This week's challenge..

...from LuckySnapping is happening over here!  Lynne has set us a nice thought provoking prompt for the week :

“There are 3 things that a child can teach an adult

To be happy for no reason

To be always be busy doing something

And to know how to demand – with all one’s might- what one wants” ~ Paulo Coelho

My questions to you

What makes you happy? Are you ever happy for no reason? Why?

What are you busy doing this week?

What do you want, wish for? Are you good at demanding what you want like children do?

So I asked my family, an amusing bunch and this is what they said :

What makes me happy?..When you have fed all your family and someone else does the dishes.

 Am I ever happy for no reason? Yes...

Why?... Generally because you have had three or more ports!

Thanks guys, but I cannot disagree.. more sensible thought out offerings will come as the week goes by!

.................................................

This is the view I had as I left my bedroom and looked out to the front garden this morning.. a sweet frosting of snow!  Later the view from my kitchen towards the yard, where my new extension will be ..sooooon!  (the builder is coming to see us Wednesday.. yay!)  

and this is the view out of my front door.. April who has joined the blogging crew, taking her revised 'snow' January view..

Work today and Lyla stayed home as poor Lisa lives about 5 miles higher than us, the snow was thicker and the roads are all downhill, so they enjoyed an extra weekend day. (btw the girls have been brilliant with Annabelle, Lilly even watched a whole film sitting holding her.. awhhh)

Col & I had a great surprise which was being kept from us.. Jordan got her braces off her teeth.. after almost three years of treatment, revealing and removing hidden teeth.. oh what a fabulous job they did.. .. ..... she hates today's picture as she says she looks spaced out, but hey, look at those pearly whites and I think she looks like my niece Jana, her cousin and I haven't seen that before!

End of the week that was!

Hello! Well, hasn't the week gone well over at Lucky Snapping. Everyone seems to have enjoyed looking back and sharing some thoughts and if not they have put down some special snowy memories to enjoy in the future.

So, what is happening here in the Big House? (that's what Col's mum used to call it, she lived next door in the barn they converted.. I had forgotten that name, maybe I shall keep it up...)



Auntie Jordan meets Annabelle..x



The girls have gone back home to ease the family back into things without the pressure of school runs and work. Next week we will see Lyla a bit during the day and do the afternoon run.  Lilly told me yesterday she needs to see Auntie Kate and Uncle Zac a lot more; I laughed as these are the two people she hasn't seen so much this week, hence the two people she hasn't faced as a united front.. she has tried us all out and we have communally caught on to her funny trying ways, you know, the ways of a clever little 4 and half year old.. yesterday for example she told April she didn't need socks with her little plimsolls when getting dressed for school.  When I got her out of the car I noticed and we laughed when I took her into school and I mentioned it, an old friend who works there tut tutted to me and said 'ahh the standard of your parenting..!

Everyone else was working or at school yesterday so I had a trip out with Lyla. Zac sent me a picture of how snowy it was with him in Southampton (and sure enough Anne later in the day showed me the same!.. a three day weekend for him, but good as he has had exams so will enjoy the chillin') but we had nothing, plenty of rain overnight and later in the day, but it wasn't even chilly enough for snow, even though the clouds at times threatened some kind of havoc!   

We had a little walk in St Ives, the grey cloud over the island and the houses whilst the sun broke through white clouds onto the beach.  A solitary man walking his dog on the beach, the waves lapping, very quiet, almost like an early morning on holiday..all around the town there is an air of preparation and repair. Men in white overalls, builders vans, scaffolding. It is like they have all agreed to get spruced up for the onslaught of spring, though to be fair the town gets bust all year round now, almost a little Padstow..

We bought saffron buns at a tiny shop which is almost like the corner of someones kitchen, just a window to the street, a small door and a counter in front of the door into the house. You open the door and a lady comes out of her house to sell you one of about twenty things in her window. Gorgeous though! Still warm and so full of fruit!

Saffron buns are a real Cornish symbol..but they vary a lot, some are awful and dry, others are pale and not fruity enough ..

Good old Wikipaedia..

This "revel bun" from Cornwall is baked for special occasions, such as anniversary feasts (revels), or the dedication of a church. In the West of Cornwall large saffron buns are also known as "tea treat buns" and are associated with Methodist Sunday School outings or activities. Most commercially available saffron buns and cakes available in Cornwall today contain food dyes that enhance the natural yellow provided by saffron. The very high cost (it is the world's most expensive spice by weight[3]) makes the inclusion of sufficient saffron to produce a rich colour an uneconomical option. The addition of food colouring in Cornish saffron buns was already common by the end of the First World War when the scarcity of saffron forced bakers to find other ways to colour their products. Larger versions of the saffron bun baked in a loaf tin are known as saffron cake. The main ingredients are plain flour, butter, yeast, caster sugar, currants and sultanas.[4]

When I gave a piece to Lyla it reminded me of how much easier it was once the children were old enough to eat one whilst we were out shopping, you know, at that age where at last, you can give them something to eat to avoid that hungry screaming before you get them somewhere for proper lunch! 

So for me it was a little nostalgia for the day..

... and wow, the house is quiet today.. but tidy! ;-)

Sky stories..

I am beginning to think we are all inspiring each other! Now I am taking pictures of lovely skies with a view to showing you guys.. and I always think of Anne and some of the ones she shares.. (Joy on the other hand will have almost constant blue skies out in Florida!).. maybe England should be billed not so much for its grim weather but it's great variety of skies!



Mackeral sky: not long wet, not long dry.



Annabelle's birth day : A new adventure.





Red Sky tonight..



All is well here in Nannie's Kingdom. I have been so lucky having JB, Kate and April around to help amuse the girls at different times of day... they each have their own forte.. JB getting jobs like bathing and getting to bed, April playing trains and kate doing girlie stuff.. each to their own! ;-)

Mum is doing well and should be home by now...I have told them to enjoy it as if it was their first and don't worry about having the other two back in a rush.. well before February I hope, but I am thinking it will help them if I get the school run and stuff done this week and then they can enjoy a first weekend together as a family with no deadlines and no need to get dressed! 

On the subject of getting dressed.. have your family moved from onesies to jama bottoms yet?  Almost all the kids put pyjama bottoms on as soon as they come in the door..but there is something very trendy about being real comfortable isn't there!

This afternoon Lilly and I have been shopping, oh I love new baby stuff and it's always special to buy something 'just for her', and I guess we will go visit tomorrow after school.... I remember when Lilly was born everybody visited so much that they used 200 teabags in a week.. and not enough people made it for themselves, ahhh such is life!

This is Lilly's picture of her, Mummy and Mummy holding the new baby..she likes to add plasticine to give it 3D effect I think!

And this is the kind of thing we have been doing at home.. playing with the tins from my cupboard. Kids are just a 12 hour demolition derby whilst they are awake, you just have to roll with it and tidy up once they go to bed!

I have pictures here somewhere of Jordan and Zac as toddlers in front of a cupboard, excpet they magaed to empty a container of dog food (dried I must admit!) all over the floor..

New additions! Now & then!

And it isn't about a maths exam today!

Now..
As anyone who has been following my blog will know, I am due to be a Nan for the third time this week and today our eldest daughter had a gorgeous (well they all are aren't they) little girl. I had the big sisters and heard the news about three o'clock so took them and out Kate up to meet and greet at teatime. JB and Kate had been helping hold the fort at home and it has all gone really well.. mind you we have practiced a bit of late but it's made it lots easier for today.

She is a lovely little dollop, you can tell she has not had the natural journey into the world, her face is so plump and she doesn't have that 'I just arrived and it was a long road' look! Poor Mum on the other hand is quite sore, but she is doing great and we were all blown away by how keen both the girls were to see her..

We hadn't been given any idea of names, in fact I don't think they had any themselves, but she is going to be Annabelle Ivy, I love it! Mind you she may be Baby Belle! Then probably Annie or something she choses for herself when she's a precocious teen!

We are home again now and the bairns are in bed.. it's been a long day but definitely a new beginning.

I shall be adding this into my Nostalgia : New Beginnings challenge which I have made over at Lucky Snapping....here!

& Then...
It really doesn't seem long since I welcomed Lisa into the world herself. Her Dad was away working and I had her at home, just me, my Mum and the midwife who I had worked with at a doctor's for quite a while.. it was quite a female moment. All well planned, Ross (age two and three days) had gone to bed an hour before, I even read him a story first (and yes, I still have that book!).. she was born about 8pm and cried just as the doctor came up the stairs (I had worked with her too, so none of it seemed medical somehow..)

The doctor later told me that as she heard Lisa cry she thought 'ahh good, at least I don't have to resuss the baby..' Strange though I always found when I was pregnant that I had a real positive head on and never worried about it (not like I do now!! )

Mind you there had been a hue and cry about home deliveries at that time, as they had shut the local Maternity Unit in Penzance( because the specialists had got everyone to deliver in Truro and then transfer back to the unit at Bolitho to convalesce so they could manipulate the delivery figures and make it look like it wasn't needed.. but hey, new Mums DO need the kind of local maternity help they offered..)

....steps off soapbox..
The folk next door came in to see her and asked if I wanted anything...ummm, got any chocolate? Yes, they did, half a large bar of Dairy Milk !  A few hours later it was just me, my Mum and Lisa on my lap. Strangely I sat there unable to go to sleep whilst the old and new generations slept noisily alongside me!!

A sweet twist to this is that all the pictures I have from the next day, me Ross & his new baby sister..were taken by Colin who was our best pal and home at the time!! He always grins and says about Lisa 'Ha, I saw her first!'.. and those pictures are just great..

 Lilly                                                           Lyla                                                              Annabelle..xx

The story of the maths exam and the fake baby!

Our Kate finishes school this year and we will be happy for her. She hasn't enjoyed it much at secondary school, not that many of our children have. I think we have treated them all honestly and pretty fairly in a grown-up kind of way and the herding around and being spoken to in a nice but patronising kind of way hasn't really cut the mustard with them.   They have all done okay when exam results have been turned in, but somehow I think they should have enjoyed it more and come away more often excited by what they had learnt and wanting more.  I'm not sure if it says more about us as parents, our kids or the school system.. but hey..

Anyway, yesterday Kate got her GCSE results for the Maths exams they took in November. The idea was that they take it early with a chance to retake in the summer if they wished, but pssibly being able to finish with Maths now and have a good result under the belt almost a year early... so she set off hoping for a 'B' but expecting a 'C' .. she text me at 9.30 and I was braced for the 'C' .. and this is what I got..

    .................' Got a 'B' : Xxxxx'

                                     I was so so so made up for her!

This evening she told me that she can choose now between extra revision on weaker subjects (but maybe subjects she isn't very keen on) .. or she can do more maths (maybe the last proper maths she will ever be taught) and even try for a better grade at retake.. oh whichever, the B is in the bag and I am so happy for her.. it will, as Zac says, look good on a CV and for me, most importantly it might just give her the confidence to realise she can Do It!

As part of her Childcare course Kate is minding what I have been calling 'the fake baby'. It is a strange thing, a fairly heavy baby doll which cries at will and need to be handled gently and you can do things to stop it crying, like 'feed' it, change its nappy, keep it comfortable.. so tonight I am babysitting whilst she works!  (If my calculation is right and true to babies the world over it will sleep all evening and be awake at 2am.. when I will be fast asleep!)

I know it's not in the spirit of the thing to do it for her but hey I wouldn't do it if she wanted to go to a party!  I am a sucker for a baby I guess... but it is kind of surreal especially since we will have a new real live baby on Tuesday...we are all finding it kind of strange knowing the day the baby will come, not having any previous experience of a c-section, but so long as it is all okay.

Colin however is mortified, not least of all when his Dad and a pal came in for some supper. He told me to put it away, in a drawer or something... yeah right!  And who explains that...apparently it has some sensors so can tell the way you handle it and stuff..or so they say til she takes it back and we've both been 'had'!    So as they came in for supper the thing was crying and I was cradling it in a bundle!  Add to that a need for an explanation of the chrome pole in the centre of our kitchen and you can imagine the looks he gave me...well, like I said you never ever know what goes on inside four walls! ;-)  .. and after all there are ladies who have those life like baby dolls full time.. and it sure beats a puppy to clean up after!

I think he can't believe Kate volunteered for the baby, especially if there was a choice; he thinks they are really made for teens the schools think are at risk of having children too young! .. but she did and I'm rolling with it... but I have got thoughts of putting it out under Ross & April's bed so it wakes them at 2am!

Not sure any of this qualifies as a serendipity moment but after seeing everyone else getting into the art journals and stuff for our challenge I am hoping to join them, after all it's only one page a month...will keep you posted if I can get something produced through the week! x

.. I have been scrapbooking today, a small crew but very enjoyable. We have been together as a group for almost five years and it is warming to spend time together. We often chat away the first hour without even getting our papers out!

We did some nice layering layouts and I was happy because I had lots of the latest photos to include.. Holly Tree Cutting Day and Baking JB on Christmas Eve. These two layouts do need a bit more work, a little extra bling or maybe a grungeboard swirl, but who knows when they will come..so here they are for now...

Serendipity..?

Just in case you have just fallen upon my blog, I am part of the LuckySnappingin2013 challenge which is happening over here and this week Anne has asked up to keep an eye or ear open for ...Serendipitous moments!  (and by the way, the challenge is great so far, expanding on our chat and exploring our lives, or homes and our ..heads!)

So.. to Serendipity..
I think the first time I really heard this word was in Sri Lanka in 1982 when I spent almost 4 weeks there travelling about. I went with a boyfriend (later to be my first husband, Ross & Lisa's Dad); I had just finished Uni and had worked the season in a hotel to save up.  Funny really, it must have been a bit like when kids go travelling now, but it wasn't quite backpacking. We travelled cheap on minibuses and third class trains but wanted to stay in nicer accomodation than you would expect students to stay in....he was working so he didn't really get the student thing (he never did really, even when I was studying... I think it is how offshore workers regarded tax dodging 'students' (in the voice of the Hardware cast..if you ever saw that series!) ) and really it was just an extended holiday.

Well the word was used to descibe the whole island, like a jewel dropped into the ocean just off India, the gorgeous sun and the blue blue seas and that lush vegetation... you can imagine it was an amazing unexpected discovery for many as the found the island for the first time...

..this is what I found on Wikipaedia ...  
The name stems from Serendip, an old name for Sri Lanka (aka Ceylon),  Serendipity means a "happy accident" or "pleasant surprise"; specifically, the accident of finding something good or useful while not specifically searching for it. The word has been voted one of the ten English words hardest to translate in June 2004 by a British translation company.^[1] However, due to its sociological use, the word has been exported into many other languages.

  Many years later in 2004 I had a similar but stronger feeling when we visited Kuramathi for the first time.  Life with five children, grandparents to think about and a business to run had been quite hectic and at last we had taken a holiday away, just us and the kids. Now two of them were teens and not home too much, not very chatty and plenty of fetching and carrying..... one of them even came home about an hour before we left for the airport!

So there we were, heading for a remote island, no teen taxi calls, no cooking, no driving, no work demands to juggle with the school run or teatime... we walked off the boat onto a baking hot wooden jetty and all we had imagined disappeared with the reality of it being there, right in front of us, stepping into the postcard paradise for real!!!

The overwhelming heat, the intense bright sunshine and oh that crystal water and fish you had only seen in miniature in a fishtank shop.....all naturally ocurring and ours for two whole weeks.

I was speechless, almost tearful at the relief of the change in routine, the escape from the stresses we had built up over about five years of hard slog... and an hour later as I stood in the shade of the palm trees and subconsciously counted each of my children, ticking off the virtual boxes in my mind as I must have done daily for many years (and for sure I still do.. just logging in my head where every one of them is.. this week it is when I have missed our Zac, noting as I come downstairs each morning that he is not in his room, that the door is open again all night..)
.. that moment seeing all my children together swimming, in one place, no demands, nothing to make us leave the moment.. that was and is still is a serendipity moment for me.

But, back to the reality of mizzley Cornish January (to be fair there have been pockets of blue sky, but not pockets you could store many handfuls of pebbles in mind you)...how has today given me some (not quite so momentous ) but still nicely warming moments?... I shall list them..

• ..the Tremeloes singing 'Silence is Golden' as I drove to collect Kate.
• ..buying a meal for two for ten pounds at M&S, adding veg and ice cream and stretching it to feed three, almost four and feeling like we were having a real treat!
• .. spending the evening with the kids, JB making jewelry (will her creativity just sit still for one!), Kate exercising and showing me snippets of a nice routine combining the pole exercise with old gym and acrobatics, Ross just hanging out.. and doing the dishes (ohh the pleasure that gave me!)
• ..watching a part of David Attenborough's Africa where an elephant mother refused to leave her dying calf, being glad we were human and that someone invented penicillin
• ..and last night watching the opening episodes of Gavin & Stacey with two kids who like it too and no husband who is only watching it because he knows I just love it! (sweet guy x)
• ...oh and having a lovely comment about my ramblings from my pal Yvonne... thank you hun x

Here are the Tremeloes for those who may love that memory too.. it was probably one of the first songs I loved, my brother being eleven years older was well into pop and I was only six.. 

We used to have to put his radio on the pelmet to get a decent reception .. and if his favourites came on I would bang on the wall under his bedroom to let him know.. sad, but true.. wonder if he remembers.. always the kid sister huh! xx

Where's the week going?

I can hardly remember yesterday and now Tuesday is almost done!

The weekend was nice and long feeling as I took quite a bit of Friday off to mind the girls while M&D went to the hospital. all's going well and this time next week we should have some news.. it is very odd to know the day the baby will arrive, unless of course it is a gymnast and going to surprise us all with a double somersault and a revert to natural birth!

Lyla has been over today, getting used to being away from Mum a bit, and everyone here loves her.  She is almost talking but quite shy at times and intruiged with the 'Cat'  If I am holding her and he walks by when we are outside her legs and hands tighten around me.. her protector I guess.

Jordan came home and took some pics of her, she laid on the floor and Lyla sat beside her, copying her leg movements and just hanging out with her... I only took these on my phone but like the movement in JB's wave and Lyla's legs!

Oh, and by the way, in case anyone was wondering Jordan has stopped blogging. She has had a lot on and didn't want to make it so intermittent, hopefully she will pick it up again once she has done these A's and she is on her life's journey! ;-)

I am quietly waiting for my 'Serendipity' moment as mentioned in Anne's challenge this week here .. it will catch me unawares I hope and I will grin!  Col is away with his Dad for a few days, work and some medical stuff., but last night he laughed out loud at me... I was just going to bed and said I had a sore throat..'that old fashioned kind of sore throat... the kind you used to have when you were at school', I said..

Frowning at me, he asked what on earth I meant.. 'well you know, swollen glands, a sore place in your neck, not your throat, like you were fighting something off ' I told him,

Omigod he said... only you could be so retro that you have an old-school sore throat..

Well, I knew what I meant...!

Picking My Precious..

Well it's definitely a blogging Sunday. Catching up on my view(s) for January to kick start the LuckySnapping challenge and now joining in with Sian's Story Telling Sunday here! It's a great idea and this year we are finding our most precious keepsakes and story telling around them.

So I set off for my special places.. a few drawers and little boxes in our chest of drawers. I pondered a few items and finally I knew which was my most cherished item.  There are lots of things I would be sad to lose, but this is the one I would be bereft if I lost...My Mum's engagement ring complete with a little brocade box in a heart shape which she always kept it in.

We were talking this morning about the tradition that you should spend three months salary on an engagement ring... yeah right! Somehow I think that should be filed away with the same box of things like not living together or having children before you are married..it just seems outdated for the 21st Century.

But way back in the 1940's it must have been such a big deal to get engaged and then plan the wedding and live together for the first time.

For Mum it meant leaving her Mum and her brother and sister (both older), leaving her Mum who had been suddenly widowed nine years earlier and moving down to the cove to live with dad .. and his Dad.. mmm, from what I hear maybe not the most special aspect of the deal!  (My Grandad was a bit of a miserable old thing, didn't take very kindly to my Mum doing his washing and generally making life a bit more homely and comfortable, you know sometimes you just can't help some people!)

Mum & Dad married in 1946 and her wedding ring was 22carat but only had '22CT' stamped inside it twice, no Hallmark, apparently that was the way just after the war (?)

She believed you should never take it off and in 1955 she had to have it taken off to have an operation and the first thing she asked for when she came round was her ring (now thy tape them over I think..)

Once married the engagement ring was a special occasion item and Mum only wore it when she was going out.. in fact as a child I remember coming home and asking her where she had been as she was wearing her ring.   After 23 years of marriage dad died and I think Mum wore her ring more, less working on the land and risk of losing it I suppose.  

Then in 1973 when she remarried she gave me both the rings. I have worn the wedding ring ever since, so it has been on her or my finger every day since December 1946 and you know, it is still a perfect circle, never dented or bent even with the lives we have led.  The engagement ring had become very thin on the underside so I only wore it on special occasions myself, usually to bring me luck in exams and I guess it did!  It's kind of cute too because it is very very simple and really a reflection of the life and times of the post war years..

.. so there we are, my most precious and not much of a story but a nice memory.. I wonder where they will go next..!

(and you know, that Jewellers, EJ Hutchens in Penzance is still there in Causewayhead, our cousin Penny used to work there in 1970's and now it is called Spiegelhalters, but I reckon lots of it is just the same.)

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

January Week 1: Sofa view!!

I was feeling quite strange this morning with no prompt to peek at. The computer was on.. what should I look at ?.. most odd .... only goes to show just what a habit 365+1 days worth of peeking has done to us all!    Doesn't Tesco make a special offer last 21 days to make us buy things and form a habit.. so I gues us 365ers are here to stay..maybe we should call these our 52weekers!

So, it was a late night and then a late morning.. lovely! This afternoon we took ourselves off to St Ives with Zac, Jordan was at work and it was 'banging' in almost every restaurant in town.. people everywhere, like a summer day, even surfing kids in the water, but boy my ears were cold and it was wintery .. and does Col or Zac look remotely summery!

We ate out and then came home to a few chores in readiness for work tomorrow, a bit of TV and a brainwave!  Here it is, one of my chosen views for the year... the sofa in my sitting room.. usually Col & I are in residence in our Stressless sofa, poor old timers with our backs..but today Zac & Kate were playing MarioCart.. and I thought the pic would be good, after all the Xmas decs and stuff will change over the year won't they.. and if friends or relatives come by they can be in my 12 pictures!


January Sofa View!