Category Archives: photos

‘Well, that’s smelly bonfire…’

Posted on April 2, 2007 by Daddybean | 9 comments

is what I was thinking as I closed the doors and windows open downstairs. There was a little bit of smoke drifting across the back garden, with a bit of? ‘burning rubber’ smell to it. About 10 or so minutes later, I remembered that the some upstairs windows were open, went up to close them and noticed the smoke was coming from ttowards the front of the house, along with a couple of popping/cracking noises.

It turned out to be this across the road from us:

Realized that our car was parked on the road almost opposite, so although I thought it’d be ok, I got it back on the drive pronto.

Soon put out by the firebrigade off course:

From what I gather so far – I’ll probably get the full story in the bakers tomorrow, the occupants (an elderly couple by the looks of it) were just driving along and it caught fire.

A bit dramatic for round here.

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Posted in General, photos

Hunstanton

Posted on March 23, 2007 by HHaricot | 1 comment

well, the weather was MUCH better than we had been led to believe! OK, so it was quite a bit windy – particularly Tuesday! and it was hailstormy, but…

We had a lovely time, thanks to Nic and Ady for organising it. SB ran around having fun, BB is a total camp baby now, and I hardly saw her [unless she wanted something...]. SHe did enjoy playing with Josie, J and R. Fran also played with her – mostly chase!

The Sealife place was good too – with SB just about holding a crab. BB would probably have held it and then pulled it apart. SB raved around, but did make a good stab at reading many of the boards, and enjoyed the variety. some how we missed the pregnant seahorses – which is All My Fault! She carefully chose how to spend her holiday money – on some sweets which she shared out very generously, and good book on a shipwreck which was a bargain price. Also a ring – which fairly quickly broke, and I have the pieces to try and fix.

We had 2 good blustery sea walks. The first on the Tuesday, Chris and BB had to turn back as it was too windy and ‘owy upside’ for BB. SB and I carried on and splashed briefly in the waves before retuning to the hostel for hot chocolate. The second we were joined by puddles and SOTP, and was far less blustery. we got to see jelly fish and a starfish, and some very weird tiny springs coming up in the sand! Also a man digging up lugworms who SB very bravely asked him what he was doing, and declined to believe the answer of harvesting potatoes!

We did sneak some educational resources in there – I even have a piccie of Ady looking at a Latin scheme – with Nic disapproving in the background! I liked the lingua angelica , and may get that, but prob wouldn’t use the lovely latina christiana source, because… however, may see what I can remember about cambridge university press – maybe get a book from the library. I enjoyed it, and I liked learning about caecilius and roman ife in Pompeii. I am worried it might be to ‘formal and difficult’. Obviously, not a hurried concern as next resources time is next jan! on the ed front, SB read every evening to me, and is really enjoying it.

However, since that wasn’t in the spirit of NicCamps [rofl!] we also ate cakes, drank tea and a small amount of wine. i cooked a yummy curry [oops, cauliflower and chickpeas in it - not Nic Camps]. Anyway, thanks again for Nic as the grand organiser and Ady as best man! Thanks also to Em for raising the abr way high in hairstyles for children! SB is desperate for Merry’s landlock game as soon as she stocks it! BB is on a cake and frips [sic] high, and reluctant to return to normal eating.

Oh, and SB wants a DS!

And photo’s will increase as they trickle onto flickr!

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Posted in art and crafts, Books, Butterbean, Cooking, General, geography, literacy, Out and About, photos, science, socialisation

Happy mother’s day all out there

Posted on March 18, 2007 by HHaricot | Leave a comment

today we went and said happy mother’s day to little nanny, and she was thrilled. The weather has been interesting! She taught SB how to play rummy – and SB was delighted. The lasagne went down a trick. She loved the card from SB, but chris packing cards forgot to take BB’s. I think she was just thrilled to see us though. Both girls were mostly delightful – as always.

its a long old day for me though, with a good drive either side, and the keeping both girls at perky best, not putting sticky fingers anywhere [although they are fed chocolate and icecream!] without seeming too manic and making them unhappy! Cooking, washing up and being a full prairie muffin dervish [so not me!]

But it is all worth it, Little Nanny totally delighted – has already rang a number of family members to tell them full details, and I love seeing her, and whats more, she is sooooo much better than this time last year. She has even got into town and back [though won't in the snow - I left her with provisions!]

on an educational front – we discussed – watermeadows, ditches, canals, draingage, ploughing and sowing, use of polythene and polytunnels, cathedrals and multiplication of time differences between driving at 60 and walking at 4! SB has read to Nanny there and me at home. And learnt rummy! It was also lovely having 3 of us singing baa baa black sheep et all on the drive as went in car with no stereo [or anything!]. SB also gave me a lovely card at Little Nanny’s – all written [and spelled] by herself. will photo and flickr – aahh.

“We are tidying, we are tidying..”

Posted on March 17, 2007 by Daddybean | 2 comments

Could do with the Mice? from Bagpuss, to sing songs and help us out since that is what we have been mostly doing this week. in particular, as mentioned by Helen, tidying, and reorganising the playroom, which seemed to be disappearing under piles of ‘stuff’, boxes etc. I seemed to have moved most of the books around, organised things to be more accessible. There are now some shelves just for ‘Butterbean’ toys rather than being thrown in a box, which means she does actually now play with them. Also been tidying other places, like spending about 2 hours other day, just putting away piles of clean washing, sorting out the cupboards in the girl’s room – which have loads of space which was mostly filled up with boxes/bags of outgrown/waiting to be grown into clothes.
Basically, things got so messy and disorganised that it’s hindering getting on doing educational stuff, either you can’t find things, or you can’t face getting something out and adding to the chaos, or it just sits there praying on your brain as it needs doing or you end up doing a bit of sorting out or tidying, instead of doing stuff with the kids, but not enough to make an impact – it needed a concerted effort. Yes I know we have plenty of space and storage space, but that just means you can put off things for longer…..

So still things to do, but much improved.

So abandoned attempts to do much ed stuff really, some maths, reading here and there about this and that. As part of the maths stuff on money, SB did a shop the other day, priced up somethings, including putting barcodes on them,

then I had to buy things and she gave me the change. Realized when she had done it that we haven’t really done decimal addition or subtraction yet which we needed to do to calculate things. We could have done it all in pence, but SB decided she wanted to use the toy till, which has a calculator bit on it, to do them, so she did that, and I explained what the ‘point’ was – or tried to anyway

Today, so far, SB gave me a ballet lesson, SB and BB have made mothers day cards, my parents popped round this morning, and Helen has baked/cooked, assisted in various ways. BB is a real Bob the Builder fan, so to add to the couple of well played videos we have I’ve downloaded a couple BTB things so they’ve been watching some odd thing where they all go off on some sort of Cowboy holiday in America.

Ahh, Helen has been cooking with SB, she has just come in to say the ‘kitchen is all mine’ , which is rather ominous.

I hate kitchens, no sooner do you get it cleaned and tidy, you blink and it’s a disaster zone again. I want two kitchens, one we use and spends most of it’s time messy, the other would be just for going in and enjoying the pleasure of sitting in a nice clean and tidy kitchen. No cooking, or children allowed

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, literacy, numeracy, photos, Stringbean's HE

Invasion of the bobbles

Posted on March 14, 2007 by HHaricot | 7 comments

Well,that was Chris’s cry as he organised the home ed room – there did seem to be rather a lot of them about! In fact, chris has spent most of the day organising and tidying the room [and is still doing it] so 3 cheers for him!

What have we done? well the morning was mostly playing for the girls, running about and having fun. The new violin shoulder rest came through [its a bit big!] but we fiddled it [rofl] and both girls did a violin practice, and I managed to get some nice bow arm movement from SB. We had unearthed some DJ readers level 3 [a long ago book people order] and SB had a go at reading the carnivorous plants book, and she did some education city. We looked at the worms again, and our cress has started to sprout [the only thing sprouting so far. Have read kirsty's gardening blog and feeling well behind again!]. I read a variety of books to BB, and she did handstands while SB did a bit of singapore maths 1B final stretch!
After lunch, I distracted BB with playdough, so that SB and I could so a fairy clothespeg dolly from tesco’s. The playdough distracted SB too though, so we didn’t! BB has made a plaster of paris handprint, and we will do SB’s tomorrow or fri perhaps. We did our french conversation, and added in the age again. I know that isn’t really much for language, but still…
We then got out a microscope we had picked up from freecycle and had a play about with it. The lenses aren’t brill, but SB enjoyed messing about, seeing what she could see etc. intended to read greg’s microscope, but didn’t, and BB fell asleep.

With BB asleep, we went and snuggled altogether on the sofa and did some story of the world [it has been ages!] and read about China and the great wall. we also have the great wall of china book from sonlight, and assorted bits from enchanted learning that she has done. We looked at the globe, messed about with our own calligraphy and I change the I am romulus and this is rom to I am chin shen and this is china [said, but she'll remember!] we even compared and contraste with romans, and looked at google earth – took up about 2 hours of interest. I guess this is what it should be like all the time!

With BB then awake, we did tidying and had a chippery tea. Girls had a bath, and more britannia and ORT for SB bedtime, but BB still up and about due to 2 hours of sleep before! Other than that, both girls have been singing around the house, dancing and generally being lovely [mostly!]

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, General, geography, history, language, literacy, music, numeracy, photos

One day…….

Posted on March 9, 2007 by Daddybean | 5 comments

I’ll get the hang of bloggin every day…….

But as Michelle has been nagging me in Merry’s comments I’d better write something – can’t be doing with more extra women nagging me.

OK, Monday was our mothly HE group sports session, so we went along to that and SB ran around and did sporting things, BB pottered and I drunk tea and chatted :-). Followed by a trip to the park with the Katy and the crew from In at the Deep End. After that the plan was to head off get some lunch and go show shopping, plus a few other things. Went to the shopping centre where there is a decent sized Clarks, only to find that it was shut for refitting or something and wasn’t going to be open for 3 more days – so waste of car parking there then. Since we were there we got lunch and a few things, got back to carpark – it’s one of those get a ticket on the way in, pay on foot places. Realised I had no cash and it didn’t take cards, so had to traipse off to find cash machine etc. which meant of course we were welll over the hour, so that cost even more…. sigh.

So eventually escaped from the car park, headed off to the independent shoe shop we got SB’s last ones from – it’s out of the city centre and easy to park by. Got SB some shoes – a bit boring as she is now well into school age shoes, though they had better options last time, but SB really likes them so that’s fine. BB didn’t need any, though did discover that she has had a sock stuck in the end of one of them for who knows how long – it was squashing back here toes a bit and made it seems as if one fooot had loads more toe room….

By now needed more tea – so took up an invite by Katy to pop round to theirs which is just down the road. Enjoyed Earl Grey (but no tea pot….. ) and admired the birthing pool masquerading as a family size birthing pool filling up the dining room.

home to, well not sure really – ISTR some computing stuff goign on with the girls.

Tuesday went round to my parents house for most of the day, did do bit of HE stuff here before we went – moslty more of the Singapore maths – still the money bit, and some reading.

Wednesday

Helen was doing job interviews today, so not at home as per usual. Helen got a Learning Resources book about using Cuisenaire rods to explore Area/Volume and Perimeter from Sonlight last week, so Sb wanted to have a go at that. She spent ages with it, not so much on the book activities as with all the pattern making and general playing around with them that ensues. also got to practice drawing straight lines with the ruler (in the right place…) . Funny how simple thing like that isn’t a simple as it looks – getting the pencil at the right angle, holding the ruler firmly, in the right place, lining it up etc.

We sat and read a couple of the Anholt Artists books – Picasso and Van Gogh ones, and then spent some time looking for different pictures of their on the internet. There was some more Webland-ing and a bit of Ed City.

We finaly got some new swings seats (Ebay) to go on the swings, so we put one of those on so SB was happy to be able to swing again and spent some time on there. and generally playing outside – harvested some of the Purple Sprouting Broccoli which we have lots of right now.

Never understood the whole ‘kids don’t like green veg ‘ thing, cabbage, broccoli, brussels sprouts, whatever it is out love them all.

Watched a bit of the Life of Plants DVD before bed.

Thursday

BB’s toddler gym thing, so that’s a 9.30 start. SB took her camera with her and snapped some photos, haven’t had a look at them yet and sat and moslty read some Letterland books she found in the cupboard this morning. She is such a good advertisment for a HE-ed childthere, sits quietly with her bag, reading, or drawing, or writing etc.

Went into town after to do some shopping of various sorts. Noticed the stationers shop in town is closing, which is a shame – it was always useful for various bits, and very helpful in there as well. It’s our nearest town, and has survived pretty well with a range of indpendent shops as well as the normal high street places. But gradually the independents seem to be going.

There is a shop which sells gists etc. that has lots of stuff from different parts of the world – they tend to have little changing displys of stuff in one window. It was Chinese stuff for chinese New year last time. This week they had some Native American stuff on display, so looked and talked about some of those things, the photos they had etc. bought a few things in a charity shop, including a kit to make a worm observatory thing, so will hopefully be putting that together soon.

Once home had lunch, together me and SB read through a set of Quentin Blake books she got for Xmas and then Hellen got home early from work. There was somejigsawing – BB really getting into them now, head over heels practise, Sb did soem more of the Area etc. book before ballet class.

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Posted in Butterbean, IT, literacy, numeracy, photos, Stringbean, Stringbean's HE

Birthday disasters

Posted on March 1, 2007 by HHaricot | 7 comments

well, we did a modicum of tidying, got the food ready and then went to the play barn. disaster! the leccy was off, people were mending the overhead wires and it was shut! We texted those we had numbers for and rapidly thought of a plan B. The village chemist sells little toys, so I went there – shut! Ah well, bye bye plan B.

Guests arriving so I pillaged SB’s craft cupboard and found enough bits for pass the parcel, a treasure hunt and a prize. SB gutted that playbarn closed, but put brave face and decided the games sounded good, so once others arrived, they played in the garden, adults nattered and with help organised the pass the parcel. The games went well. Katy and children arrived eventually having had communication probs with our mobile – thank goodness for the balloons!

From then on, all the children had fun and plan C worked pretty well. SB said it had been a lovely birthday and she was very happy. Thanks to all the guests from near and far, it was lovely seeing and having you here [apologies for chaos - might have done a bit more cleaning and tidying if we had started off with plan C!].

SB and sleepover guest might now be asleep [with a bit of luck!] and hope all the rest went home safely with their treasures. I must now restock the craft cupboard as SB was saying she also had this and that when they were being won by others – oops!

7 Comments

Posted in General, photos, Stringbean

Rainbow Birthday

Posted on February 27, 2007 by Daddybean | 3 comments

As Helen has blogged below, SB went to a HE friends birthday party on Saturday (also 6 and very much SB’s best friend there). Rather than an indoor party, they had procession around the local park, with people wearing as much rainbowy coloured stuff as they could, singing songs , making noise etc. The girl of honour was transported round in a homemade sedan chair.

Ended with time in playground, a coconut shy (went on forever given the poor throwing accuracy of young kids) which was popular, fish and chips and cake. We sung ‘When we Were Two Little Boys‘ a couple of times, which always brings a bit of tear to my eye. I was often sung it from as far back as I remember as a kid by my Auntie Ethel,? before Rolf Harris did it.

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Posted in Out and About, photos, socialisation, Stringbean

Blog or Else

Posted on February 18, 2007 by Daddybean | 5 comments

Which was sort of what Helen told me – seeing as I’ve been a bit lax in the blogging stakes lately.

So some gap filling:

Last Sunday

It was my Dads 70th birthday on the Friday. On Sunday we went over to theirs to go out for a birthday lunch. It was an all you can eat buffet type thing at an local Indian restaurant. It was nice, but would have been a bit better if the restaurant had been a bit more together.

My mum had rung them to say that we were veggie, and would there be veggie dishes, as was told there would be. When we got there, there was one veggie dish on the buffet (a rather nice potato thing – there were veg samosas but they were mixed up with meat ones….). It turns out that we could order something from the menu instead (same price) – that was fine, but we didn’t realize this until we were all sat down and were going to get food. so of course mum and dad had eaten a lot by the time we got our food. Not helped in that we had ordered some onion bhajis and samosas – ok normally you have them as starter, but seeing as everyone was eating, we thought they would bring the rest out as well. But no – though obviously they were cooked, as when I asked they appeared straight away.

So, could have been better with bit bit better clarity from them on what was happening, but food was good (though weird Mutter Paneer had chickpeas instead of peas – not so good when you have ordered Chana Dhal as well…..) Girls enjoyed it, SB at least at well, BB was entertained by the various fish tanks.

Finished up with cake and game of Ludo at mum and dads house.

Tuesday

SB started with more palying with the Polydron stuff before breakfast. Then the usual black hole that takes in breakfast, getting dressed etc. did sit down for more maths. After that we had a various bit of food shopping to do, so over to the post office (where of course as we only had quick in and out transaction the person 2 in front seemed to be carrying out every possible transaction you can in the PO in one go….). Then the bakers, then home again. Then get the bike and trailer out, tootle up to the farm shop for veggies. They are putting up a nice big polytunnel, so hopw to have some more interesting home grown things this year. It’s at a local plant nursery, opened when the village greengrocer shut. As a ‘farm shop’ they are supposed to grown most of their own produce (85% I think – by value I guess?) so he has been gradually increasing that.

Returned to lunch, then not sure, but we did sit down to SOTW later on – moved on to India, the Indus and the Ganges and the story about the formation of the Ganges. Then off to swimming lessons – for some reason they are now continuing through half term. but this hasn’t really been brought to peoples notice – I only new because some one else has mentioned it to me. So seemed a bit lower in numbers. treated the girls to dinner there (kids meal so they offer burger and chips, nuggets and chips etc….. anyway, SB likes the veg nuggets so they had those). Makes the evening easier really, as wqe don’t get back to past 6 pm so dinner becomes a bit a rush. This was me and Helen can have dinner bit later once girls are in bed.

Thursday

Umm again…..

One of my targets is to get out and do more regular bits in the garden to keep up with things. So we did spend about 1 1/2 hours outside, the girls mostly played in and out of the playhouse etc. I was weeding the strawberry patch, BB helped out a bit. SB decided that the playhouse garden needed a climbing frame so moved the Little Tikes one over there. It easier than last year to do this, as this time last year BB was still in pretty early toddler stage, so would fall over lot, get stuck etc.

After that and Lunch , whilst BB napped. We got out the Physics science kit we got given last year (thanks Raihanah ) SB wanted to do something involving test tubes and the spirit burner. So we did one boiling, evaporating, condensing and distilling water (boiling old coffee, collecting clear water. Liking to have things correct, we talked about the difference between water vapour and steam – one day she will remember She enjoyed it , and it kept us busy for an hour or so.

BB got up and made herself a paperclip aeroplane

She does love doing experiments etc. and we don’t really do as much of it as we should I think- certainly no excuse on the knowing what to do front….

We um and ahh about the Young Scientists Club kits on and off. Whilst we really ought to be able to sort the things out ourselves, we don’t as much as we should and there is also the whole ‘kit thing’ that seems to appeal to SB. She does seem to enjoy the whole box of bits. instructions etc. that is ‘hers’ thing. Umm, ahhh…..

Friday

Other than shopping, not a lot really. Typical morning blackhole stuff meant leaving later than I wanted to. We went out to Staples, where SB wanted to investigate all sorts of things, then to the pet place to to get cat food and spent ages looking at fish, rabbits , guinea pigs etc.. Then Tesco’s via Tesco’s cafe for lunch (well, a plate of chips and carton of milk for them to share). Time we got home it must have been about 3, and the rest of the afternoon sort of just frittered away with cups of tea, Ed. City and other kiddy websites, some reading, cooking dinner etc.. We did do a bit of piano practice I think.

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Posted in Butterbean, gardening, history, literacy, numeracy, photos, science, Stringbean, Stringbean's HE