Fancy Dress

Back in Sept, the girls borrowed some costumes from Polly's theater company and entered the fancy dress competition at our village show.
They didn't win, but they were photographed by an official photographer and ended up in the local paper.
I was on face painting duties that day, so i of course painted their faces.
Iris insisted on being a 'pink' bear/lion.

Other new posts that i've slipped in

Previous posts that i've just slipped in now.

Princess Leia fancy dress party, on the 31st July.

Missing tooth

This photo was actually taken on the 5th August not long after Daisy and Iris came back from staying with Aunti Emma and Uncle Paul and Daisy had lost her first tooth.
Apparently one minute it was wobbly, then she bit on her cardigan and the next minute it was out.
No string tying and slamming doors and all that malarky.

Iris and school

Iris Is having her first full day at school today.
Let's hope she enjoys it a little more than she has so far.

She seems to have a strange relationship with school, she likes the thought of being a big girl etc... She likes that she now goes to school with Daisy and they can play at breaktime together, but she doesn't like being made to do her sounds every morning, she can be very stubborn.
So far she has regularly told me she hates school and wants to just stay home with me for ever.
This weekend she told me she wished she was my tiny little baby again, and then curled up in a little ball and asked if she looked like a little tiny baby.
Poor little Iris is obviously having second thoughts on growing up.  
I told her she would always be my little baby.

One day last week her teacher told me that Iris had fallen over and had narrowly missed banging her head on a wooden bench, I obviously don't know if she hurt herself or if it was just shock but apparently she let out a humongous wail, very loud and lengthy.
Her teacher laughed with me when I agreed that Iris could be quite vocal.

Anyway now I'm feeling a bit lost, I am free until 3.15, what am I to do?

The highest point in Evercreech

Marc climed the church tower on the one day you are allowed to climb the church tower in Evercreech.
Perhaps next year i'll climb up and have a little look around.

This is our house looking through a bit of stone shaping (i have no idea what that type of decoration is called)

And this is our house without the stone shaping, look at our humongous field of a garden, we could really do with a herd of goats to mow that lawn.

Yes i am officially a rubbish blogger

One day i will perhaps go back to my days of plentiful blogging, but for now you will have to suffice with random sporadic blogs / blogets / blogsprogs or whatever you might call a mini post.

This is a couple called Daniella & Roland.

I knew Daniella when i was about 16 or 17 and she was a couple of years older.
She was a nanny for a family down in Devon and we were in the pantomime together, i forget which pantomime it was, but we then went on to be backstage for the production of Finian's Rainbow, i have fond memories of back then and i still love that film with Fred Astaire to this day.
"How are Things in Glocca Morra" is a wonderful song.

Go on put it on your 'Love Film' list or get it from the library or somewhere.

Anyway, Daniella & Roland came to England a little while ago and met up with us in Wells very briefly, that is Wells Cathedral behind them.
They gave us some delicious Swiss Chocolate, which we've (well me if i'm honest) eaten.
Thank you Daniella.

Iris' first day at school

This is Iris' first day at school in reception, and Daisy's first day in year 2.



This is Iris sitting in the cloakroom, looking a little bit nervous.

Princess Leia x 2

The girls went to a star wars party and obviously dressed up as the only girl character in the film - Princess Leia.

They really are such show offs




They played a game called 'Mummies' where in pairs you had to wrap the other in a toilet roll and then the mummified person had to walk.
Iris looks a bit worried.

I thought Daisy did quite a good job at wrapping Iris up, perhaps they'd been practicing at home without us knowing.

Lex, The Tor and a lot of wind.

Lucy, Gordon and Lex came down to visit us and we walked up Glastonbury Tor, which was a first for all of us.

It was marvelous, Daisy, Iris and Lex all walked up it with no problems and they all loved running around at the top.
The view was amazing of which you can see a bit of it in the very last photograph (click it to see it bigger)
It was also very windy.

Iris now calls The Tor, the Rocky Mountain and wants to go up it again.

Click here for the Glastonbury Tor website.
Click here for the Wikipedia Glastonbury entry.

Potatoes & stuff

We decided to dig up half of our potatoes today and see what we have been growing underneath all that shrubbery, we were very very very excited to actually find potatoes!
Lots of potatoes.
A lovely lot of potatoes.


Here you can see a huge tower of greenery, with lots and lots of flat little Mange Touts on them and in our greenhouse are tomatoes, cucumbers and chillies amongst other things.

My new hobby Face Painting

Abi has given/lent me a box of facepaints, so that i can paint faces at the Evercreech Village Show which takes place on Saturday 4th Sept, if anyone fancies coming along.

When Auntie Polly was up recently we practiced on the girls, and then when Ben came to stay the night, i practiced some more.

I have discovered that as long as you keep it simple, and limit your limitations you can get good(ish).

I have opted for a cattish theme here, Ben is obviously an orange tiger and Daisy is of course a pink/purple pussy cat.
Iris has some form of princess makeup on, but her nose was so disgusting that i thought it best to keep the paint down to a minimum.

A Pirate Toddle

A little while ago the toddler group in our village had a 'big pirate toddle' in aid of Barnardos. www.barnardos.org.uk
Here are some photographs of the pirate children.

Climbing the rigging.

Being attacked by a crocodile.

Lined up waiting to walk to plank.

Sports Day

This was Daisy's class all lined up on her sports day which was held on the 29th June.
The children are all either year 1 or year 2 and the lady is one of Daisy's teachers.

Routemaster in Evercreech!

Somebody had the good taste to hire an old Routemaster bus to cart all the wedding posse around.
It was so lovely to see one parked right outside our house.
Naturally i had to ask the drivers to pose for a portrait.
Wiki/Routemaster

Elderflower sugar water

Hmmm... our elderflower cordial is not so great, it is more of a sugery water.

In Mrs Beeton her recipe is similar but she says to take the flowers out after a day and leave for a month covered.

So we are now leaving for a month to see if it improves.

Some you win and some you loose.

Iris lyrics

I don't recall playing the original of this song to the girls but i guess they could have heard it on the radio.
Somehow Iris has heard it and is now singing her own version of it.

Can you guess which song these lyrics originate from?

"the ants are,my friend, going in the bin
the ants are going in the bin."

Mangey Touts

Apparently (so Marc tells me, cos I didn't go down the garden yesterday) we have two flowers on our Mange Tout's.
Hooray, we might get some vegetables this summer afterall.

Mum tells me if you leave them on the plant they will fatten and turn into peas, I didn't know that.

I will photograph the flowers shortly.

Elderflower Cordial has been made

Further to my last Elderflower post, about deciding not to make it, we then decided to give it a go with the remaining elderflowers on the trees which wasn't many.

Aunty Emma was over so she helped pick some flower heads.

We failed in our quest for Citric Acid, so in the end we resorted to using just Lemons and made just one batch of cordial using 20 heads.

I wonder how it will taste?

I did take a photo of the flowers in the bucket, but i haven't downloaded them yet.

Camping was a huge success

On Saturday we drove to here http://www.rockseast.org.uk/ to go camping and everybody loved it.

There were 22 of us in total which consisted of 10 adults and 12 children, including 9 girls so Daisy and Iris were in their element.

Five families in five tents, a camp kitchen under our gazebo and an open fire.

I discovered that a Sloe Gin and Tonic is delicious especially with bbq'd meat.


Here are some photographs

We went on a woodland walk and spotted lots of wooden sculptures, which the children loved.

Pippa especially loved this wolf.



This is 11 out of the 12 children, Lola was still in the backpack on Aaron's back..

Daisy and Freya being friends.

Iris walking and drinking, she likes to walk on the edge of danger does our Iris.


Fairy mushrooms.

Back at camp and Daisy and Freya play with the little fairies they bought in the campsite shop. Which incidentally sold no food, just fabulous trinkets for children.


Another walk in beautiful weather and beautiful countryside.

Iris resting in the shade of trees.

Iris with human label.
(in case you didn't realise)

Camping

We are going camping tomorrow.

I have my camera and my batteries ready.

Oh and we have a tent and bedding and wellies, and i'm told somebody is bringing a bubble machine apparently, so we'll all be sorted.