Skip to main content

Stretching out

As I mentioned in my last post, we visited Stowe Gardens for the second time this month.  We remembered that we'd taken a particular photo of Toby on our last visit, so we recreated it this time.  Scrolling through our photo archives, I discovered that the original was taken almost a year ago, in September 2015.  Are you ready for this?

Last year

This year
Who stretched Toby?  I knew he was growing, of course - after all, I've been the one who had to keep buying him new school uniform - but it really brings it home to see the evidence like this.

His first year at school has stretched him out in so many other ways, too.  He has made his first close friends and gained in lots of confidence.  It's been wonderful to see him stepping into new situations, asking new questions, and acquiring new skills.  He still gets scared when he has to try something for the first time, but he's gained the courage to admit it and do it anyway - and then he's so proud of himself!

We're proud of him too, so I hope you'll forgive me a little moment of rhapsodizing over my biggest-and-getting-even-bigger boy.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go and sew some labels in yet more school uniform.  Can't I stretch that, too?
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mr White Watson of Bakewell

Once upon a time, back in 1795 or so, lived a man who was always asking questions.  The kind of questions like, "Why is glass transparent?" or "Why do fruit trees grow better in that place than in this place?" or "What does the earth look like underneath the surface?"  This last question was one that he was particularly interested in, and he went so far as to work out what the rock layers looked like where he lived, and draw little pictures of them.  Now he was a marble sculptor by trade (as well as fossil hunter, mineral seller, and a few other things) so he thought it would be even better to make his little pictures in stone.  That way he could represent the layers using the actual rocks they were composed of.  Over the course of his lifetime he made almost 100 of these tablets, as he called them. Then he died.  And no one else was quite as interested in all those rocks and minerals as he was.  His collection was sold off, bit by bit, and the table...
Post a Comment
Read more

Bradford Cathedral: A marvel in miniature

My family think it's hilarious. I seem to have a gift for finding people who are doing weird and wonderful things. Cycling across all the OS maps in the UK ( Mark Wedgwood ). Going to Rome on a 50cc moped called Rocinante ( Chris Webb) . Walking 3700 miles in Wales to raise awareness of ovarian cancer ( Ursula Martin )  And building a scale model of Bradford Cathedral ( Michael Scott ). Michael Scott's main hobby is constructing an N-scale railway layout of a fictional West Yorkshire town called Chandwell. I forget how I first found his YouTube channel; I think it was shortly before Bradford Cathedral asked if he would turn his talents to producing a model of the building, as part of Bradford's year as City of Culture. He said yes, thinking it would take about nine months. Two years and many fascinating videos later, he finally unveiled the finished artwork at the cathedral. I had to be there. It helped that Graham's sister and brother-in-law live just outside Bradford...
Post a Comment
Read more

Growing things

For those of you who are interested in my attempts at balcony gardening, I thought I'd update you a little. For those who aren't, don't skip this post. You may find something else of interest. Apart from the ever-present herbs, tomatoes and cayenne peppers are on the go this year. The peppers are really on the go - we went away for a week and came back to find them twice the size as when we left. Now they're producing fruit which is growing at a similarly rapid rate, though none has ripened to red yet. I realised I should have given you some kind of scale, so I just went out and measured. They're about 22 cm long, or 8 1/2 inches for you non-metric types. I may have to find out how to dry peppers if they all ripen at once. A couple of tomato plants are looking pretty healthy and beginning to flower. A few died; one, apparently, by being eaten whole by a bird, a trouble I've never had before. I had two seedlings left so used those as replacements, b...
2 comments
Read more