Girls with Attitude

So Evie is six now. She’s got attitude, bad ass styling and she watches Dr
Who without being scared. She’s growing up fast.

 

Hanging out in Stuart’s old workshop, now to be the girls play shed and our summer evening hangout as it catches the last of the days rays. We just need a beer fridge and the BBQ on the door step and some sunshine. Roll on summer.

Evie’s school days

Evie thrust this picture along with three other family hand drawn portraits into my hand after school on Monday. It's a picture of me, Matilda and Evie in our garden by the bird table which Stu strapped to the pear tree with red rope when it was first snowing back in December.

Evie's not really 'getting' school. She loved half term being at home; drawing lots, sucking her thumb, day dreaming. At school she's not finding things so easy. Her creativity isn't recognised like it was in reception, her sentences don't make sense and she just wants be at home – hence the stream of daily drawings centred around her being at here. I feel for her and understand how she feels. She's already under pressure, she's given spellings to learn for homework and she's only 5. Instead of feeling free and happy she's feeling like she's underachieving at school and is copying her friends work so she doesn't fail tasks. I feel concerned for her, she's very creative with a desire to learn non school curriculum things. Perhaps this is quite normal.

feisty food thrower

Last week, Matilda threw a spoonful of  soggy Bran flakes onto the right hand corner of my laptop (Urrgghhh) while Evie was familiarising herself with some simple games on CBeebies website. Yes, jealousy is Tilda’s favourite game. In the past, the laptop has escaped a few minor sploshes and it’s consumed a number of biscuits, but this sticky dollop has killed my delete key and muffled a speaker. I know I can cut and paste but it’s eally very annoying not having a delete key. I never had to confront the fact that my typing is so utterly bad until now. I miss it and want it back. But I don’t think that is possible unless I go down this route of  keyboard autopsy which I confess, I would love to do. Sad? Yes. Geeky? Yes but… No, I just relish the thought of sitting still for 6 hours…..

the drizzle has arrived

Evie started full time pre-school on Monday, so instead of the staggered and occasional session of the past 3 weeks, she will now be going every morning. I’ve been both excited and a little hesitant about her going to pre-school. Hesitant, as I can no longer stay undressed until lunch time, but pleased as it means she is getting some good simulation in the form of umpteen activities at the nursery. She seems to love going, has never shed a tear, even when I said "see you tomorrow" when I dropped her off at 8.45 this morning. But she does come home with a attitude that makes Vicky Pollard look princess like. The damp weather today hasn’t helped, no space for any of us to escape. It dawned on me today, that this is what the next few months will be like. So I’d better get my activity hat on and get creative with toddler entertainment. So today we made play dough, yellow and pink to remind us of our favourite flavoured Cornish ice-creams. Tomorrow, we’re making pizzas or loll-pop stick puppets or going mad with frustration. To be decided…

latitude and gratitude

Last weekend we all went to Latitude Festival, Suffolk. We camped, walked (lots), danced, laughed, ate and drank. We we were invited along as guest with Uncle David and the crew of the kids puppet theatre group doing The Peddlar of Swaffham which was one of the best shows there – I am biased, but comedians Marcus Brigstocke and Dylan Moran even spoke highly of them in their stand up set. I’ve blogged about the event on All Things Considered so I won’t go on… but it’s definitely a great festival to take kids to.

On the culinary side of things, I’ve been quite busy. Fruit picking, jam making, vodka/gin fruit infusing, baking endless types of bread and also I packed off my first baked parcel to my cousins wife Claudia who had just given birth to Marmaduke Gerry. Stuffed in a box were, the 3rd attempt macaroons (I hope she likes them), chunky ginger biscuits, chocolate salty sables and chocolate coconut mini-muffins and topped with a child style, left-handed home drawn card. To my delight and surprise, Claudia is planning on putting in orders for her just-birthed friends. I knew the post birth sugar hit would be a winner.

lips the colour of the sky

Ever since I wrote about our stunning April the weather has been far from seasonal. Even as I type this, it’s chucking it down – big flashes of lightning and  grumbles of thunder. Tonight I’m not too worried about the rain as I arrived home just before the storm hit and today I planted some plants and seeds so these will certainly benefit from the soak even if my washing won’t.

I was pleased to have been in Cley yesterday when it was sunny having just missed a local storm. I sat with the girls in Fran’s garden watching them watching a tortoise whilst eating blue paint the colour of the sky.

holiday celebrations

I rather missed writing my blog while I was away. Typically, I could have written about goings on a daily basis as well as uploaded photo’s of wet ducks and row boats and the rather un-nerving neatness of Thorpeness, Suffolk but the lack of Internet access made this impossible.

Over a week ago now, my parents very kindly organised a Sullivan family get-together to mark
my Mum’s and her twin sister Ce’s 60th birthday (along with little Matilda who also shares their birthday, but being just one doesn’t really count). We stayed in
Thorpeness, a pretty holiday village designed by  Glencairne Stuart
Ogilvie in the late 1800, who relocated from Scotland and bought a huge
chunk of rural and seaside Suffolk.

Ogilvie decided he would turn Thorpeness into a sort of fantasy
holiday village, building homes with mock Tudor and Jacobean styles
around the man-made large boating lake, the Meare. It was a house with
a garden leading down to the Meare which we stayed in last week. It was beautiful with large
rooms, wood panelling, fabulous old oil portraits and a full sized
billiard table in the top of the house not to mention the views over the lake.

The week was fabulous, it was just so lovely to spend some time with my newly married brother, his wife and daughter; my sister, her husband and daughter and of course my wonderful parents. Time just went too quickly, I needed to have at least another 3 days with everyone as I seemed to spend the first 3 days cooking and panicking about the surprise Hawaiian themed birthday BBQ party to be held at Mum’s sisters rented holiday house, at nearby Southwold….

Despite the weather being far from tropical, the party was a great success. I know the events of the day made Mum and Auntie Ce extremely happy. The entertaining organisational emails between siblings, cousins and fathers had made it a party to remember, our Mum’s were made up. It was so lovely to see them laughing, smiling, reminiscing  and to be so content to be surrounded by their children and grandchildren as well as surprise family guests. It was a great day and one I will always remember as I know they will too.

Dad, thanks for making it all possible.

gretna love birds…

I’ve often wondered WHO gets married at Gretna Green and then I get a call from my big brother Matt telling me he’s just got hitched there!

Congratulations Matt & Claire, we wish you a wonderful, happy healthy and loved filled life together.

off on an egg hunt…

Evie, on her third birthday.