Crazy child...

We ain't been up to much...

...just pottering around the house & garden.

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Blanket Love 2

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As I've said before, he really does love this thing!

The first and coldest excursion

Right, this is as far back as I'm going.

There's something very special about being far enough away from [too much] civilisation that you can stand still and hear your own heart beating in your chest more loudly than anything but the [freezing cold] wind whistling past your ears. I never used to appreciate the dampened quiet of the countryside, but now I'm kind of addicted!

With this in mind and wanting to explore the Peak District more, we planned our first trip of the year (with all of the children). We chose the Manifold Valley as our destination which boasts a disappearing river and a cave (Thor's Cave to be precise and it's up a bloody cliff!) The date of this bold first walk? 20th February. Brr. 

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We're pretty organised people as a rule, but we learned a lot from this trip. Much of it is *slap forehead for not thinking of it already* type stuff, but hey; it is sometimes stressful when the girls arrive for the weekend and we just want to LEAVE THE HOUSE. Here are a few items we can now tick off our mental list of stuff to bear in mind for future trips.

• Lesson one: check weather where you are going. Just because it's sunny and mild where you are DOES NOT MEAN IT IS WHERE YOU ARE GOING! 
• Lesson two: locate on O.S. map where you are going and remember how to read grid references BEFORE YOU GO! 
• Lesson three: take hats/scarves/gloves/thermals for the small people because they feel the cold more quickly and savagely than you. 
• Lesson four: check baby changing facilities at the pub where you plan to eat lunch at prior to arrival. 
• Lesson five: do not feed your son a ridiculous quantity of cherries the day before planned expedition unless you have learned lesson four.

All that aside, as well as: the greyness, the sheer drops on parts of the route, the squelchy muddiness for the duration, the temperature that had brass monkeys talking nervously amongst themselves and the seemingly never ending uphill climbs, it was enjoyed by the majority! Did we mention there was snow? THERE WAS SNOW!

We're pleased that we made sure everyone had proper walking footwear and coats (without these we wouldn't have made it out of the car!) We did also remember to pack a deck of cards which kept the girls entertained while we waited for our food. Coincidentally, this was Aoife's favourite of the walks we've done so far making it, by default, Roisin's least favourite.

Hindsight is a glorious thing and has served us well on trips made since then. AND NOW IT'S NOT WINTER ANYMORE WOOOOOH!

Rain + wellies = happy boy

20 months today!

He certainly is!

Writing about someone/thing regularly is like when you see a person everyday; you don't always notice the changes you would if you only saw them periodically. Being able to go back and look through these pages to see what Isaac was doing a certain amount of time ago is truly great. I've never kept a written record of anything for this long; sure we take photographs and smile when we flick through them, but to see, in black and white, your own words describing sensations and emotions from events past is really quite special. I'm so grateful that it is so easy these days to keep loved ones up to date with things they may not otherwise hear about entirely, proven by Nanna's many trips away and Grandad's recent four month trip to India (from which he has now safely returned - welcome back Grandad!)

Seven weeks ago Isaac was walking confidently at home, but not so well out and about. Now he's off! Everywhere! Properly! When he wants to go faster he does this funny forward lean that reminds me a little of Good Robot Bill & Ted. He much prefers walking over being carried, but still asks to be carried occasionally. It's (understandably) usually when he's tired or unsure of somewhere. We use the hip seat more than the carrier now, preferring it for its ease in getting Isaac on & off quickly while he's transitioning to independence. We still use the carrier for long periods, e.g.: our walk on Dartmoor; we used it successfully on my back for the first time then too. Now he's bigger the back position seems to feel better than it did before. Hip position still dubious.

We made the decision to not use reigns: we are fortunate that much of our outdoor high street is pedestrianised and that many of the pavements in town are wide. Isaac doesn't like walking along side busy roads too much yet; he doesn't really run off or make us chase him when we're out (give it time, you say) and he knows to stay close to us so the idea of them seemed a bit redundant. He's developed the kid thing of walking into people's paths which I guess I did and you did and every child that's learning to walk tall in the world does. Most people aren't bothered by it which is nice.

The major development has been his words and little phrases. It's all very exciting! He's been babbling Isaac speak for months and months and month and his grown up words have been brewing for a while, but now they're tumbling out of his little mouth! Shoes! I wan s-tory! Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii! (Rinny - possibly his favourite word) Am fiiiiished! (I'm finished) Nanny! Daddy! Mummy! Byyyyyyyyyyyye! No! Mmmm! (yes) Brush teeeee! (brush teeth) Fish! (thank you Tracey :-D) Toast! House! Down! Out! Door! Obviously the babbling continues which is just too cute, but it's lovely to hear him use grown up words to help him understand us.

A few miscellanea:

Nap times are still settling. Until today, for about two or three months, Isaac has had only one, two hour day time nap either before or after lunch which has been fine. Today he's had a morning nap of about three hours, but I'm not convinced he'll last until bedtime! What is it they say? A well rested baby sleeps better at night than a tired one? We shall see...again.

He has started to gingerly climb out of his car seat on his own.

He found his nose the other day. Delightful!

I had my first night away from Isaac four weeks ago when I went to stay with a friend in London. It was all good and nothing went wrong, not did either of us feel anxious about it at all. Win!

Isaac is now officially dog biscuit giver. No complaints from Rinny since the hand over.

He likes to flash his belly at us! It's so funny and he knows it's funny which makes it even funnier!

He's had his first proper haircut.

We've abandoned snacks completely. I'm not really sure why we included them in his daily eating regime, other than the girls have always had them and our HV said we should. However, we get on better without them. The End. (©RR)

On the whole things are going well right now (phew!) The sun has been shining lots which keeps us outdoors and busy. Isaac continues to make us chuckle and smile regularly and helping him learn about his world is staggeringly brilliant!

We're all really looking forward to summer; winter seemed awfully long this year. We've got lots of things planned so I'm sure it'll fly by at a rate of knots. The kids (and us if we're honest) can't wait for this year's Just So Festival. It'll be totally different now Isaac is walking and he'll be two weeks shy of his second birthday. Hopefully some other festivals too, if finances prove favourable, and definitely some camping, barbecues, visits with friends and days out in general thrown in for good measure.

A less cold excursion

I told you I was going backwards. 

In our bid to get out of the city together regularly we've been walking out in't Derbyshire countryside. Our first complete family walk in the Peak District was...er...cold...to say the least. But that's another story. With the days becoming longer and lighter and with wind the chill factor being not so down right bloody freezing, about six weeks ago (late March) we decided to try again. This time we chose a shorter, flatter route that we had walked before, was closer to home and had more interesting bits for the (Roisin) Bean. So off we set with our packed lunch to Stanton Moor which is home to the Nine Ladies Stone Circle.

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Looking back on these images and having just been to Dartmoor, it's quite remarkable how the terrain and flora differ in the two places. I know that we're further into spring now and that Stanton Moor is considerably further north, but Derbyshire moors seem so bleak and barren when compared with Dartmoor and Bodmin Moor. I guess for me, West Country moors are what I remember from my late teens/early twenties so I use them as my point of reference for greatness, although it will be nice to come back here in the summer to see if my opinion changes.

Coincidentally, Aoife wasn't such a fan of this walk as it wasn't "uphill enough". Gotta strike a balance somewhere!

First signs of summer

Continuing the remembrance of the past month and a half, some pictures and memories from about three weeks ago. 

Once the clocks have sprung forward, the difference in evening light is virtually instant and it's really lovely that the children can play outside for longer. Which they do, at every available opportunity.

I love that they all play so well together!

One of the girls' favourite questions when it's sunny is: "can we have the sprinkler out...pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease?" Up until a few weeks ago it's been sunny, but with just enough chill in the wind for us not to agree, much to their dismay. But with the arrival of the first really warm and sunny weekend, who were we to refuse two very excited small people? When he awoke from his nap, Isaac wasn't so sure and preferred to watch from a safe distance.

And finally, my favourite picture from that afternoon.

I hope you all enjoyed the start of the warm weather!

Long time no blog

Well, it's been a while - about a month & a half actually! So what's been happening then? I might do this backwards so I can get the freshest stuff out of my brain and then think about before that...

Last week (over the Easter break) The Family Turn went to Devon for a much needed break from routine and stayed in a family residence just far enough away from Torquay (not that I don't like Torquay, but it's nice to be out where it's green for a change...and away from the grockles teehee!). The weather was glorious for the first five days and not that bad at all for the last two, especially considering it was April.

We went to the beach twice. The first time we went to scope it out as we hadn't visited that particular cove before and, true to form, Roisin "accidentally fell in the sea a little bit" and got drenched! She loved it though, they all did. We forgot to take the camera both times though. Boo! We did other stuff like visiting the nearby Babbacombe Model Village and Kent's Cavern.

The pictures of the model village really don't do it justice, the detail & humour were truly magnificent. The kids absolutely loved it, particularly the fire breathing dragon which induced squeals of delight! There was even a Royal Wedding procession - the most we saw of it in-fact!

We're always looking for ways to get us all out into the countryside. Being down in the West Country made this even easier than being at home what with the beautiful as it is remote Dartmoor being on our doorstep. Don't get me wrong, we get our fair share of moans and groans beforehand from the small people, but the overall experience is positive and Aoife particularly loves this kind of excursion. In-fact it seems the more challenging (i.e. uphill) the walk, the more she likes it! Rosh is (as always) the complete opposite, preferring short flat walks. HOWEVER. How can anyone fail to recognise such astounding natural beauty? And on such a  glorious day too.

Thank goodness for Ordnance Survey maps though, seriously. I love A-Zs for regular A to B driving, but deepest, darkest Dartmoor driving requires proper detail thanks very much! Kudos to my Dad for helping me out when I was wee. All those trips in his van following our route and recognising landmarks have obviously sunk in! Although it didn't stop the back seat driver comments "is this the right way?" "are you sure you know where you're going?" etc. Hmm.

We saved our trip to Paignton Zoo for Friday when my Mum and our friends Mark & Angie had arrived. I'm not a big fan of zoos, I remember being particularly upset at the National Zoo in Washington D.C. seeing the animals pace the same worn trail again and again. However, Paignton Zoo is more committed than most to conservation and breeding programmes in both the U.K. and overseas and the majority of the animals seem happy enough.

On our last full day we went over to Brixham. The original plan was to take the ferry across Torbay, but something to do with swells over on the other side of the bay meant we drove instead which worked out well nap-wise for Isaac. We'd found out (that morning) on the Brixham website that it was going to be the first day of the Pirate Festival and we weren't sure what to expect, but it was brilliant! There were pirates from all over the country making an appearance and really just wanted to arrrr! at people and be piratey; especially on camera. A nice chap was letting people hold his African Grey parrot. (I was relieved that his wings weren't clipped, rather he was wearing a little harness almost like the one we use for Rinny.)

Perhaps the best trip we made was to the House of Marbles near Bovey Tracey. I always forget how much is there! There are several small museums as well as a working glass factory with two skilled glass blowers, a restaurant serving really lovely food, an outside area with different marble related games and an enormous shop selling all manner of traditional toys and games, books, clothes, things made in the factory etc. and of course marbles. Admission is free and we all had a brilliant time! Definitely enough to fill one morning and lunch after. Highly recommended.

So that's what we did with the time afforded us by various Bank Holidays and religious holidays. Here's wishing you all a rather belated Happy Easter!

P.S.: Credit to Simon for photos. Demanding son = no photography for Mummy :-(