Happy Halloween

I went to the park today and met up with Rita and Leo(3.5y) and Harriet and Gideon(2.2y)
Rita took some lovely photographs of Daisy and Leo with really scary monster masks on, at one point Gideon was actually scared enough to run away.

Rita took all these photographs by the way, and they're absolutely brilliant.

I don't blame Gideon for running away they look like scary teenagers about to do over a post office, maybe one of them is hiding a sawn off shotgun behind their back.

How can a 4 and a 3 year old look quite so menacing? I think Daisy's big eyes in the shot below are extra specially scary cos they are so big and round, they seem to have morphed into the mask.

This shot is brilliant, i bet Pete from Boogie Beebies never realised he had such adoring fans.
I think that's Leo on the right with the heavy metal satan fingers, i can tell what type of music he'll be into a bit later on.




Oh and after the park we came home and made pizza's and ate sweets (lot of sweets) and didn't go out trick or treating, instead we had a few trick or treaters come to our door.

By the way Daisy decided to dress as a Elf all afternoon for some reason and not as a Witch, or a Cat or a Pumpkin or a Spider or any number of other outfits that we have in our collection.
Here she is dressed up as an Elf a while ago, cos i forgot to take any pics.

Surprise Parcel through the post

The girls ripped open a surprise parcel this lunchtime from Auntie Vicky and found Halloween things.
A garland of tiny paper pumpkins which has been left rolled up and used as a crown, a Happy Halloween banner which is up in the living room and a little black cat outfit with little ears, a little tail that clips onto your clothes and a little cat wand.

This is Daisy wearing the pumpkin garland crown and holding the cat wand.

She wasn't best pleased at this point cos i was making her stand in the hallway so i could take a photograph and Iris really wanted the wand back.


We will be attempting to go 'trick or treating' on Friday.

Thanks Vicks for the pressie.

Daisy with her teddy

This is of course Daisy with her teddy who if you look carefully is actually wearing a hand knitted dress from Nana and a scarf.


Have you noticed my new black backdrop?
It's utterly fantastic, i bought 6 meters of a black fabric from Walthamstow market at a price of £1 per meter, the shop assistant lady was brilliant, she totally helped me work out how much i needed.
I then brought it home, cut it into two strips of 3 meters by 1.5 meters, i then hemmed it and made big loops, and Marc has put some hooks in the wall for me to hang it from.

Don't you touch my teddy

Iris isn't particularly attached to this teddy (though it is a very nice teddy) but the trouble was that Felix was around and Felix liked this particular teddy at this particular moment, so therefore the teddy became the most important thing in Iris' short life for about five minutes.

Iris can be very determined, and she was determined to keep hold of this teddy bear for the full five minutes whilst Felix was interested in it.

Then Felix tricked her, he pretended he didn't care about the bear, so Iris dropped it, which allowed Felix to then pick it up and cuddle it for about five minutes until he became bored of it.

Poor teddy bear, he deserves better.

Lee Valley - mini earth

This is a panoramic of our little Lee Valley in Hackney.
This is very near to where the 2012 Olympics will be held, or at least very near to where all the important people who attend the 2012 Olympcs will park their cars.
Also the local riding stables which is just a stones throw from here is apparently going to be made much bigger and this is where all the horses attending the 2012 Olympics will enjoy a little vacation.

Within the panoramic below (you may need to click it in order to see it more clearly) you can see a white shed, this white shed is actually a huge ice skating ring.


I made this panoramic into a mini earth for no reason at all except that i just learnt how to do it using Filter / Distort / Polar Coordinates.


I actually took this series of photographs back on this day

The Fox is still alive

Yes it is, it was on our shed roof again yesterday morning so he is alive and well, unfortunately for us cos he has poo'd in our garden a few times, yuk.
So that dead little fella was some other Fox.
Previous Fox Post

The stone cold crazies

These two definitely have the stone cold crazies in this shot, crazy but happy so i guess i should count my lucky stars.

Auntie Vicky just sent this up to me, it was one that she took when we all met up on Tuesday in London Town.

X Factor - i'm hooked

I let Daisy watch an episode of the X Factor a couple of weeks ago, it was whilst they were all out in the exotic locations and the judges were narrowing it down to their final 3.
The contestants just kept crying, they cried if they got good feedback, they cried if they got bad feedback, they just cried and cried, especially that Austin fella.
Daisy didn't understand it at all, she just kept asking why this one was crying or why that one was crying, in the end she asked if she could go to bed, and did.

But i'm hooked now, i don't mind the crying, i want them to cry and cry and cry until they start to cry real milk tears, yes i do.
They need to suffer, ha ha ha.

I can't believe that Daniel is still in!
Bless him and all that cos 'Brave Daniel' has suffered, he's almost as brave as "Brave Kylie".

I quite like "Cooky Vickers", but Marc thinks somewhat differently.

Who will be out tonight, Girl Band or Spanish Ruth, i think the misfit of ladies will leave, cos Simon fancies Spanish Ruth.

Iris' first review

Here is Iris' first review of her visit with Mr Bump and Little Miss Sunshine (with a little help from Daddy)
http://www.anorak-magazine.co.uk/yourgoodstuff_display.asp?id=143

Poor simple fisher folk do London

Here is evidence of the poor simple fisher folk coming to London.
We met up with them at Buckingham Palace to watch the 'Changing of the Guards', i didn't realise there would be so many other people there, but there were hundreds.
Then we continued to be tourists for the rest of the day by having fish and chips in a pub, and then going on a boat ride up and down the Thames.  The boat people annoyingly refused to give us any of that inaccurate history that we were expecting over the tannoy because there were too few people on the boat! Bah humbug.

Here is Grandad-by-the-sea with Daisy on his shoulders

Random soldiers marching with flags.

Vicks with Iris.

Guards not moving an inch.

Daisy doing her best impression of a monkey.

Nana with the girls.

On a boat trip up the Thames.

Somewhere Over The Rainbow by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole

This entry is a bit long winded but stay with it, i'll get there in the end.

This entry is for my dad to pass onto Audrey who has been visiting them this past month from the good ol' USA (near Seattle, i believe)

George the music man sings a beautiful version of Somewhere Over The Rainbow/Wonderful World, and he heard it from this guy Israel Kamakawiwo'ole

Audrey came over to stay with my parents in Devon for a little holiday, and i met up with them all today in London where we all had a lovely time visiting Buckingham Palace and going on a boat trip down the Thames.
My mum and dad (Nana and Grandad by-the-sea) went to visit Audrey & Roy (her late husband) a couple of years ago, and they had a lovely time out there.
Audrey told me today that they played Israel's version of this song at his funeral but neither her nor me could remember his name off the top of our heads so i thought he deserved an entry onto the blog.

This guy Israel Kamakawiwo'ole has/d the most amazing voice, i'm not sure if he was the first to put these two songs together, or if this is just his version of it, but either way it's lovely.
Daisy and Iris now sing this version of the song rather than Judy Garland's.
Israel died aged 38 in 1997 of weight-related respiratory illness, he left a wife and daughter, in this video below you can see his friends and family scattering his ashes into the bay where he grew up in Kaimuki, Hawaii.



Israel on Wikipedia
George the music man

"Tinkerbell" the movie - photographs

Here are a few photographs from our trip to Disney headquarters down in Hammersmith for our preview screening of "Tinkerbell"
Here is the very pink fairy doing some magic tricks for all the children before the show started. Iris was straight up there when she asked for a volunteer (with a little push from me), her job was to pull out the little bit of paper that had magically stuck itself back together in that green magic bag, after that fairy had ripped it up into tiny pieces.
Iris liked the fairy.

That is Daisy's head poking out from behind Dopey and Grumpy, and obviously that is Iris standing in front of them.
Do you remember all the names of the 'Seven Dwarfs'?
.
.
Would you like to know?
.
.
Doc, Happy, Grumpy, Sneezy, Sleepy, Bashful, & Dopey.

Should you ever get stuck in a pub quiz and need to remember all seven names, then i read on a website that an easy way to remember the seven dwarfs is : two S's, two D's and three emotions.
Not sure if that is easy or just plain stoooopid.
I think the latter.

"Tinkerbell" the movie

Today we are off to Hammersmith because Cathy from Anorak magazine has given us free tickets to go and see Walt Disney's new movie Tinkerbell.
How happy are these girls going to be?

I think Marc has to do a review for the magazine in return.

A walk in our bit of country side

We went for a little walk across the canal today, and Daisy picked one of those dandelion thingies.




Iris was of course asleep.

Stuff you find on Hackney pavements - A car!

What a treat, two in two days.

Somebody has had a little accident with their car, i think they have forgotten that cars usually stay parked on the streets and do not mount the pavements and crash into school walls.

This photograph of Daisy and Iris was taken on my camera phone.

This photograph of Daisy and her friend Rose from her nursery, was taken on my faithful Canon Ixus.

Other "Stuff you find on Hackney streets" photographs.

Stuff you find on Hackney streets - Chest of Drawers

We haven't found much stuff on our streets recently, well nothing worthy of photographing really, nothing interesting or different like a wad of money, now that would be interesting and different.

But here we have a specimen of a chest of drawers that has been carelessly discarded onto the streets by it's owner.
The poor thing doesn't look like it was very good quality in the first place, but now it's in a right sorry state, you couldn't keep your smalls in those top drawers.



Other "Stuff you find on Hackney streets" photographs.

Mr Bump & Little Miss Sunshine

Whilst i was photographing my old NCT group in the studio today, Marc took Iris into town (i forget where they went) to see Mr Bump and Little Miss Sunshine in the flesh, courtesy of Anorak Magazine.
The Mr Men have just launched their new DVD you see, so they were promoting it.
The new Mr Men show (and the new DVD) is really lovely, it's more like a sketch show with different Mr Men and Little Miss' coming in and out of the different scenes, of course that's not to say that the old Mr Men show wasn't good to start with, although it was a tad moralistic wasn't it?
Iris was suitably impressed cos she told me she had seen Mr Bump a few times when they returned.


http://www.anorak-magazine.co.uk/
http://mrmendvd.co.uk/

NCT children

Here are all the older children that were born of my NCT group, from left to right it is Mia, Daisy(front), Zane, Lila, Ruby(Front) & Campbell.

This photograph was taken in July 2004 of a few of them as babies, from left to right it is Mia, Zane, Daisy, Raife & Ali. I haven't seen Raife in a couple of years, and i think this was the only time i ever saw Ali.

I year booked myself

Oh my, how scary do i look in these photographs!
If you want to look as scary pretty as me then get a photograph of yourself ready and go to www.yearbookyourself.com, here you can upload your photograph to the website and pretty yourself up just like me.

What fantastic hair

I really remember my mum looking like this in the 70's

This one is the scariest of all, it brings back memories of the 'Hair Bear Bunch'