family

we went to the lookout in bracknell today with our friends Ian and Carolyn. it’s a forest and used to be a major Roman settlement and is very nice (if you like trees, which we do).

and here’s a view from the top of the viewing tower:

The viewing tower told us that Paris was 200 miles away, which is nearer than Lands End. It also told us that Australia was 8,800 miles away and the Great Wall of China was 6,400 miles away.
Ultimately it made no difference as the trees had got too high so you couldn’t see Paris, let alone China.

one good thing about starting work so early this morning is that i can take a few breaks and enjoy kezia’s birthday. she’s reached the grand old age of 2.
here is some present opening (kezia is wearing her sleeping attire):

new sparkly wellies (left) and my (her) little poney and esther

Read More »birthday kez

today was jane’s granny’s thanksgiving service. they have a tradition in her family of holding the funeral on a different day from the thanksgiving which i think works really well.
we met up in a supermarket prior to the service. one of jane’s distant relatives asked her “is this your first funeral ?”. he then said “oops, that wasn’t a very good chat up line was it”
There then followed a moment or two of silence and then he said to himself rather gravely: “death … the great leveller”
here is a photo of jane’s granny taken last summer:

Read More »thanksgiving for jane’s granny

we visited my grandma’s house today. people have different names for different members of their family, and in my experience grandparents often get very strange names.
we call my grandma ‘pam’ because her first name is Sylvester Ivy.
she cooked us a fantastic meal and was very excited to learn it might appear on the internet:

Read More »Pam’s house

a great grandma, a granddaughter and a royal mail postbox:

a great grandma wearing a paper hat drinking tea from a bone china cup:

it’s been a wet and windy day today, so we thought we’d go to our local rainforest. The place itself is quite small, but it’s worth a trip.
Here’s a rare picture of me and the girls next to a big pond thing:

here is kezia drinking her ornina (her name for ribena)

Jane and I got married on 17th Feb 1996. I know this because we watched our our wedding video over the weekend with the kids and it had the date stamped on it !

Read More »our wedding

we went out for a family walk this afternoon. after yesterday’s walk we decided kezia needed some bigger boots. so we found these.
they are very fancy as they are sparkly and have a high heel. very fancy, but very impractical.

especially for walking through VERY muddy clay-y recently dug fields.

cookham is not an instruction. it’s a fantastic village on the thames. we went for a long walk there this afternoon in the beautiful sunshine and pouring rain. esther wore her boots for puddle jumping and kezia went in the backpack.
it’s a really pretty place so if you are anywhere near it and/or love Stanley Spencer, go there !

it’s the weekend so obviously i present you with the weekly proud father photo of esther and kezia.

esther came up with her own art concept this afternoon. it’s masking tape twisted widely and stuck on to a piece of paper. on to that she dropped multicoloured pencil sharpenings (the big bits) and dusted it with the small pencil shavings. it was her own idea apparently.
it’s more of an installation than a picture so we can’t move it from the kitchen table (because all the bits will drop off).
since it’s a temporary exhibit i’ve reproduced it large here. i think it’s actually quite beautiful.
the next step is probably fly paper art. we’ll stick fly paper around the room and throw some random rubbish about, see what sticks and plop it down on to some paper. houston, i think we have a concept.

click to view big version

here are esther and kezia sitting together nicely on a chair. i asked them to smile for the camera. kezia instantly did her mad-mouth-grin thing and esther pouted.

we also found a crisp that looked like an ear (demonstrated by esther) warning – don’t eat ears.

this afternoon kezia spent quite a while playing outside in the garden. it was cold and she was playing with water. a combination which eventually became too painful so we went back inside and made a few telephone calls.
she’s getting very good at talking on the phone which is a worry.

i started work early this morning so i could take 4 hours out this afternoon to look after the kids. i’ll make up the extra couple of hours this evening.
during this time we (brother-in-law kevin, nephew thomas, esther and kezia) went in to reading to fill the time. esther was desperate to use the microscope in the local museum and we seemed to be in there for ages. luckily there was a very helpful lady to explain everything. kezia just slept …

here is thomas and kevin:

here is kezia by our church door. it’s been a bonkers morning for weather. one moment gales and sideways very wet rain. the next bright sunshine. this was a sunshine moment. see how baby poo’s head and arm glows.
click the one on the right for a big version.

in a strange work-meets-home scenario, we invited my friend and colleague Herve over for the day. we went to a restaurant where we made everyone do some homework. kezia was ok, but esther had to help herve with his word search

and here we all are (except me) by the swing park:

here is kezia’s favourite baby. she calls it ‘baby poo’ as it’s always doing poos and needs its bottom wiping (according to kezia).
for a baby it can be a little vicious at times. here it is holding a match and drinking some coke.