Sun, gardening and pottering.

I treated myself to a few books from Amazon, for my birthday, and they arrived on Monday:

Having read the Artisan Bread in five minutes a day I do now want a baking stone and bread peel.  Little consumerist part of me raising her ugly head.  Mind, yorkshire skinflint me ain't paying nearly £50 for a piece of stone!  I shall pop along to Wickes at some point and see if they have any suitable stones... in the meantime I'll have a go with bog standard baking equipment.  I'm not that fussed about a "cracking crust" anyway.

The motifs book is gorgeous.  Not had a go at any yet, as I've taken everything off the hooks until I've finished the dress for Michelle.  And The Crochet Answer Book so far feels a tad unremarkable.  There were a lot of good reviews for this, but the chapters I've looked at and the questions and answers I've read have seemed fairly basic to me.  Still, it might come in handy, and I haven't read it completely - oh actually it does give the equation for working out a pattern to your own gauge, rather than using the pattern's.... being that I'm blind when it comes to maths, I don't actually understand the equation.. but I'm sure if I wrestled with it a bit, all would come clear.

Anyhoos, today.
The sky look rather ominious this morning - but as the day wore on, it brightened considerably and phew, really rather warm in my garden, so I filled the paddling pool and the kids had fun experimenting with different containers, sieves etc:

And Rye told me very seriously, how much he likes playing with water.  After lunch, mindee went for a nap and Rye quickly fell asleep on the sofa too.  Sigh, waking up when he wet himself.. mind at least he came out into the garden to finish off weeing, rather than standing next to the sofa and peeing on the floor, like he did yesterdeay!

I potted out some herbs, and repotted Rye's naming tree - which is alive and doing well - I thought it had dyed.  The tree is the same age as Rye :-)  Rye came out toward the end and helped me with the last few, and then our friends turned up and the kids played in the garden, then indoors, then outdoors..a nd after everyone had gone home, I decided to take Rye out on his bike.

I think that boy is having his teresterone surge early!  He never stops, being quite manic sometimes,  banging on the table at meal times, shouting, jumping and yes, tormenting poor C too.  Quite exhausting... thankfully the water play helped to focus that energy a bit.  The bike ride this evening being an attempt to wear him out a bit, which did seem to work.. well after the 2nd or 3rd circuit around the various footpaths on this estate.. several trips to the wee park, so he could ride aorund the climbiing frame, and have the local kids exclaiming, "what a cool bike", and he climbed the climbing wall with help from me.. and he managed to walk over the monkey bars to the platform.. made me rather nervous as the last few are really rather high - he loved it though and was beaming from ear to ear.  I was considering a slide for the garden.. I'm beginning to wonder if a climbing dome would be a better investment!  (Around £150quid.. there again.. I live near so many parks is it worth it..a nd again its consuming!)

Oh, and I saw my neighbour today about their felled tree.  Sadly, for me, they have a wood burner on their narrow boat, so are saving the logs for that.  I had such lovely visions of a little wooden circle.. then a corner with all the smaller log cutoffs for building with etc.  Oh well.  I suppose in part, it's because I'm finding the bright colours of most kid outdoor toys jarring and I'd like something a little less in your face.  Mind, that does seem to be my issue rather than the children's; as they love to play out in the garden.

Anyway, after the park and bike ride, came back and tidied up the garden, popped toys away etc as it's suppose to rain heavily tomorrow - and then indoors for supper.  We had creamed veg and tomatoe soup with bread rolls.  Very yummy.

I've also adopted the Waldorf practise of a mealtime blessing candle.  Both kids seem to really like this, and love taking turns to blow out the candle at the end of the meal.  They have quickly become accustomed to me standing in front of my seat and saying the blessing, before sitting to eat, (although, at this stage I don't make the kids wait to tuck in.. although Rye is starting to wait until I've said the blessing, of his own accord).

Supper, wouldn't normally be a "meal", this soup was planned for tea, however our friends, Sarah and her boys, J & I came to visit and Rye nor C will sit and eat while the boys are here - they want to play.  Indeed, during our supper, Rye told me he likes playing with his friends :-)
Then after supper, upstairs for washes, teeth cleaning and bed and stories.. he was spoilt tonight, we popped by the library on Monday and picked up some books - so we read Tyranasaurs Drip, (love this book, this is the 4th or 5th time we've had it out), Giddy the Goat.. a mountain goat scared of heights... lol made me smile.... and a book I bought from Amazon a while back for Rye, Dr Seus's Sleep book.  And yes by the end of that little lot, my wee boy was looking very heavy eyeliddy and big yawns.

Me too. Definitely time for dreamland.