January

It was a lovely Christmas holiday. Once we returned to York after Christmas itself we managed to do an awful lot of not much. It was wonderful!

The obsession with Pokemon continued and we all practised drawing our favourite Pokemon (or any that we didn't feel were totally silly. I refuse to deal with the creature that is known as "the transport pokemon"!).

We went for a cycle ride along the solar system to have a pub lunch with friends.

And played more board games.

Then term started and everything has become busy again. Everyone seems happy about school. Nathaniel's half-termly topic is Darwin and the Beagle and has already involved a trip to Tropical World to see meercats and poison dart frogs.  Thea's topic is Brazil and she is earnestly learning Portuguese. They are off to a Brazilian restaurant tomorrow to learn some traditional (really??!) dishes. The kids and I have been preparing for science club by doing dry runs at home. This is the one millionth take of our Heath Robinson machine.

We escaped up Sutton Bank for a walk and found something that was almost snow.

We were very lucky - we left York in a January cloud (not metaphorical) and wasn't expecting it to lift. So when we found sunshine we were delighted!

And we took the opportunity to explore new paths and find "illegal" mountain bike tracks.

Two hockey tournaments have been played and enjoyed. Nathaniel has decided that he quite enjoys being in goal as well. It's a shame that the helmet doesn't have room for his glasses. Nevertheless, he is surprisingly good at it considering that he has no depth perception!

Music is up and running. It was a bit manic this weekend, so while I took Nathaniel to multple lessons scattered across town, Ian and Dorothea walked along to the walls and imprisoned Thea in the Castle Museum (her favourite).

Nathaniel is enjoying his first group rendition of In the Mood on recorder (I don't suppose it will be the last!) and we've been dancing around the living room stamping at the right points! Thea is overjoyed to have got onto Hunter's Chorus (Weber).

Choir has started. Here is the traditional what-I-did-while-waiting-for-Han photo Thea was with me this week, so we drank free tea outside the tea shop.

Then she got some good news:

Alison (the conductor of choir) says that Thea can join choir after Easter. This is exciting as the published youngest age is Year 3. She's pretty proud of herself!

Ian has been in Portugal fending off a cold, enjoying the tiles and buying Portuguese books for Thea's class.

Or maybe he was enjoying the tiles on my behalf. I'm not sure.

And now it is Sunday and after lunch with friends, kids around to play and general running around, there is calm. We are listening to Whitacre, I am reading a very good book and the kids are creating their own Pokemon cards with new Pokemon of their own devising. Poor Ian is on a train to London😪.

December 2

The last week before Christmas is always busy! Thea had a cello concert. Laura (her teacher) has a 6 month old baby so she declared that it should be a very easy concert - no-one should play anything complicated - just something that they enjoyed. Thea decided to play French Folk Song with Ian accompanying her on the guitar. This is her introducing them both:

And decorating started in earnest. Our clay stars were ready for hanging:

And there was the great Christmas card making.

Then the house got decorated.

I wasn't keen on putting tinsel on the tree, so the children decorated some living room sticks instead!

There was a Christingle service and a Christmas play. This year Thea was a soldier and danced to "I just can't wait to be King".

Nathaniel was a wild west innkeeper and had a song and a dance.

Neither children had a Christmas jumper to wear to school, so Nathaniel created his own with true Christmas spirit!

December 1

It's been a funny old week! It started very well, by welcoming in Advent with Nathaniel's choir concert in the Minster Chapter House. There can be no better way to start Advent!

No photos from the event, but here is Nathaniel looking happy afterwards!

Still on the singing theme. the Barberellas provided musical input into the St Nick's Winter Warmer fundraiser. We sang while people were arriving and had a set of barbershop and protest songs (!) between the main course and desert. And we got fed, which wasn't bad as the food was courtesy of Joe Fennerty of fancy and much-talked-of restaurant Skosh. I was totally convinced by roasted cauliflower.

As should be the case in York, the evening was held in a hall concealed behind an unassuming door on a touristy street.

Which made the emerging at the end of the evening into silent York, was rather a lovely experience.

The rest of the week was rather different due to Thea being too full of cold and extreme tiredness for school. Which meant there was rather a lot of puzzles and Hama beads!

But that didn't stop us obeying the all-powerful advent calendar when it suggested that we make clay star garlands.

Of course this developed into a good many other sorts of clay things including Pokeballs and textured gingerbread men.

The weekend was packed with plans, but none of them seemed to work properly due to tired and grumpy children (and maybe the adults were a bit too!). However, the result was extremely satisfactory. Ian played a good game of hockey in biting winds, and scored his team's only goal.

We took board gaming very seriously and played a long and intricate game of Risk followed by a shorter and more inclusive game of Dixit.

We ventured out into the rain to drink hot chocolate and mulled apple juice and sing carols at West Bank Park. It was more fun than the first soggy picture suggests!

In the evening we had the Suzuki families christmas get together which entailed meeting in a bike shop, eating curry and then making music. The curry was excellent, and the children had a whale of a time playing in the shop. Some people performed (we did our standard folk numbers) and then we descended into a mass bash through Les Miserables and Abba medleys in four parts to the accompaniment of the clavinova. Next step was improvised jazz christmas carols with recorders, cello, violins, guitar, trumpet and keyboard. Lots and lots of fun!

November 2

This week was made somewhat more entertaining by the fact that the tumble that Georgie and I took on the Moors resulted in a avulsion fracture of one of my fingers (that would why it hurt so much!). Basically a tendon in my finger pulled a slice of bone off my middle finger middle phalange. Fun.
Sadly I don't have an X-ray to share with you as they don't even print them anymore, just show you quickly on a screen. Nothing to take home!

Ian then departed for a rather wet Rome.

Thea played for the school Year 4 hockey team (yes, she is in year 2!) in the inter-school tournament.

She was in goal (unpadded!), and to be honest, didn't get much action. The school attackers were relentless! But it all worked well and they won! So they go through to the North Yorkshire tournament in the summer.

Here is this week's picture of enjoying York during Nathaniel's choir rehearsal. This week I mainly curled up with my book in a quiet spot in the Minster School and was serenaded with beautiful Christmas choral deliciousness (including a choir mutiny that turned the Rocking Carol very effectively into We Will Rock You).

On Sunday those of us in the country had a day of hockey tournament in the rain in Leeds. Girls in the morning, boys in the afternoon.

Again, Thea played keeper for the B team and they did very well. They came out top of their division and have been promoted to the first division above the City of York A team (if I have read the league table properly)! I was very grateful for the keepers kit, and Thea stayed warm and dry the whole day. She didn't want to take it off and spent the afternoon playing with the boys who were off the pitch.

In the afternoon, Nathaniel played for the boys B team and they did fantastically. They again met the Leeds A team who had given them such a hard match a month ago. But this time they knew how to deal with them and Nathaniel ran and ran and ran and ran. He and his fellow defender exhausted the Leeds attackers and didn't let them get anywhere. City of York really deserved their win. And so the boys B team also goes into Division 1, again (if I have read the tables properly - they are not very user friendly!), above the City of York A team!

After all the running about we needed to do some quieter things. The kids prepared for a birthday party at Laser Quest (very quiet!!), by making cards that they thought the recipient would enjoy!

And we did some wax resist painting. You can take the family out of Steiner, but not the paint from out of their fridge!