Crickly Country Park (by sarah)

Ages ago now - about six weeks or so my perants came up for the weekend and we went for a day outing at Crickly Country Park - there is geology, archeology and lots of wildlife there so it was lots of fun. I was also impressed with the visitors centre! though it needs a little cafe/shop thing really and the loos were a bit - hmmmm.

Jean loves collecting rocks!

Alaric decided he'd roll down the hill I can't remember why - this was on the back were the old Roman Hill Fort used to be.

Dad spent alot of time drawing cats and the like and reading all the notices - he was especially enamerred with the fossils and models at the visitors centre.

Jean became jellous of other children she found as they had hats and she didnt - this was how she ended up wearing Alarics fold-up hat!

I kept trying to photograph this poor creature but everytime it felt safe enough to venture out some one with a dog or small child would come walking through and scare it away again - hence no good pics!

The visitors centre had a giant snakes and ladders with velcro attatched to the wall and big cloth dice - Jean loved it though we did have a minor tiff about returning the dice to the little room were the game was!

Up Date on the Jeany-bow (by sarah)

torta = water which she recognises in all is guizes bar steam and ice!

Juice = juice

Milllllll k = milk yep shes starting to actually put the constanants on the ends of words now!

CHEESE! = any food that is not fruit which is obviously = nanna

baby sign wise she has started to do signs that we never got round to teaching her but we know that some of the other kids at nursery know it though they staff don't really use it there.

Cold and thirsty are ones we hadn't taught her and its not coincident becuase its the right sign with the right meaning!

ot! = hot often with the baby sigh - this also refers to any drink in a mug reguardles of weather it has ice cubes in!

Meeeeme = Minni or any cat infact even though she can say cat :/

Doggy = dog and horse and any quadrapede she doesn't yet know the name for except sheep.

Cow = cow - these were origonally doggy but she cuaght on as soon as we said they were cows, unfortunatly sheep are also cows.

Dug wack = duck quack which is any bird she sees and has strangers in fits of laughter as I inform her no thats a pigeon.

Sog = sock

rowsers = trousers or tights

at = hat sounds like cat except she pats her head at the same time

more! = may I have some more mummy or please don't take that away mymmy

no! = Jeans favourite word

Ewrk = icky yuck a word to mean something she shouldnt eat or touch and that she uses when tapping her napping to indicate that we should change her - often accumpanied by the poo sign.

Mine! = any object that Jean currently wants

shoes = want to go outside

car doot doot = vechile of some sort

door = please open the door mummy

ta choo = a cross between ta and thankyou

car mine = little rickshor modile Seth gave her

Theres more but its all mummy, daddy, nanny, jean, eye, hair that sort of thing - oh and book!

Screaming Tantrum (by sarah)

Yes Jean threw one yesturday and she hit me - evidently she didn't want museli for breakfast!

It was a real tantrum as well - I was shocked to say the least but turned out she was really tired and went fast asleep when we put her in the cot reguardless of the fact she hadn't eaten anything - she eat the musili quiet happily for lunch.

She is acting in every way like a two year old and has been for a couple of months - sigh.

Centenary Camp, and coats of many pockets (by alaric)

We've had a busy weekend running the Cranham contingent at the district Centenary Camp.

One highlight for me was finding the Cubs all scrabbling about searching their pockets for small change and whispering conspiratorially. "Akela, Akela!" they said when I approached. "You've got to buy this badge we found in the camp shop! It says Akela and it has a wolf and it'd look really good on you!"

So I let them excitedly drag me to the shop tent, where they pointed out this badge and looked me expectantly. I presume (from the conversation I walked into) they'd been trying to see if they could buy it for me between themselves, but had failed to raise the pound required, so I bought it myself, much to their delight.

I've surmised that having it sewn on in time for our next meeting (Wednesday) might mean a lot to them, so I've stayed up tonight attaching it to my coat-of-many-pockets 🙂

Now, I used to be famous for wearing coats of many pockets, stuffed with first aid equipment, compass, and the like. I gave up the practice due to fears that the weight distribution wasn't doing my back any good, and moved to a belt of many pouches instead, but that finally died a death, so after a terrifying period of wandering around not equipped for an unexpected nuclear strike, my brother in law and his girlfriend bought me a new coat of many pockets for my birthday. So I'm back to wearing coats of many pockets, except this time I'm not going to load it up so far!

Walnut Tree (by sarah)

I was going to writ a nice post about how well Jeans Walnut tree is doing, it was in budding nicely and looking really good so I thought - I must remember to take a phot of that for the blog - I went back the next day with the camera only to discover that the deer have munched it 🙁

So in hope that it can recover we fashioned a deer protector out of some chicken wire - as its actually two bits of chicken wire its not that sturdy and kept flopping over so we had to use one of the hooks for our garden lantens to keep it in place.

We're hoping its not too late :'(