May Day outing in the Docks (by sarah)

After the BBQ and excesses of the night before the day started slowly with some kitten snuggles and a Dr Who fest.

Eventually we headed into Gloucester for a late lunch - Pizza Express - we couldn't get a table outside boo hiss but the girls decorated hats.

Then Mary spent ages trying to decide weather dough balls were really food or not.

She decided they were.

There was a slight altercation about Jean sharing her food with Mary but Jean redeemed herself enough for desert.

Hmmmm.... Oh yes and of course she made Olly sit next to her!

Then we went for an explore in the docks area.

May loved the water so Aunty Becca had to hold her lots.

Jean was very surprised to find the word RANTS written on the wall - Olly attempted to explain it though he forgot to take phonetics into account - as you nearly always have to with under tens.

I found birds to photograph for the 100 Birds in 100 Days challenge.

Becca and Olly explained paddle steamers to Jeany.

I found more birds to photograph.

There were some lovely sites to take in in the sunshine.

See:

Jean with Aunty Becca's help found out that Olly's hair can be used as reigns on a horsey - I don't think he was impressed!

I found more birds to photograph.

In our explorations we found a dry dock with a boat in it and so we spent ages explaining to Jean how it worked.

I found a boat to photograph!

And more buildings and birds - Jean put her hands on her hips and said 'Mummy will you please stop taking photo!' She even rolled her eyes - which I think is unfair - I only took a few more!

First Summer BBQ 2013 (by sarah)

Saturday afternoon was filled with laughter and chat and BBQ as my college friends Becca and Olly came up for the last of the bank holiday weekend along with another friend Helen. We had a BBQ of course!

The trampoline was a great hit right from the start!

Olly was finding it too hot so Jean (who was dress up as Princess Layer in camo on the forest moon) went and found an umbrella for him to hide beneith.

Here is Alaric with his veggie burger.

And Alaric being sexy geek on the trampoline 🙂

Alaric whooing the girls including Olly with his Krav Maga moves on the trampoline.

Or rather wowing should I say.

I took video of him seeing how many strange positions he could bounce in - not sure it is safe for the net though!!

But mainly he kipped on it!

Then Jean helped Helen with her sun block - erm....

As you can see there was rather alot!

Helen's response was 'Do I look sexy?!' 😀

It was however worth it for the snooze in the hammock with beer.

I went geek spotting and found these two lesser spotted geeks in the middle of some sort of courtship ritual - it appeared to involve computer programming languages.

Mary found dressing up as an alien and hiding in her house was the best thing ever.

She was very cheeky about it and kept shutting the door so you couldn't possibly tickle her!

She also put the head band on around her chest and announced they were boobies :/

The trampoline became a gaming platform with Mary running around the players in a never ending squeal of glee.

Then I spotted Helium basking in the sun on the roof of the workshop.

So did Alaric.

He says the cat just loves it when he climbs up there to stroke her - I wonder who loves it more!

I only managed to nock two drinks over and Olly escaped having to play with barbie dolls as Jean opted for lego and minecraft.

The Frist Salad of the Year (by sarah)

It's been hard to get the veggies going this year but yesterday thanks to turning our dinning area into a make shift green house, we had our first home grown salad of the year.

Mary has been helping me pot out seedlings most of which actually survived the lovings of a two year old!

I have courette and pumpkin plants planted out in grow bags - I am in dispare over getting an allotment at the moment, there just simply is not enough space to grow what we want. For a start I didn't want to really be growing stuff in the 'grassy' area, for a start it is supposed to be a nice garden area and secondly we can not make it look nice whilst I am growing things on it.

At the moment we radishes almost ready for first pickings and various salad leafs, there are peas and beans and root crops in various containers. The apple tree and blueberry bushes have all survived the winter though the new redcurrents and black current bushes did not survive a late frost much to my upset.

Jeany is being very good about watering the pots and has her own little butterfly corner developing, also I shouldn't moan as the salad was very tasty and Mary eat the bowl of it I was going to put in the fridge for today's lunch!

And also we have been enjoying the sunshine and having summer cocktails and everything 🙂 Still no BBQ this year yet though 🙁

Kitten Worries (by sarah)

The kitten got very ill, she'd been manic for a couple of days, really bitting people and not settling for cuddles at all, we thought she had just reached a hurtling around phase but then I came home from the poetry festival after midnight and she was all floppy, Al had stayed awake as he was concerned about her. I thought initially she'd just exhusted herself.

But I couldn't sleep and kept going down stairs, when I came down to find my mum holding her I knew she was ill, I woke the house hold up and questioned them as to what had happened to the kitten that day - the baby had y on her (eek I thought), I'd had to clean tooth paste off of her from where Jean dropped her tooth brush (eek I thought maybe she eat some), she hadn't eaten anything, and the amount she'd been eating over the last few days had been reducing - my friend suggested she had a hair ball and I had already had to remove a big clump of fluff from her mouth so that seemed likely.

So it was off to the vets as soon as they were open.

He laughed when we explained the sitting on and the tooth paste, stuck a thermometer up her bum and prodded and poked her - she had a fever so he gave her two injections and gave us liquid antibiotics to give her. I was relieved that it wasn't anything serious though left it could have been but part of me had been thinking please don't let it be from Mary sitting on her or the tooth paste - Al had been thinking the same - what to tell Jean if it had been tooth paste posoisoning. She loves the kitten and looks after it and had gone to school that morning in tears as she wanted to stay with the kitten because it was sick - the tooth paste was an accident. I felt awful I felt that in going out and working for a week the house had fallen to pieces and one of the little dependants had gotten ill because I wasn't there to keep an eye on things.

The kitten is now uber bouncing and happy again with out the bitting or manic edge which I assume was the pain/grottiness she had before the fever broke.

She spent three days just snuggling on one of us, she and the baby were kept apart as we didn't want her pulled about at all. We fed her water through a syringe and the antibiotics the same, she liked being in Al's hood. For something that was basically dumped on us less than a month ago she has become so integral to our lives, the thought of the household without her bouncing about was heart braking. I never do realise how attached I am too pets until something happens. I spent most of the piggies lives calling them silly suasauges and saying how daft they were and then when they went missing it was me trying to hunt the hedge rows on crutches killing my pelvis and setting back my recovery to look for them, I cried and cried over those little fluffies and am still so angry about their demis.

Still the kitten is fine and happy again - I am however currently banned from adopting anymore baby animals. Talking of which I should go and give that bunny some breakfast!

Red Nose Day 2013 (by sarah)

Catching up on all my photos again 🙂

We had a three fold Red Nose Day spanning several days!

I made cakes for the Cubs. Red nose cake pops, cherry scone things which were diary and wheat free along with the dinosaurs, and cupcakes in red cake cases.

I made up games and craft activities such as get the red noses in the hoops, draw the red nose on Alaric, make a fluffy red nose and so on.

Then Friday Mary had to go to Nursery in red spotty clothing - Al whisked her away before I could take a photo 🙁 But I did manage to get Jeany and her Wacky Hair 🙂

The it was off to Centre Arts who were doing Red Nose Day stuff in the shopping centre in Cheltenham. there was a cake competition which I had forgotten all about!

The Giant Cupcake was baked by Vanilla Pod Bakery and was raffled off for £45. The Red Nose was made by one of the ladies at the centre and was actioned for £20.

Recipes for my bakes will be appearing on Salaric Cooking.