Christina, David & Baby Jake came from London

Poppy & Ediebeadie

My god daughter Poppy (and her lovely mummy Rachael) visited briefly whilst staying with her Nana in Malvern. She's known Eden & Morris since she was born and despite not seeing her as much as we'd like to the girls still get on famously. They generally head outside for a spot of mud-based messy play.

Goodbye crazy hair, Hello short back & sides

Uptonbury 2008

At last some photos (pilfered from Bealers & Kurt Ozficici) we had a really good time with such quality folks staying Friday-Sunday round our gaff. I kept trying to count the number of people but never quite managed.
Here is the role call: ADULTS = Me, Bealers, Sorrel, Paula, Mitch, Heath, Kurt, Mandy, Tissy, Andy, Therasa & David; KIDS = Luko, Kody, Joe, Ezara, Zeren, George, Cameron, Eden, Morris & Scarlett.
I think that's 22
Thanks everyone who came. For working so hard to keep the kitchen functional and the weather lovely.

Mitch's 40th Birthday Bash

I first met Mitch at the Old Vic in Bristol when she worked behind the bar there when I was 18 and she was 22. She was a good friend of my good friend and to me she was a Very Cool Person. Now we've been friends ourselves for nearly half our lives and our children are the same age too.

We went down to Clevedon to help celebrate her 40th birthday and all had a wonderful time (well maybe not Morris who was a bit sad that he wasn't allowed to watch tv!) - thanks so much to Paula (Mitch's sister) who organised everything, did all the catering, played games with the children and was generally top top top party hostess...

A little tear was shed when Mitch did a quick 'thank you speech' while we drank champagne and she dedicated the toast to our dear friend Tina who would have been 40 last year and despite being fifteen years since we last saw her she is thought of every day.

Bunk Beds!

Lovely Freecycle bunk beds have replaced the twin beds and made a lot of lovely playing space. Also room now for Snug's cot to go in when she no longer needs me in the middle of the night...

3 Lovely Little People Playing Nicely After School

We've had to ban any tv watching in our house since an incident at our friend's 40th party made us realise Morris' addiciton was affecting all of us. With little information on what to do if your 5 year old is so attached to telly watching that he can't survive a fun afternoon without it we decided he and the rest of us needed to go cold turkey and live without it, and computers, until at least the end of the school term.

Amazingly after a couple of days of pleading with me to watch it, being sad and droopy without his fix he now comes home and Does Interesting Things and plays with his two sisters. All three of them play together so nicely. I'm not sure how we're going to reintroduce tv especially when I have been guilty of using it as a babysitter.

The first day of withdrawal I let them have the remaining 30+ set of Mr Men books I had bought for them at a book sale when they were very tiny. They have loved putting them in order, hearing all the stories and generally leafing through them.

Monday morning madness chez Beale

My Gran, Hilda circa 1916

My Gran recently celebrated her 94th birthday. Scarlett and I enjoyed a visit to Weymouth to stay with her but just a week later she had a fall in the kitchen and unfortunately broke her hip/thigh and has been in hospital ever since.

Strangely this photo of her fell out of the bookshelves the day after she fell. I don't remember ever seeing it before but it confirms to me that our littlest one really does look a lot like her Great Nanny Hilda (if you can ignore the baby rice round the chops in the photo below).

A belated post about Deborah and Hannah's visit

My oldest friend Deborah who lives in London brought her five year old daughter to stay for the weekend while her toddler twins stayed at home with her husband.

We always really enjoy their visits as the chidlren have literally known each other since they were born a few weeks apart from each other in London and Deborah and I were such very good friends when we were at school together in Colchester.

Here are some pictures I took while they were here and during our brief visit to the 3 Counties Country Show

Snugs pretends she's a big girl at The Allen's house

Lovely new friends in Worcester (also ex London people) had us over for a really great bbq on Sunday. Eden and Morris get on really well with their kids Jon and Ben and little Snugs thinks they're brill too.