Where do I begin...a month of days!

So I think I have a bunch of photos to tell the story of the past month! I will make a few notes but let the pics speak for themselves.. I have sadly lost momentum with the challenges so I will include the view pictures I have tried to take , my saving grace I think!

Since my last note we have spent seven nights in America visiting with Col's Uncle Bill and Deborah and seeing two of Col's first cousins who he only gets to see every ten or fifteen years.

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 We had a lovely afternoon sailing on the Potomac (the river where that plane crashed in icey water about 30 yrs ago) We loved seeing planes landing at National airport right over our heads..

It was great weather and we got in the pool a few times, absolutely just what we needed, except we know now that summer is gone for good!  

The last few days we spent with friends about an hour from Col's Uncle so it worked out well..we ate and drank so often I felt quite full for a week when we got home!  The hospitality was fab and it was amazing to spend time with Michele who is an encyclopaedia of food and I think all things Italy! Their family came by too so we got to meet all the new additions to the family.

Cake!

Our Zac arrived at Heathrow about an hour after we did on 22nd September, it was just great to see him ad worked out just right for travelling home together.  He goes away again this Friday, that month has really flown by; no big parties as weather and house / building works have not leant themselves to a proper 'do' but he has seen family and friends, chilled and had nights out and we have just enjoyed having him about..

Found this little video.. Zac loves technology!

Boating with Pops and pal Liam

And here are a few of my October views..the window view has Col& Zac sitting just here the window use to be!

October .. where the window view was!

Not forgetting Lyla.. so funny x

Porthcurno Oct view

A different sofa view, the other one, this time Lilly and Annabelle!

More views..

Well this is the current status.. my wonderful SIL is sanding the ceiling in the middle room (which did have the 'window view') and then we will be able to move into the kitchen for real.  We have to take the old one out and fit some proper carpet which may be a week or three but next week I shall definitely move the 'stuff', We have already debated the whys and wherefores of where baking / jars/ tins etc should go so I will be well prepared!

(Mind you, the jury is still out on the splashback, the quoter (joker) wanted £1500 for it.. ummm.. nah, tiles methinks!)

Almost there, my new view from the back door!

The old 'window view' ...ahhhhh Happy Bunny x

We spoke with Zac this morning, he is keeping tabs on life at home through here so it is just so worthwhile.. and you know how I love it when a plan comes together.. we arrive home from our US trip 90 minutes before he arrives from Seattle .. so we can drive home together.. nice x

Kate has departed for the festival, tanned, nice nails and a tent to put up.. or direct the boys to put up.. i took a pic of her and her friend before they left and will take one on Monday when they return.. that will make a great layout! ;-)

Super evening last night, Lisa and gang, JB and Dom and Pops and his friend, food, chat, laughs and JB's vanilla cheesecake with passion fruit.. YAY!  Lilly is so tired after three weeks of summer camp, but she is writing so well, a little bored maybe as she seems to be perfecting the art of writing backwards as if you read it in a mirror.. hell, not bad at 5, but Mum wasn't so sure I should tell her how clever it was!! 

August views.. in part!

Jen is being great setting us some daily prompts but I still have no indoor PC and find blogging impossible on a tablet, so it's a phone/ hotmail/ work sneaky blog this week..I am away a couple of nights so may have to catch up late on Sunday..

Lots going on all the time in our house; April is looking after Lyla a few days while big sister is at 'Camp', she loves that by the way and is only just 5 years old, so so gregarious our Lilly!   
Kate is off to Boardmasters Festival for the weekend and we have no worries about the vices of the surfers festival as we think she will take so long getting ready she won't be able to party much (yeah, right!)  I am a little cautious about the whole thing but give them enough rope and hopefully they will use it to secure the tent!! ;-)  We have tried to give her the best prep and she has made sure her nails are done and the tan, plus she has a mirror and wetwipes packed, ... cushty!

August Sofa View! (sisters...!)

Lisa and the crew are coming by for a barbecue this evening, I took these pics when she came by yesterday, an up-to-date on 'Chubber' Annabelle and even got Lisa & Kate on the sofa view!!   

Little Pops

Annabelle August 7 months

Lyla & JB 

This morning Jordan was about to start baking passion fruit cheesecakes but had a nice cuddle with Lyla first..the girls are really having a great time, all growing up amongst such fab Aunties..


Well that's me for the minute, more pics later.. will surely find Lilly with a 'stone' for todays prompt!  Still the Mount and Porthcurno views to do yet.. oh and kitchen update.. are you all on tenderhooks???

Busy days..

No completed kitchen yet, the drawers and hinges are quite painstaking so it is kind of taking a while, but every day it gets closer. I am thinking next week now as the floor needs to be covered before we can put down even a temporary carpet.. but what is another week on 15 years of waiting to replace that grim porch/ back kitchen!

Photos to follow and I am failing in jen's daily prompts, having no PC indoors

 and sending phone pics to my hotmail, blah blah.

But we have had a fresh food bonanza, lots of salads and fruit.. this is April's fruit salad she made for tea yesterday, I have had it for breakfast and lunch today also, maybe a token offering to that clever 5:2 diet I read about (shhhh about the jam doughnut though)
..and in Ben Krupka's gorgeous bowl too xx

And this is April's decorating of Kate's latest fancy, a big sponge cupcake, made and ready to eat before you realise she has started!

Weather?  We had rain like stair rods..

Green.. the colour Lilly's fingers will be if she spends much more time in the garden with 'Little Pops'...

The views from here!

Well I am here racking my brains as to why I haven't posted anything since last Monday... no real reason, but in winter I do find I have weeks where I just want to curl up and hide until it's over.. you know the kind of cold-to-your-bones damp days when there isn't much nice going on and not much to report.



Week 4..xxx



Kate had a horrible cold, they always manifest with her as bad ears, throat and she also had/ has an awful night cough, so she was home several days and somehow that throws me out, her not getting going in the morning kind of makes me sluggish too!  Lyla was over a couple of days with April, it's nice to have the family all working together though, JB and Kate seeing plenty of their nieces.  

Lisa came by yesterday with the three girls, Tom was away overnight visiting Zac for a very wet, boggy painball game so we did the girlie day. That was nice, more eating, drinking tea aftetr tea and of course I got to bath Annabelle..lovely! 

It was so lovely going to fetch them all, a super-mum and her tiny baby and two little girls, both in bunches, chatting away to me in a real animated way... they reminded me of the little 'uns in the Sound of Music, you know, the one who is always out of time and shouting loud at the end of the line!

In the evening Col and went out late and saw that new film 'I Give it a Year', good fun, not a must-see at the cinema but lots of laughs even if it was a little chickflickish, an easy night out anyways and a nice end to the weekend...

.....before another day in office-land.  Poor Col, he had an afternoon of it, he tries so hard to keep everyone in the loop, gives them the chance to have an opinion and be part of what we do, then they just make you feel like you should be a lot less bothered and not try to be so personable with the crew!   You know sometimes he hates his job, he says he never did want to work in an office and he never got told at the interview what he would have to do.. that's a laugh, no-one interviews you when you are self-employed do they!  Other times he says he would sack himself if he could!  He just isn't an office bod you see and sending quotes, selling equipment and dealing with funding and projects all means you drive a desk a lot of the week!  



Yard view.

At least at the weekend he got outside and some clearing up done with Ross, lots of granite to move from the new room site.

Meanwhile April and I cleared the porch..so much junk, so much you don't need but don't want to throw away. My Mum's place is becoming more and more a safe haven for things you don't want to 'shedify'.  Also we store some food and drink out there so it had to be brought into the kitchen to find a home, makes everywhere seem crammed and untidy, but I just hope I get more storage and can 'cleanse' it when we are done.



Window view.



I joke that once I have this new room my plan for the next 15 year revival is to have our upstairs and Mums flat made into one and a super kitchen built so we can live out our retirement there..well if I plan it now, 15 years is about right for the birth of a new kitchen 'round here! (all good humoured banter and I do love to ponder a plan for the future.. so you see I am no completely rooted in my past! ;-) )

I used to feel real cabin fever when I didn't get out of the house, but lately I am enjoying the time here just chillin'.  So I never got to POrthcurno or the Mount for my views away from home.. oh dear.. but there's a plan. My Dad's birthday next Saturday so I will venture west with flowers and get my Porthcurno picture for Feb then.



And yesterday Ross & April kindly got me some great pics of the Mount.. better than I could have hoped for.. not sure which one to choose either..  (it is okay if someone else takes them, especially if it was for the challenge!)

February sofa view!

   



January

 That title kind of reads a bit strange but it will all fall into place as the months progress. We are back on Week 1 of the month and Jen has given us the next line of the poem from Sarah Coleridge....    February brings the rain, thaws the frozen lake again.

I am sure the rain will not be a problem but getting a touch of frost may be hard here as so many of the views I chose are very close to the sea..

The monthly 'Sofa View' however will not be affected by the weather.. but I am doing it all the same! Yesterday all the family came over, M&D, three little girls and we all got some lazy time together.. well maybe not JB and Tom as they took Lilly to wash cars in the yard but great fun was had and the big girls had a bath too, so that was another Sunday night chore off their list which if I recall helps a lot!



February?





Jordan took some nice pictures and I took a few on my phone, this one is very similarly positioned to the January one (also a rubbish quality as on my phone!), but it shows Lilly in a sheep outfit and Lyla cuddling up, much to Lilly's annoyance!

..and as for baby Annabelle.. well she and I had our little bit of time too. It's hard when there are young ones who know you so well, not to feel like you are leaving them out, but they were fine and I snuck the little one upstairs for my first time bathing her in my bedroom sink...  Heating on, towels soft, April on camera and me on Nannie mode.... I just loved it, we talked... well, she listened and I talked!  She cried a little but not too much and we washed her hair and rinsed her off, then cuddled up in some warm towels. 

It all is so second nature and comes back to you in an instant, I found myself telling April all the things the lovely midwives at Bolitho (Maternity Home) told us as first time Mums .. how to rest them on your wrist and hook your little finger under their armpit to stop them slipping away from you in the bath, how you should really take the vest off down over the body to stop getting germs in their eyes, oh all those things which made a baby so precious.

Some of the pictures were in B&W and we will no doubt be scrapbooking them, but then we saw the warmth come into them as the colour pictures .. a gorgeous yellow babygro Uncle Bill brought us for Lilly, almost five years ago, when he was here for Ken & Jean's Golden wedding...a lot of water under our communal bridges in that five years..It was just like new as Lyla had the hip brace and couldn't wear lots of the first size things.

We think that Annabelle may also have to have the hip brace for a while, but it is common with breexch babies and after the unknown with lyla it is less of a worry this time. Also she just got results back all okay today as she had been jaundiced for a little longer than expected .. I was so pleased, a little family so busy doesn't need any extra worries..but it is strange how you don't know how much it was on your mind until the relief of an all good result comes to you.. x

 ..anyways, I go on too long.. I think this will be my Sofa View for February..

February!



January: Views and more views!

What a good idea to have a picture of a scene you see every day from / towards your window.

I have chosen the view from our breakfast bar across to the last remaining original window in our 'dining end' which will be replaced by the end of the year. Col says I have set it in stone now and the pressure is on to get the 'porch ' /old 'lean-to-kitchen' knocked down and an extension built to replace it and extend it for a decent size kitchen / living room, as that is where we all hang out and live. 

We have had planning on doing this for 15 years but have done everything else first, but now renewed and changed the plans a bit, so in 2013 we are doing it!  Col is 50 in June and Zac goes away to sea again late May so I am planning a party before he goes; well you could hardly have a party for Dad a week after Zac goes away could you!  My SIL Tom teases me and Zac about the fuss I make, he said the other day to Zac that he heard a big celebrity was due in the village.. funny guy!  But we enjoy the parties and I think the fancy dress may be storybook theme, so April can be Cinderella as she is so good at dishwashing chores... awwhhh !

So... the extension at least should be ready for the party, even if the kitchen is still under debate and consideration...

So here is my view..correction, here are my views (well you know I can never do just ONE!!)

 

Last 2012/13 Christmastime breakfast!


We just slipped out for half an hour and here is my view which should give us the most variety.. the view of St Michael's Mount from the Marazion slipway. No sign of snow, just that awful Cornish mizzle..a combination of drizzle and mist!

January Mount View

 ..and for good measure the outside of our house where the extension is going to be..

Family update:

The yard is looking empty today as Zac has just left for college and a fortnight's worth os assessments and exams. He says the X-box may stay in the box til after, but I doubt it.

It's going to be a busy few weeks for us now, Col has some time away and that pesky baby no3 is still 'not for turning' so they have been booked in for a C-section in about ten days, so I will be on Nanny mode on and off during January...it was such a shame, but Mum is a petite little thing and it seems the babe is not keen to move round...and we all so hoped this would be uneventful, but surely better than an emergency. 

I feel kind of helpless at this point as I had my brood without too much fuss and I can't offer any real alternative, advice or consolation.  It is a very odd aspect of motherhood when you are mother to an adult who cannot be shielded from discomfort or pain or a situation you would more happily take on in their place...and this is just childbirth, it doesn't bear thinking about if a truly intolerable situation arose..

...and before I sign off to go find my StoryTelling Sunday precious piece I will give you my first choice view, that little square mile of beach and sea out west..

No Snow Porthcurno Jan 2013