Sunset over the Thames

As always, nature has all the best colours.

This photograph was taken with my iPhone, but I'm really pleased with it.

This is my entry for Tara's Gallery. I'm looking forward to my Google Reader being full of colour today.


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Sunset over the Thames

Brrrrr

The theme for The Gallery this week is My Awesome Photo.

I'm rather proud of this one.

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Brrrrr

Knitting

On Friday, after I dropped the boys at Nursery, I went to Hobbycraft for a mooch around. I fancied a crafty hobby. I don't want to spend every evening at the laptop and I can never find anything I want to watch on the box. Lately I've been going to bed very early to read, but that's quite anti-social.

I thought I'd have a go at knitting - as you do - and bought some knitting needles and a cheap ball of wool.

It's a long time since I knat knitted anything. I was trying to remember the last time and I think it's when I was seven or eight years old.

It took me a while to remember how to cast on, but once I figured it out I was away. After thirty-odd years I was knitting again. It was like riding a woolly bike. I'll see how far I get with my scarf. If I lose interest it may turn into a teddy blanket. I never really had the patience to learn how to follow a pattern and I suspect I  haven't changed.

The main thing I remember knitting when I was a child was string dishcloths. You read correctly. String dishcloths. It was for my knitting badge in the Brownies.

I remember feeling entirely under-whelmed by the Brownies. I was expecting to be a Pixie or a Sprite and go on camping trips. The reality was that I was a Gnome. A GNOME - the shame! The closest I got to the great outdoors was cleaning Mrs Simpson's front step for the housework badge.

Two exciting things happened when I was in the Brownies. Firstly, a dog came into the church hall one day and weed on the floor. Secondly, a few weeks later, I weed on the floor. We were doing prayers at the end and I didn't think I was allowed to go to the loo at that point. Let's face it though, a precedent had been set.

I stuck it out until my Brownie uniform, once a dress that fell below the knees, was so short it was almost indecent.


This is my post for The Gallery.
The theme this week was to take a photograph on 11.11.11.

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Knitting

Three Word Gallery: Grow Your Own

This week it's a Three Word Gallery at Sticky Fingers. The three words I have chosen are Grow Your Own.

We're not big gardeners, but we like to keep the garden neat and tidy. As the children get older it is easier for us to all spend time outside.

My children love being out in the garden. They simply want to help. Here they are doing some weeding. 

Thanks to the influence of Mr Bloom's Nursery they like to feed Compo (our compost bin) everyday. I let them.

We were invited to the launch of that and another new CBeebies programme (the mighty Rastamouse) earlier this year. Sadly, we couldn't make it (gutted doesn't get near how we felt), but they were kind enough to send us the goody bag from the event. In the bag were some lettuce seeds.

We sowed them in a pot, watered them and ran over to look at their progress every day.

We grew our own lettuce. What a fantastic thing to do and so simple.

Maybe we'll branch out and grow a few more veggies. I'll keep you posted.


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Three Word Gallery: Grow Your Own

The Gallery: Dads

So, Sunday is Father's Day.

I have a lot to remember. Presents and cards for Andy from the children and the same for Andy's father. Quite why my father-in-law is my responsibility, I'm not sure. Luckily he is a wonderful man and it is my pleasure to buy him some chocolates and a B&Q voucher now...  and again on his birthday.. and again at Christmas.

Three and two year olds are great though, they can't resist telling their dad that they've made cards and bought him chocolates. "They were on offer, Daddy" piped up Cash. Yeah, thanks, kid.

At this time of year my thoughts turn naturally to my late father. This is the fifth year now that I haven't had to buy him a box of Liquorice Allsorts and an amusing card. I only started making cards after he died, he had no idea I was even vaguely artistic. My children will never make him a card, like they have done for their other Grandad. They aren't even aware that they should have a Grandpa too. They know one fact about my dad and that is how he had to break the bathroom door down when I had locked myself in, aged six, and couldn't get out. I couldn't resist telling Presley and Cash this cautionary tale, as they played with the lock on the downstairs loo. Otherwise, I don't really talk about him. I will, when the boys are older, but right now they're too small to understand death. I hope it's a while before they have to.

I really really really miss my dad. I miss the twinkle in his eye, his generosity when it came to sharing his ice cream and his plain talking. I even miss him telling me - in great detail - about every feature on his new camera, while I sneakily read the paper. I worry that, as the years go by, my memories of him are fading. They're slipping away, like the remnants of dreams when you wake. I remember us both laughing until we cried but I can't remember what started it each time. I'm desperately trying to hang on to how it felt to share those moments of utter joy with my old man. Writing about it helps.


For more information on The Gallery, check out the fabulous Sticky Fingers. I must just take this opportunity to say a huge thank you to Tara and to Copperdot for my competition prize that arrived today. I won't say any more as I don't want to spoil the surprise on Sunday. Fingers crossed Andy hasn't read this far!



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The Gallery: Dads

The Gallery: April

They* say you forget the content of most encounters. You just remember how it made you feel and the end.

April was a busy and eventful month. We moved to a new house, 170 miles away from our old house, my mum and step-dad came to stay with us, after moving 12,000 miles away from their old house, we went to a wonderful wedding (no, not that wedding), we potty trained and gave our dummies to the dummy fairy. Oh, yes, and we had an offer accepted on a house we'd like to buy too.

So, how did it make me feel? Well, it's complicated. I've spent most of the month feeling stressed. I've had to summarise and categorise my 'to do' lists. I'm shopping and cooking for six. I'm tired. There have been highs (weddings and nights out thanks to our live-in baby-sitter) and lows (hangovers and seriously crappy showers in every bathroom of our rented house).

Now April is at an end, I'm left with a feeling that I wasn't expecting. I'm feeling proud to be British. Yes, that wedding was glorious and a great way to end a pretty amazing and sunny month.

The photograph? Presley stood his Happyland bride in front of the television to watch the Royal Wedding. Bless.

For The Gallery. The theme this week is April.

*I'm not sure who 'they' are. I heard this theory ages ago and am too lazy to Google it!

The Gallery: April

The Gallery: Trees

Like Tara, who runs The Gallery, I love trees.

When I get near to a big living trunk I want to give it a hug. Then I get right up close and see bugs and fungus and change my mind. So I step back and take a photograph.

Here are some recent ones and some from the archive.

Enjoy, tree lovers...

Oh yeah and I like the moon too!



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The Gallery: Trees

The Camera Never Lies

What do you see when you look at these photographs?

Do you get the impression that I'm a capable and entertaining mother? Do you see happy and stimulated children?

It's interesting that we only tend to take photographs of the fun times, the good times and the times we want to remember. The photograph then becomes the memory. Perhaps that's for the best.

These photographs represent 24 hours in my life and were taken for The Gallery over at Sticky Fingers.

I am not surprised that I only photographed my boys and their activities, most of the photographs I take are of my children. My focus during the day is on them. I look after them from 7am until 7pm and beyond. Perhaps I've lost track of who I am. What happens to me most days isn't worth photographing or remembering.

I'm hoping I will forget what happened in between these photographs being taken as it was difficult.  Without this context you would think, from the photographs, that my life was one jolly parenting dream. It is sometimes, but certainly not all of the time.

The boys have been ill with coughs, colds and a sickness bug. We've hardly left the house for over a week. The sick bowl was just out of shot in all photographs (apart from when we were outside as we have a hose)!

Presley and Cash have been demanding and whiney and miserable and fighting and hard work and crying a lot. I was in tears at one point with a throbbing tension headache - who photographs ibuprofen though? It's also difficult to photograph unbroken sleep.

We got through it though.

The camera never lies, but we choose which photographs to take. We choose what we show the world and we choose what we want to see again.



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The Camera Never Lies

The Gallery: Sorry, Tara

The Gallery is a weekly feature on Tara's blog, Sticky Fingers. Tara sets a theme and you join in by posting a photograph on that theme and writing about it.

The theme this week is body parts. Yes, body parts.

To me this conjures up all sorts of gruesome images of dismembered limbs. I clearly have an over-active imagination, but I'm afraid that Tara will find my photographs quite gruesome as they are of feet. Tara doesn't like feet. Sorry, Tara.

I've always hated my feet. I have long second toes and a gap between these and my big toes.

See.

I didn't wear sandals until I was thirty years old.

I saw an episode of 'House Party' when I was a child where a woman was talking about an operation she had on her toes. The 'before' photograph showed my toes. For years I hoped I could have this operation. Our family Doctor didn't share my hope. He said I'd make a good ballet dancer. Well, maybe if I wasn't big boned...

As I got older and more comfortable in my own skin I wasn't so worried about my feet. As you get older you realise there are more important things to worry about than what your toes look like in sandals.

Like anomoly scans.

Imagine my delight when we were told that Presley's 21 week scan showed no anomalies. Even more amusing was this close up of one of his feet.

We quipped to our NCT group that at least we knew he was mine.

More special than that is the knowledge that he inherits features from his late grandfather and late uncle. Both my Dad and my brother had these feet too.

This is my darling baby on the day he was born.

This is a close up a couple of weeks later.

I love these feet.

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The Gallery: Sorry, Tara

Black and White

I'm rather proud of this photograph. It was taken in a park in Epsom a few years ago with my trusty old Fuji Finepix E550.

The theme for the Sticky Fingers Gallery this week is black and white.


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Black and White

Funny Bird

This is my contribution to The Gallery at Sticky Fingers. This week's theme was show me the funny!

Has anyone else seen birds doing this? I'm guessing they're sunbathing. It always amuses me and I was over the moon to capture it on film.



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Funny Bird

The Gallery: Red

How to make the most of a rainy day.

I wish I'd joined them, but there I was - as usual - behind the camera!

For more great photographs head on over to the excellent Sticky Fingers, home of The Gallery.



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The Gallery: Red

Doctor Presley

What do you do when you you're a blogger who doesn't show their children's faces on their blog, but still wants pictures of them to illustrate a post? The answer is you take loads and loads of photographs of the backs of their heads. Even your long-suffering husband does the same.

Here is my favourite photograph of the back of Presley's head.

When Presley's younger brother, Cash, goes for an afternoon nap, Presley makes sure all the teddies have a nap too. He uses muslin squares as blankets and periodically goes to check on them.

Here it looks like he is applying CPR to Big Teddy. You'll be pleased to know that Big Teddy survived his ordeal and is alive and well!

The boys pretend their teddies are sick. They clean them up and sit with them, rubbing them better. It is too cute for words and I usually get the camera out.

Yesterday they were playing the sick teddy game. I said 'ahh, lovely boys looking after your teddies'.

Presley said 'Mummy get the camera'.

I got the camera.





You can check out more favourite photographs in The Gallery.

Doctor Presley

Old-Fashioned

We make memories all the time.

Some stay longer than others, but the ones I am desperate to always remember are the memories of my boys being small and sweet and innocent.

Presley and Cash are gentle little souls and they play together so beautifully (most of the time).

This weekend we took them to soft play. We all genuinely enjoyed ourselves. Andy and I were proud and delighted to watch their confidence in trying new activities. Presley fearlessly investigated the entire area and took himself off in search of slides and trampolines. Cash needed a little more assistance, but both boys had huge smiles on their faces and bright pink cheeks.

They are less confident dealing with other children. We watched two older boys attempting to get them to hand over their Little Tykes cars. There was no confrontation, but my boys silently held their ground. The older boys then rammed them into the walls in their cars. Andy and I both shouted 'uh uh no!' at the same time and the older boys sloped off.

Presely and Cash aren't the sort of boys to ram and crash their cars. They are more likely to pretend they are driving to Blackpool and park their cars at the imaginary Sea Life Centre and stroll off to see the 'fancy fishes'.

I guess they get their gentle personalities from Andy and I. We don't push ourselves forward and are both more likely to hang back. The boys are always last to get a musical instrument at Toddler Group because they don't know how to push in.

Presley and Cash are at a lovely age. They have beautiful manners (most of the time) and see the good in everything. A trip to the shops is an adventure for them.

I recently took them to Sainsbury's. They always sit in a twin trolley and take it in turns to throw the shopping in. They quite often sing as we're going round. At the checkout they always say hello to the cashier and give a running commentary on what I'm packing into our shopping bags. On this occasion the cashier said to me 

'They're lovely boys, really old-fashioned'

I thanked her. We all waved goodbye. On the way home I thought about what she said and totally agreed. I took it as a compliment. If old-fashioned means sweet and good-natured, then yes they are.

I wonder how long they'll stay that way?

In anticipation of them growing up I'm hanging onto as many lovely memories as I can.

This post was written for the Sticky Fingers Gallery. The theme this week is a memory.

Old-Fashioned

The Gallery: Playtime

The theme for the Sticky Fingers Gallery this week is playtime. Tara has joined forces with Cathy at Nurturestore for her Play Academy, making learning fun.


Presley and Cash play together all the time now. They play imaginatively, mostly copying mine and Andy's daily activities.

Here they are 'working for money' as they know this is what Daddy does Monday to Friday.

If Andy pops out of his office for a cup of tea they tell him to get back to work!

They spend hours with Tupperware tubs and wooden spoons, pretending to cook. They go shopping with a toy trolley and pushchair. I hear them copy my exclamations. The other day Presley said 'it's pouring with rain we need to put our coats on then we put the shopping in the car'.  They brum their cars to grandma and grandad's and park on the bumb (the kerb).

If we're in the garden, they love to help. They will happily collect leaves and sticks to put in the brown bin. Most of the time though, you can find them in the greenhouse.

The Gallery: Playtime

The Gallery: The Changing Seasons

The theme for the Sticky Fingers Gallery this week is nature. If you haven't entered before, this may be the week to start. There is a prize on offer for the best entry. The prize is a Green & Blacks hamper. I was going to say it's not to be sniffed at, but if you won you would sniff it. A LOT.

The themes in recent weeks have been tricky, but I've found this the most difficult theme of all. For a start, nature is a big theme, it covers so much of the world around us. 

I took some photographs this week of a squirrel eating a nut on our fence, but they're not great photographs. I took them though a window, using 12x digital zoom. I've got the squirrel in focus, but I wouldn't enter it in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition!

So having failed to find anything new to photograph I looked back through the thousands of photographs on my laptop. When I found one I liked, I copied it into my Gallery folder. I then went through and deleted loads, finally settling on a short list of 78.

This is when I decided I needed a theme. I know Tara likes trees, so I deleted everything that wasn't a tree. Finally, we're getting somewhere! I'll save the sunbathing blackbird for another day. I have my entry.

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Seeing these trees made me think of how they clearly reflect the changing seasons.

Spring

Sticky sap rises, the dead wood comes alive.

Summer

The shade of lush leaves on a sunny day

Autumn

The rustling of falling leaves, crunching underfoot.

Winter

Cold bare branches wait

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The Gallery: The Changing Seasons