Fun with water

Whilst we were down in Kent with Run, Lisa and Floss, it was sunny, and Lisa got the hose out and the girls stripped off and lots of fun was had by all.


There are lots of these photos but i had to be careful to choose only the decent ones.

Stuff you find on Hackney streets - Mattress

Ooh it's a been a while since i found something new on the streets of Hackney, that's not to say that the streets are all clean now that we have won the 2012 bid, no of course not, there is plenty of rubbish all over, it's just that it's all the same rubbish and i'm only interested in photographing rubbish that i haven't photographed before.

I think the streets round here are paved with rubbish because the folks round here still believe in the rubbish fairies, people simply open their front doors and dump whatever they feel like out on the pavement and then they hope and pray that the fairies will fly down in the middle of the night and take their discarded objects away.
We used to be a little bit guilty of this too before we discovered freecycle, we had a magic wall out the front of our house, and we used to put small objects on it and wait to see if they were taken or not, most of the time they were taken.

Anyway though here somebody has not only put a base and mattress out for the taking, but they have taken the trouble to drag it across the road next to the park railings, who knows perhaps they were being thoughtful for any local tramps looking for a bed for the night, (a rather windy bed)


(photo taken last week)

Other "Stuff you find on Hackney streets" photographs.

A croissant & a carrot

Here is Daisy's drawing of a croissant that she drew a few days ago, i think it's quite good.


Here is Iris's drawing of a carrot, i think i caught it just in time, cos a few minutes later the paper was just a huge big scribble, she just doesn't know when to stop that one.

Iris and Felix

Today i met up with Karen who has Felix (15/16 months) and we went swimming.
Iris has only been swimming two or three times before and she hadn't really liked it that much so i wasn't sure how it would go, but i can officially say that Iris loves swimming.
This particular swimming pool is shaped like the shoreline of a beach, so children can paddle around to their hearts content in the very shallow end whilst other children swim around in the deeper end, it is all very nice.
They had a wave machine which was quite fierce, but Iris even seemed to like sitting on the shore with the waves lapping over her.
Felix was a bit scared of the waves.

You can't take photographs in the swimming pool, so these photographs were taken in Karens house later on in the afternoon. Karen even stole my camera and took some photographs of me, shock, horror. I wouldn't normally put photos of me up cos i think i look awful in most photographs of me, (except my wedding photographs, i like me in those), but anyway... i figured since i put photographs up of everyone else i should put photographs up of me even if i am pulling a funny face.

Daisy has probably forgotten all about us by now.

Grandma called to say that she is doing fine and has totally enjoyed herself so far, she has probably forgotten all about us by now.
I miss her a little bit i have to say.

(Photo taken on Sunday)

Iris hasn't really mentioned Daisy that much, although she did out of the blue tell Rita and Leo today that "Daisy was with Grandma" so she obviously has remembered where Daisy has gone. I thought bedtime might be a problem but it wasn't at all, she had her bath and then had two stories "Little Red" which was a birthday present and "Where the Wild Things Are" which is a library book and then was happy to take the latter into bed with her. As i shut the door i could hear her reading it to herself, well obviously she can't read seeing as she's only two, but she had memorized some of it and it was sweet to hear her mumbling it.

Incidentally i hear that Spike Jonze is currently making it into a film which should be interesting.

Daisy's gone to France

These photographs were taken yesterday morning before Grandma arrived, Daisy has discovered climbing in quite a big way
Grandma came over yesterday to collect Daisy and has today taken her back to France for a little holiday, she brings her back on Sunday.
Oh my goodness i don't know what to do with myself, i think that only one child will seem like heaven.
I took them to the train station this morning, so that they could catch a train to the airport.

I think that we will miss Daisy a lot, but i doubt she will miss us that much, on Friday her cousin Sophie arrives with her mum Caroline, who is Roger's daughter, Marc's step sister. Sophie is almost the same age as Daisy so they will probably be off in their own little world for the next two days.
Back home i think Iris is going to really miss her big sister, especially when she goes to bed tonight and then tomorrow night and even the night after that.
There may well be tears before bedtime.

Or on the other hand, perhaps Iris will totally enjoy having all the toys to herself, and be cross when Daisy returns.

Daisy and Iris singing Happy Birthday

Here is a little video of Daisy and Iris singing Happy Birthday to Iris.

Happy 2nd Birthday Iris

Today is Iris' 2nd birthday.

I can't believe she is two already, where o where does the time fly, it really doesn't feel like two years has gone by.

Anyway though, she was very pleased with her presents and cards, yes she really likes all her cards too, well she really liked all the cards until she discovered the presents, but then that is only natural i guess, if i'm honest i prefer the presents to the cards.

She got lots of books which is totally brilliant, books from Grandma Bonjour, Aunie Emma, Grandad Tony and even us, (i will list them later)
Books are a fab present cos books are timeless and tend not to wear out, unless you rip them or wee on them or something like that.

She also got a lovely birthday dress from Auntie Vicky which she is wearing in the pics, she got two t-shirts from Auntie Emma one of which she is wearing in the pics, she got a pink hand knitted cardigan which she is wearing in some of the pics (her baby got a matching one too)
She also got a Spanish Polly Pocket who's head came off already (sorry Nana)


Grandad Tony sent up some money for Iris to get herself some Strawberry Shortcake dolls, (Daisy has two, and Iris up until now has been very envious) so off we went to Toys R Us this morning and got Iris some dolls of her own.

Oh my goodness can i really have two!

Quick snooze in the car on the way back from too much excitement.

Oh look Brixham in Timelapse on YouTube

This person must live in Brixham or visits often cos there are shed loads of videos up on YouTube about Brixham.

This one is particularly nice cos the person has set his/her video to timelapse which is where it gives the impression that it is only recording every other frame, and therefore when played at normal speed it looks quicker.
TimeLapse explanation on Wikipedia

It makes me feel a bit car sick though, so beware.

Jo, Jacob & Michael

Here are a few photographs that i took from our visit today to my very old friend Jo, her fella Kev (not photographed) and their two boys Jacob (6) and Michael (4).
It had been over a year since i last saw her which seems to have flown by very quickly.

Jo and Kev and the boys now live in Sevenoaks.


The girls loved playing with all of the boys' toys, Iris especially loved playing in the playmobil castle/fort, she played around the edge of it for ages reaching in to pick up tiny plastic objects with lots of detail, but eventually ended up in the middle of it, as you can see from the pic.
For a long time she played with a tiny pull along cart thing which she was convinced was a buggy and kept asking for the baby to put in it.

top - Michael roaring at me, middle - Daisy and Michael, bottom - all four children out in the garden just before we left to come home.

Uncle Emma & Auntie Paul...

...as Iris likes to name them, live in Laverton which is near Bath.
We went to stay with them this weekend and we went for a little walk in some woods nearby.

We couldn't walk too far cos Emma is a bit poorly and i was feeling a bit strange too, i thought i'd caught some kind of bug but in actual fact i think it was the G&T and a couple of glasses of wine i had the night before.
I'm not used to boozing you see, and i'm easily confused.


More pics coming soon from our visit with Floss.

Floss in Kent

Just a quick post.
We went to stay with Run and Lisa and Floss in Kent these last couple of days and it was simply devine.
We had some rain but we also had sunshine today, and glorious sunshine it was.
This shot was taken on Thursday, whilst we were out picking blackberries.

Mum you will be pleased to hear that i taught Lisa how to cast on and knit a few rows of the knit stitch, in the future the whole world will be knitting.

More horrific face painting in the park

Today up the park, Daisy was going to have a butterfly painted on her face, but then right at the last minute she heard Lex ask to be a witch and she copied, and this was the result.

I think Lex's witch is much better, either that or Lex can just pull it off.

Actually Winnie had a butterfly done on her face and it was a bit scary too.

Iris stood very close to Daisy whilst she was having her face painted, she watched it all go on, but strangely she didn't ask to have her face painted, i don't blame her.

The Wizard of Oz

We (Daisy and I) went to see a matinee performance of the Wizard of Oz at The Royal Festival Hall within the Southbank Cenre.

My old friend Mark O'Neil (We worked at Carlton together) who now does design and technological stuff for ENO (English National Opera) aquired free tickets, so off we went.


It was good, it wasn't great, but it was good, i thought Dorothy was a bit inconsistent, she didn't seem to be able to decide if she was overacting or playing it down, she seemed to swap from one to the other throughout the play/musical/performance, unless it was just rubbish speakers and i didn't notice.

Or perhaps she was playing a rather truthful portrayal of Judy Garland, after-all Judy was on so many uppers and downers by this stage she probably didn't know if she was coming or going, especially if she was acting against a Scarecrow a Tin Man and a Cowardly Lion.

But anyway, we did thoroughly enjoy the whole occasion, Daisy was a bit small and had to sit on the armrest in-between our seats for some of it so she could see what was going on, and she didn't like the bangs as the Wicked Witch of the West entered and left the stage, but she did love Glinda and Dorothy and the little children playing the munchkins.



In fact at the end, she was a bit concerned that the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion didn't come and take a bow (even though i had explained they were playing the parts of the farm hands as well, and had to change back for the final wake up scene) but she was mostly concerned that the children didn't come on for a bow. (I think Lucy told me once that there are rules to do with how long children can be on set, so i guess seeing as they are only in the first half of the show, they were sent home to rest ready for the later performance)

That is a Dorothy doll that Daisy is clutching, which was probably the highlight of the day, we bought Iris a similar Cowardly Lion dolly but Iris is not so impressed with her gift.

Note the bizarre huge plasma screen above the stage (is that what it's called?) which just seemed like a total waste of money.
I can think of lots of ways they could have used it to much better use.
The Wizard of Oz was written on it before the show started, but that could have easily been a banner, and then during the performance it displayed strange abstract interpretations of what was going on down below, which was all a bit of a waste of time really. (OK, some of the illustrations were nice, but others were rubbish)
You can see in this bottom pic when Dorothy meets the Scarecrow that they've scribbled some straw above onto the screen, ok, some straw is perhaps pointing in the right direction but it didn't even move as far as i can remember.
And when the four of them meet the wizard, they didn't even have his huge magnified face up above (like in the film).

All very strange.

Or i'm not arty enough.

Anorak shoot, actually it's not top secret

i've been told by Cathy that it's not top secret so i've put some of the photographs up on my flickr account.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/charliepw/

i realise i have another Anorak shoot to upload from a few months back as well.

Anorak shoot, 2nd August 2008

This shoot was all about chocolate, but i can't tell you anymore until the spread is published, top secret and all that.

Here however is a couple of shots of Daisy whilst i was setting up my lights, i had her jumping so that i could check she would be in focus. (she was mostly in focus, but it is blooming hard to focus on a child moving very fast)

There are so many fabulous photos that it's hard to choose which one's to highlight, and when i say fabulous, i don't mean my skills, i mean these child models (Daisy included) were absolutely brilliant at doing exactly what i asked and then improvising even more.




I love this particular shot of Daisy, it just shows you how ecstatic she was to be allowed to wear some of the fabulous dresses that were there to be photographed.

Park antics

Here are numerous photographs from our antics on Friday in the park.
We met up with Rita and Leo & Catherine and Daniel at a free Hackney summer fun event, one of many that are going on all across Hackney this summer.
As you can see Daisy had her face painted, i asked the girl who was doing the painting not to put too much on because she gets eczema and i didn't want it to irritate her skin too much, alongside this instruction, Daisy asked to be a princess.
This was the result, some kind of strange Geisha girl.

I've uploaded nearly all the pics cos i thought Rita and Catherine might like to see them too.

(oh and in case your wondering, Iris was asleep in her buggy through most of the photos)