaniel enjoyed this also, but was absolutely exhausted by the end (as were we) so we all came home to supper and then bed, all refreshed ready to start the week....(!!)

Music

Nathaniel has recently re-found the guitars and is having great fun playing them. Ian has kindly designated one of them, "Nathaniel's guitar", and N gets it out on a daily basis and strums it. I have to admit to tuning the remaining strings to a major triad, as fingering is not Nathaniel's strong point yet.

Today, Nathaniel re-discovered electric guitars and is very keen to plug them into the amp and big speakers. Unfortunately, he decided that this would be a good idea at 7pm - not a great time to introduce a 2 year old to amplification and volume knobs.

So for the time being, he is enjoying having the loudest guitar and playing along with Ian on his "quiet lectric 'tar".

Pants

The other day, Nathaniel declared that he wasn't going to wear nappies, and that he needed some pants. Preferably red ones. He actually doesn't own any, so today we went on a expedition to the pant shop to buy some.

There's quite a staggering choice of pants, even in our little M&S, and I was quite pleased that Nathaniel decided early on that the pink ones with frills were not for him. He's rather fond of pink, and although I am happy for him to have what ever standard issue M&S pants he wants, there was something about the pink frills that I'd rather avoid.

Fortunately, he then spotted a pack with cars, fire engines and buses, and after that, looking at any others was completely unecessary.



Have we seen the back of our beloved Wonderoos and BumGenius? I shouldn't hold your breath....