When I saw the theme for this weeks Gallery – “outside my front door” – this picture popped into my mind. I took it in April of last year so when I look out of the door at the moment it is to a similarly blossomy scene. Although not today as it has been raining for what feels like most of today.
Posted in Tara's Gallery, The Boy, The Girl, The Husband
Do you think I’ll ever get bored of taking pictures like this? I love the fuzzy background that softens the whole shot.
Posted in The Girl
I’ve had a most exciting weekend.
I got a sleeper train on Friday which is something I’ve never done before. If you’re ever planning to get a sleeper train, don’t be cheap – book a berth, not a sleeper seat. I assumed they’d at least be reclining seats.
It takes about 7.5 hours to get to Scotland on the overnighter. Just thought I’d mention that.
The next exciting thing I did was to be met by the frankly fabulous Mrs W at Perth station. Are the Scottish known for their hospitality? Because if they’re not, then based on Mrs W and her lovely family, they jolly well should be.
The excitement didn’t end there though. Oh no. Mrs W and I pottered off to the pub to be met by the also lovely Marylin and her other half. It takes a brave man to sit in a pub all afternoon with three slightly potty bloggers – well done you!
We spent the afternoon talking our heads off and possibly having the odd glass of wine here and there (or Jaeger-bombs – honestly, young people nowadays). By the way, Mrs W, I didn’t know wine was sold by the glass. Seems a bit pointless to me.
It was fabulous to meet two people I’ve talked to so much online and to instantly get on brilliantly with them both.
I think the picture covers our afternoon pretty well (note to self, take the big boy camera next time we meet up – I was very jealous of their cameras and the pictures they got).
Now all I’ve got to do is sort out a weekend trip to the Southern Hemisphere and I’ll be sorted.
Posted in Me
This is the second building. And I’m not referring to the pointy “information” sign. I spent a good while trying to get a shot of the building without it in but I couldn’t do it from where I was.
Anyone able to help with identifying this one?
Posted in Uncategorized
I’ve got a couple of gaps to fill from when I was in Scotland. As you are aware, I had much more important things to do than blog.
While I was in between trains in Edinburgh I saw two beautiful buildings (actually, I saw quite a few beautiful buildings but two of them in particular caught my eye). I have no idea what either of them are as I didn’t have time to go and check so if anyone would like to enlighten me, here is the first.
Posted in Uncategorized
I took the kids to the London Transport Museum today.
Why I didn’t do this about 2 years ago I don’t know. It was fantastic, although I did spend quite a lot of time watching them run off in different directions and wondering which one to chase. My heartfelf thanks go to the many teachers there that bellowed at their classes to “get out of the ladies way, she’s trying to catch her son/daughter” (delete as appropriate).
There were buses and tubes for them to go on and really, that’s all they needed. It kept them occupied for a good hour and a half with no questions about lunch, drinks, toilets, having a sit down or going home, all of which are questions usually asked within 10 minutes of arriving somewhere.
The boy even got to try and rewire a bus. I think. I’m not sure what else he could be doing in this shot.
Posted in The Boy
I think the girl is a little confused.
I’m going away tomorrow, for two big sleeps. I’m heading up to Scotland to see Mrs W and Marylin. I am about as excited as it’s possible to be about a weekend away.
I’ve explained it to the kids twice. I thought that it had gone over the boy’s head but that the girl had taken it in and was ok with it, confident in the knowledge that I would be back with her on Sunday.
At bedtime tonight she told me that she didn’t want me to die.
I will show her Scotland on the map again tomorrow and explain again that I’m only a (very long) train ride away.
Why did I think it would be easier when they got a bit older?
I thought I liked this picture on my iPhone but now I’ve downloaded it, I’m not sure. Over-processed?
Posted in The Girl
I nearly didn’t do this one.
Initially, I saw the theme and thought “oh, ‘Me’. Easy peasy”.
Then I thought about it properly.
Who am I?
I am a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother (with all that entails), a friend, a blogger, a (bad) cake decorator, a (not much better) photographer. But none of these, or the many other hats I wear, tells you exactly who I am.
I don’t think that I know who I am entirely, so how can a photo show it?
I looked at a lot of the other entries (the tally was at 58 last time I looked) and I was intimidated by all these people who knew who they were and what symbolised it. I was also in awe of how powerful some of the images were (really, if you haven’t looked yet then please go to the Gallery and check out some of the entries – just pick some at random, they’re all amazing).
And then it came to me. It isn’t “me” exactly, but there is something that has been running through my life for as long as I can remember. Something that can make me jump for joy, or send me spiralling down into the depths of sadness. Something that inspires me and soothes me. Something that teaches me and comforts me.
Music has always been really important to me. I can amplify or change my mood with music. I can chart my life through the music I was listening to and the gigs I was going to. A tune can take me back to a precise moment in time more easily than a smell, a taste or a photo. I cannot remember a period of my life when music hasn’t been playing. When there are things to think about that I don’t want to think about, music takes over my brain. It’s my blankie, if you like.
So, it’s not “me” exactly but it’s as close as I can get to pinning “me” down.
I don’t have tickets to every gig I’ve been to, there have been odd periods in my life where I just haven’t bothered to keep them, but I’d say about three quarters of them are recorded here. You’ll notice it’s not all gigs, there is some comedy and a film in there too.
Posted in Tara's Gallery
Dear Self,
Just because it doesn’t look like there’s a lot in the diary, doesn’t mean that yet again you haven’t planned to do too much in one day.
Yesterday went pretty much as follows (brace yourself, it’s a long one):
Take both children to nursery;
Drop child 1 off;
Take child 2 home;
Do breakfast washing up and peel potatoes and sweet potato for tea;
Prepare packed lunch for child 2;
Take child 2 swimming;
Take child 2 to voluntary job you’ve taken on (because you haven’t got enough to do already) and do voluntary admin work while child 2 eats lunch, watches The Gruffalo on your iPhone and plays with Thomas the Tank toy;
Take child 2 home and eat your own lunch very quickly while standing up;
Collect child 1 from nursery;
Spend 90 minutes trying to do more prep for tea and have a shower (so you can look presentable for night out with lovely husb and a fellow blogger, v exciting) in between running up and down stairs convincing child 1 that she really does need a sleep;
Get child 2 up;
Spend 10 minutes waking up child 1 who finally went to sleep 10 minutes before the end of nap time;
Make rhubarb crumble and batter for individual toad in the holes (or should that be toads in the hole?);
Entertain afternoon guest and her two children whilst making tea and trying to blow up the ready beds for the sleepover (thank you so much S for your invaluable assistance!);
Feed four children and yourself;
Do the washing up;
Despatch guests;
Look at toys on floor and decide that ignorance is bliss;
Let children watch tv while wrestling them into pyjamas and puffering the boy (haven’t tried singing yet, but I will – thank you all for the suggestions);
Take ready beds to neighbour who is kindly babysitting (having to host sleepover due to husb being away);
Take children to neighbour;
Stop for quick chat;
Realise you’ve got 10 minutes to do a 15 minute walk;
Leg it to train station arriving sweaty and realise the shower to look presentable was pointless;
Have a beer on the train;
Meet husband and breath deeply for the first time that day;
Get to gig venue and have much needed second beer;
Start looking out for blogger you’ve never met before and have no idea what they look like (sorry, terrible sentence but can’t think how to word it better);
Take call from neighbour with hysterical children in background;
Debate with husband whether or not to go home;
Take another call from neighbour and hysterical children where neighbour suggests decamping with four children & two ready beds to your house;
Agree heartily and thank neighbour from bottom of your heart;
Realise the bloke that’s peering at you is probably the blogger you’re meeting;
Swiftly realise you’re unable to do anything other than gesture vaguely due to being on the phone that he’s trying to text;
Receive text from neighbour saying children are finally settled;
Enjoy lovely evening with lovely husb and very nice blogger & wife;
Leave gig early (as usual) missing encore;
Get bus and train home;
Relieve neighbour;
Put ingredients for bread into breadmaker for the morning;
Go to bed (at about midnight) without tripping over too many toys;
Get up at 2am with the boy;
Go back to bed and make husband go to boy;
Go back to sleep at about 3am;
Wake up at 6.30am to the realisation that instead of two children in the house there are four;
Start new day.
Is anyone still with me? More importantly, are you still awake?
Thankfully, Grandma and Grandpa were here for a “picking the boy up from nursery while I take the girl swimming and the husband can’t work from home” favour and staying for lunch which meant I could get away with being marginally less entertaining to small children than usual. By about 3.30 though I gave up trying to be entertaining at all and put the television on. I think the boy and I were probably feeling pretty much the same at 4 o’clock today (especially as he’d ducked his afternoon nap) but he was lucky enough to be able to cave in.
Posted in The Boy
Silly me. I totally misjudged the amount I can get done in one day and have spent most of today chasing my tail.
This is a very short post to keep up my one a day and to apologise to everyone who commented yesterday that I haven’t had time to respond to – I will tomorrow, promise.
The boy and girl are going for their very first sleepover tonight – which is partly why I’m running around like a headless chook now. I’ve totally underestimated the amount of stuff that I have to get ready and do before they go, including sweet talking my afternoon guest into blowing up the ready beds for me. Actually, she took one look at me and very kindly offered to do it for me (I was trying to cook tea for her children at the time!).
Posted in The Boy
