New Voyage

We had an awesome Christmas! It was just really relaxed and cosy and we ticked off pretty much all the seasonal 'it's not Christmas until we-' things on our list... we even saw A Muppets Christmas Carol on the big screen this year as the Cinema was showing it in the week leading up to Christmas, so that was nice. We're yet to clear the decorations. We always leave them up till Epiphany as that's when my family come round. That's this Saturday. This week Papacrow is back to work and Roo is back to college but otherwise nothing else - school, ballet, football and the like- starts till next week.

Well, I say that. Fluff's football starts tomorrow but I'm working so can't take him, Karate starts on Saturday but as I said my family is coming round so I don't know if we'll fit it in and we went to our Home Ed meet in a wood today. It would be easier to say 'Forest School' but it really isn't a forest school so I'm trying to get out of the habit! It was a nice meet, small but we had fun. A bit wet and drippy in the woods so we utilized the (heated!) hut and played Dungeons & Dragons. I was a halfling thief called Jasmine, Dot was an elven archer called Rose and Fluff was a elven ranger called Gareth. (I do love his character names, they always seem to make me giggle somehow!)

Also did a whole lot of tidying out and sorting today, I'm tackling the attic this week (eeek!) and Wig has a partial CT scan for his teeth on Wednesday. Missing our lazy days of no-one waking until till nine or ten and staying in fluffy pajamas all day already...

Windy day

The seasons are inescapably turning here. Despite the fact it's still officially summer until the solstice, summer is definitely over. Jumpers are required for a start, sometimes even coats- though admittedly more for the rain than for the cold.

Conkers are in the park. We're blessed with a great many horse chestnut trees... it's a square really, originally belonging to the adjacent Victorian houses and the Victorians did like their trees! The place is stuffed full of them, including a truly splendid copper beech but it's the horse chestnuts we gather under now, scanning about bent over almost double, searching for small, brown, shiny objects or, even better, prickly green cases to stamp on and liberate the contents. They are still white and soft in places but there are plenty of ready ones to find if only you look carefully and it's almost impossible not to, to seek them out and start a collection is simply irresistible.

Mind you, not that we play conkers in this house. It's not banned, exactly, although one particular person is banned for life for getting waaaaay too competitive.... *cough* Papacrow *cough*