HiddenSo, that felt like a busy weekend - though I keep telling Kevin, we only did two things all weekend. However, one was a wedding, and they do take it out of one.
It was a lovely wedding. The bride was beautiful, the guest list was full of old friends, the kids coped, and apart from a heart-stopping moment when Henry pushed his high-chair away from the table, and it tipped over backwards, it all went very well (he’s fine - Carys Groves grabbed him, and more or less saved him from cracking his head on the floor - he still hit the floor, but his fall was broken).
On Sunday, we were part of a family service at church. Our church finds family services a bit alien, but I think we pulled it off. We did a dramatic reading of the story of Zacchaeus, and a sort of obstacle race, amongst other things, and still managed to have a ministry time and Serious Meeting With God at the end. Though, the way our church is at the moment, I think that could happen at a Knobbly Knees Contest.
It was heading for 11pm before we got our kids into bed on Saturday (and even then, we left straight after the speeches!), and we couldn’t have a lie-in on Sunday morning, so we took the rest of yesterday very gently indeed!
Is it better to:
a) tell them you don’t use electricity
b) say “we’ve got all the electricity we need. we’ve ran out of places to put it”
because saying I don’t care/change on the doorstep/believe you doesn’t work.
Daisy asks “What’s a company?”
This is a surprisingly hard question to answer - especially at 6:45am. Just think how do you explain the concept of companies to an articulate three year old? come to think of it, how do explain the concept to anyone? I obviously got it wrong, we then moved on to “what is a neighbourhood” which seemed slightly easier to answer but wasn’t where we started.
At tea time I asked Daisy what she had learnt today: “I have learnt that it is hard to be nice to your little brother or sister, when you having visitors and you are excited about them coming to your house”
being the in the cultural capital of Europe has up until now, been something you could be forgiven for thinking was all about big adverts covering derelict buildings, at 60s music acts singing at football staduims, but since last monday there has been a new cultural event in town. goSuperlambbananas is a simple enough idea get a load of 1/3 size casts made of the superlambbanana give them to local artists to do with what they want, then put them all around Liverpool.
The result is 127 superlambbananas all over the place, all different, and the one thing that everyone in Liverpool is talking about; and that’s not just the marketing “everyone” it really is. on the train, in work and when ever you see anyone they talk about the superlambbananas.
I did a little lambbanana hunt on Friday and took a load of piccies, and today after lunch we did a drive by lambbanana hunt (for daisy honest). I have yet to see a lambbanana that didn’t have at least one other person taking photos of it. Driving through town is actually quite dangerous because every other car will randomly stop so someone can take a picture.
you can see all of my LambBanana piccies on flickr
Yellow Submarine sculpture,
Liverpool
Yesterday, Daisy learned about the Beatles. We were driving back from Yellow Sub (which is the name of the soft play), and she asked me why it was called Yellow Sub. So we talked about the Beatles, and the fact that they came from Liverpool, but were famous all over the world, and that one of their songs was about a Yellow Submarine. Then I had to sing it. Then I had to stop the car to look for the CD, so she could hear THEM singing it (she didn’t believe that it was as short as I’d made out, though it is). By then, we were nearly home, and the same CD played Penny Lane just as we turned the corner onto Penny Lane, so we talked about how they wrote a song about a road near our house - she knows where Penny Lane is, so she was quite impressed.
I love conversations like that. I love introducing her to a whole new world, which she may be only casually interested in, or she she may equally take it on as part of her identity. It’s all part of her becoming the person she’s going to be, and I find it fascinating.
Daisy is feeling a little let down by the man who looks after the flats. He said it never rains on the Isle of Wight, something which upto today was holding true. We’ve had blue skies for the whole week. yesterday had some cloud but it was still sunny enough for us to be covered in suncream.
Overnight it rained, and the outlook for today says it might rain this afternoon. Just now we’ve got moody sea under gray clouds; there is an increasingly large patch of blue so it might still be another fab day.
Yesterday was the obligatory middle of the holiday flake out. at one point Henry, Ruth and me where all asleep - it lasted until daisy finished her yogurt; then she jumped on me and I was awake. I might have told Daisy that i was a nocturnal teacher during a game of school - and we drove to freshwater mainly because it’s a forty minute drive and we where trying to trick them to sleep.
One of the reasons for the tiredness was all the walking on Tuesday we walked the cliffs from woody bay to the botanical gardens. Daisy walked all the way, and told us she had ran out of banana energy quite a lot, until she saw the playground at the end of the walk, where she found some magical playground energy.
Another reason for being tired is the 5am starts. We still haven’t quite worked out why, but Henry is waking up almost on the dot of 5 every day. we are taking turns with the lye-ins so we swap the role of noughty parent daily.
OK now it’s blue skies and sunny - So I’m going to go and take the same photo I’ve taken for the last 6 days.
it’s day 5, 4 or 2 of our holiday depending on how you count it.
So far we’ve done pretty much everything, the weather has been so nice that - not wanting to miss anything - we’ve ran around the bits of the island that you always want to make sure you’ve ticked off.
Friday - we travelled down to Portsmouth and stayed at the Rinaldi’s house. night-time travelling yet again easing the journey, although Henry didn’t take well to being woken up and then asked to sleep again, we are considering doing the return trip late evening and stopping for tea.
Saturday - nice lazy morning, followed by a short trip to the ferry. being out of school holidays it was empty. we took the scenic route across the island very sunny. Daisy really wants to go the seaside, build sandcastles and stand in the sea.
Sunday - really sunny, so we took daisy to the seaside (shanklin) so that she could build sandcastles and stand in the sea. the rest of the day was spent in the garden Daisy made a friend and we just let her run around.
Monday - really sunny, so we ventured into Ventnor, did the shops (although most of them close on a Monday, never understood that). then Ruth took Henry to the Winter Gardens and had tea and Cake while Daisy and Me went the beach to build sandcastles and stand in the sea.
Daisy and Henry are sharing a room, which has gone reasonably well but we were beginning to feel guilty about expecting Daisy to listen to Henry’s 10 minute cry before bed, so I took her for a walk to Woody Bay. I took some pictures and then we threw some stones into the water. a thoroughly nice day.
Tuesday (Today) - really sunny, we will probibly go to the beach, Daisy really wants to build sandcastles and stand in the sea.
