Skip to main content

Catching up

I know some of you appreciate the family news I post on here, so here's a quick summary of what each of us has been up to over the last couple of months.


Toby


- went to his first Cubs meeting on a night when they were eating hot dogs and marshmallows, loved it, and was very proudly invested as a member just before Christmas.



- spends his spare time writing stories, designing vehicles, and playing Super Mario Bros.



- has a large collection of beer bottle caps (any donations welcome, as his primary provider was an ex-work-colleague of Graham's).



- plucked up courage to go on a zipwire at the playground, and discovered it was great fun.



- enjoyed Lego, lots of books, penguin pajamas and a remote control car for Christmas.



Theo


- likes playing on the bikes and in the home corner at school.



- is now right at home with phonics: "I can spell cat!  Cuh, Ah, Tuh."  He's also been telling us about digraphs, at which point Graham and I nod enthusiastically and give each other bemused looks over Theo's head.  All this was out of fashion when we were at school.

- was a very cheerful king in his nativity play.



- enjoyed a new scooter, a car racing track, a chef's hat and apron, and colouring pencils for Christmas.


- is constantly asking how many days it is till his 5th birthday (not long now...)


Graham



- started a full-time management role at a company where he's been working part time for a while.  There's a lot to do but he feels like it's going well.  (Apparently some customers have already commented on the improvements he's made!)

- spent a weekend in Scotland being support crew for a guy cycling in a mountain-bike endurance race.  18 hours driving and 2 nights in a camper van in freezing temperatures sounded like too much endurance for me!  (Read the story here)

- discovered the enormous Sutton Park in Sutton Coldfield, so we went for a visit and explored one small corner of it.



Martha




- enjoyed escaping from the kitchen over Christmas - we went to visit Graham's family and then my parents, so we did all of the driving and none of the catering this year!

- thought everyone was going to be trying to slim their waistlines and fatten their wallets in January, so has been surprised that the cafe is actually quite busy.  Bacon and eggs never seem to go out of fashion.


- spent the morning of her birthday taking sons to swimming lessons, playdates and soft play parties, but then got taken out for a delicious Italian meal in the evening (another of Graham's discoveries).


- has much longer hair than she has done for a while, but no good photos of it yet.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Sounds like the family are all flourishing and well. I hope you might come and visit in Cairns Road Baptist church in 2019. We have room here to put up the family. Emma Caldwell and family

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...

Erewash Valley Trail: Strelley and Broxtowe

I'd had another four-week gap between walks (who invented half terms and inset days?), and was itching to get out on my explorations. The weather forecast optimistically predicted sunny spells. Unfortunately the weather hadn't got the memo; it was overcast for my entire walk, and then the sky cleared as I was driving home. Oh well. I arrived at the Nottingham Canal to find bulldozers buzzing up and down the towpath. The car park I'd intended to park in was closed for renovation, but there was a layby a little further up the road towards Cossall, so that was fine. The first part of the road had nice wide verges - easy walking - but after the canal bridge it was called Dead Lane, which felt descriptive. It was tightly hemmed in by hedges and I had to flatten myself against the hawthorn when cars passed. Cossall Road Dead Lane The bridleway to Strelley was mostly paved road, but blessedly traffic-free apart from a couple of bikes and a bin lorry performing manoeuvres. Tim Brin...

The Churnet Way: a wonderful walk

The loop from Oakamoor to Froghall and back was one of the most enjoyable walks I've done in a long time. It had a bit of everything: woods, ponds, rivers and railways; steep climbs and sweeping views; an unusual church, an ex-industrial wharf, and, as a final bonus, car parks with toilets. Of course, the sunny weather helped too. I parked in Oakamoor and set off along a quiet lane called Stoney Dale. This is the route of the Churnet Way, which deviates away from the river for a couple of miles. After a while I turned right and climbed up through the woods on a gravelly path, then dropped down to the B5417. a spring in Oakamoor   Crossing the road, I entered Hawksmoor Nature Reserve. It has some fine gateposts commemorating John Richard Beech Masefield, "a great naturalist". I found a photo of the opening of the gateway in 1933; unsurprisingly, the trees have grown a lot since then! A track took me down through the woods to East Wall Farm. Lovely view! Nice duck pond as ...