The Doctor Who Experience

Well. The kids have settled into a new term at school and Ma and Pa have to start looking around for a secondary school for Honor. The obvious choice was the local catholic school... until recently when the lovely Government decided to withdraw help with transport so we're now thinking it she'll lose out on this. Still, we'll wait and see.

Meanwhile, last weekend Henry had his seventh birthday so yesterday we took Henry and Honor on a surprise trip up to London to the Doctor Who Experience at the Olympia in Kensington. You should have seen their faces! You should have seen our faces!!! We were taken through the time vortex on an interactive journey in the tardis helping the Doctor escape from the Pandorica 2(!), fighting daleks, cybermen and weeping angels. It was a bit scary in places; I thought Honor was going to get upset when a 3D image of a weeping angel lunged at her, but we had a really fantastic and thrilling time. After the show, there was a museum of all the costumes and models of the monsters to look around and a chance to wander around the set of the tardis.

Later, we hailed a London cab and headed off to Kensington Gardens so that the kids could play in the Princess Diana Memorial Playground. It started to rain so Hubby and I sat under a bush with the squirrels while the kids ran about having a great time!

A brilliant day... and we were home in time to see... yes... Dr Who!

Stay on these roads.

I've attached this clip (see post below) of A-ha from the Oslo Memorial concert for the recent terrorist attack victims at the youth camp in Norway. The band split up recently but reunited for this special tribute.

It is beautiful.

Terrorists will never win.

a-ha live - Stay on These Roads - Oslo Spektrum - 21-08-2011

They think it's all over....

it is now!

Wow! That went quick, didn't it? The summer holidays flew by and I barely blogged about them.

Here is a little summary of what we got up to...

Hubby has been building a kitchen/barbecue area by the veg patch so that we can cook outdoors a la Nigel Slater style. The veg patch has got wildly out of control with me pretty much unable to reach the runner beans. But the pumpkins and courgettes are the biggest I've ever seen! We've had a much better tomato crop this year, too. Even the kids, who won't normally touch tomatoes (goodness knows why?!) have not been able to resist scrumping from the greenhouse!
Our Italian relatives made their usual summer visit, driving up through France and camping their way back again. The children enjoyed meeting up with cousin Eve again for fun and frolics. This was one of the very few occasions when the kids got to use the pool. Most of the summer holiday was lacking on the warm weather front.

I actually got around to doing a bit more sewing, making this table runner for our outdoor table from more fabric scraps from the local market stall. Please don't look at it too closely. It is a bit wobbly and all hand-sewn.


Henry had more hospital appointments because he has not regained the use of his hand. We made the most of his appointment at Deal hospital by going on to the country park there and hiring some bikes. Henry had to go in the cart with Hope. But, following some physio, he can now ride his own bike since that outing. He has more treatment to come.
We spent most of the holiday at home, but we did have a day out at Kew Gardens in London.



Kew is one of my favourite places and since my last visit, just over ten years ago, they have built some fabulous play areas for the kids. My little lot absolutely loved the indoor creepy crawly playground in which the children become bugs and get to experience what it is like to crawl in and out of plants and flowers. We couldn't get them out of there... not even for an ice-cream! The ice-creams, incidentally, were amazing. I wasn't go to buy them one (at £2.50 each!) but Hubby wanted to treat the kids (and himself!) so he did. I had a lick or two of Honor's coconut and lemon one and thought that maybe they were indeed worth the money! Mmmmmm!

During the last week of the hols, we gave up with maintaining the water in the pool for nothing and so we took it down and put up the teepee from last year instead. Honor and Henry transformed it into a hospital using a camp bed, a small table, a pile of paper and a roll of toilet paper (for bandages!) Henry looked quite the part sitting at his desk writing out prescriptions!

So they are back at school now, we had special prayers and breakfast on their first day, and the autumn tv schedule has started with the return of Celebrity Big Brother - shame we don't get Channel 5 so I can't follow the progress of JEdward, the X-Factor and my fav: Doctor Who! I love Dr Who and the first episode with the beginning of River Song was absolutely cracking. I decided, though, that the kids couldn't watch it tonight as the episode 'Night Terrors' was about a little boy with monsters in his toy cupboard. No, really? Far too spooky. Sorry, kids xxxx

Hot.

It has been very hot the last few days. (I can hear my brother in Adelaide sniggering at that statement!) But really, it has. We've been to the beach and I've tried hard to keep my cool looking after the kids. It's not been easy. I got very hot n bovvered yesterday putting up the big splash pool at the bottom of the garden. The kids kept running up wanting to know when they could get in it and didn't appear to understand me when I explained that it takes hours to fill. It took seven hours to fill and so wasn't ready for them until this morning.

And of course, this morning, it was raining. That didn't deter them, though. Oh no. They were desperate to jump in. So here they are... getting very cold. They lasted about ten minutes.
Hope and I sat in the summer house and watched, bemused, until Honor and Henry gave up, and, shivering, demanded that I make them some hot chocolate.
So. Here they are with their hot chocolate and cakes about to watch The Voyage of the Dawn Treader on DVD while I hoover and clean the floor - again.

About four o'clock this afternoon they asked if they could go back in the pool.

I said "no".

Excuse me if I seem a little distracted but there is a wild, ginger kitten tearing up and down the room, trying to yank the power supply with his teeth from the laptop as I try to blog about my latest crafting.
Here it is. A scrappy heart that I made yesterday evening. It is very rustic. I'm no seamstress and maybe making this while also sipping a glass of Hubby's homebrew and watching Torchwood at the same time, gives it that extra thrown together feel!
I had to make this after seeing the lovely one made on Sarah Sellers 'Tranquil, Peaceful, Calm' website. The pattern came from the book above 'Fast Fabric Gifts'. So I bought the book (don't tell Hubby!) and made one from the fabric bundles I keep buying off the local market stall. I've placed it on the mantlepiece with along with the 'LOVE' ornament that I bought at the Wildwood giftshop and the teddy that I bought in the Cath Kidston sale today. Hubby keeps complaining about the teddy - that it is so well camouflaged (I thought, blended in) against the wallpaper that it is like a 'predatator' teddy. He likes my scrappy heart, though. Of course he does!
And... Auntie Julia came round today bearing gifts. Julia teaches a drama class and recently (can't remember if I blogged about this) we went to see one of her excellent shows. This car was a prop in one of the scenes and Henry was obsessed with it. My Uncle Ken made it and they said Henry could have it when the shows were over. So here it is - in The Lost Garden of of Hooligans. It's great. They love it. Thank YOU!!!

Le weekend

All week, the children have been coming home from school with armfuls of paper and card as the big end-of-term clear out got underway. In anticipation of our new arrival, Henry brought hom this enormous cardboard box. He said it was to be the bed for the new kitten. But then all three children got into it and went for a wild ride. One hour later and it wasn't much good for anything.

This was our lunch on Saturday. Just simple ol' nachos with guacamole and soured cream. The drink is a watermelon cooler. It's just watermelon whizzed up with a scoop of ice-cream in the top. When I was pregnant with Henry, I had one of these in a mexican cafe and was hooked on them. Lovely.


And here he is. Little, ginger, fluffy Hugo. He is seven weeks old and adorable.