First day at school - part 2

Martha started school on 3rd September, like Thomas she's attending Bocking Church Street Primary School. After a long summer without seeing her friends from nursery she was happy to have the chance to meet up with some of them who were starting school at the same time.

Here she is in uniform



Obviously she'll have Thomas to show her the ropes if needed.



Here she is, complete with coat ready to go.



She's settled in well so far. It's been half days up to now with her first full day after two weeks.

Bye Bye Bobby

The first home game of the season against Leicester was the first occasion many Ipswich fans had to properly pay their respects to Sir Bobby Robson. He was the man who made it possible that wherever you go in the footballing world, if you say you're an Ipswich fan the person you're talking to will smile in recognition of a team that punched well above its weight for many years.
His death from cancer was hardly a surprise but the outpouring of emotion from fans of Ipswich and other clubs still took me by surprise.
Thomas & I went to the Leicester game, partly because he'd got a new kit for his birthday and partly because I thought that as Town supporters we just had to. I dug out an old scarf I had that roughly dated from the Robson years and we put it among the hundreds of scarves, shirts, banners, photos and other items that were arranged round his statue and attached to the railings all along Portman Road.



Everyone inside the ground enthusiastically joined in the minute's applause before the kick off and Bobby Robson's name was repeatedly sung throughout the game.



Sadly the team on the pitch couldn't rise to the occasion, Thomas' second 0-0 out of three visits to Portman Road was a bit of a let down. We'll be going as a family to the Newcastle game in September. Hopefully both teams will produce something a bit more fitting to his memory then.

Canvassing opinion

Having had a tent as a 40th birthday gift we thought that it was high time we gave it an outing. So in the last week of June we packed up the car with what seemed like a vast amount of stuff and headed to Carlton Park in Saxmundham.
Thankfully it's a pretty easy tent to pitch which left us just enough time on the Friday evening to head to nearby Aldeburgh for some fish and chips



Saxmundham is very handy for the coast so we went to Thorpeness, where we spent a pleasant 30 minutes rowing round the boating lake, although having a set of oars of different lengths didn't help. We also went back to Aldeburgh for a bit of shopping. The campsite itself has an excellent playground where the zip line proved very popular.



Everyone slept pretty well, the campsite's showers were good and Thomas and Martha made some new friends. We'll give it a go later in the summer at Waxham and who knows maybe further afield for a proper holiday at some point.

Yat's the way (I like it)

Over the Easter weekend we were at the Warrens in Chepstow and on the Saturday went out for lunch with Rachel's Auntie Anne and, since it was such a lovely day, ended up at Symonds Yat. The views over the river Wye are quite spectacular





Sometimes it's just best to hang on to the children when you're at the top of a very tall cliff!

Give peas a chance

Nanny & Grandad came to visit on the weekend of 14th / 15th March which gave them a chance to be enchanted by Fudge and Humbug, watch Thomas at rugby training (not a player of the week performance unfortuntely!), get an early Mothers Day present and get the first vegetable seeds of 2009 in the ground. Thomas and Martha planted some peas with Grandad so they've got something to lovingly tend as spring turns into summer.





Is it the done thing to cut the lower branches off a silver birch to provide the required 'pea sticks'? We also need to decide what to put in the regular veg patch. After two years of less than spectacular butternut squash harvests I'm thinking of giving sweetcorn another go and probably some beetroot and maybe some nice brocolli. Anything that can broadly speaking fend for itself would probably be best.

Pet sounds (and vision)

Our last post mentioned that Martha received an empty guinea pig hutch for Christmas. Since then she's been very patiently waiting for us to get something to put in it. Last Saturday we finally got two female guinea pigs who we've today decided to call Humbug and Fudge.

Here they are


They're in their hutch out in the shed, which must be a bit cold at the moment but we've been bringing them in every day so they can get used to us.





They seem to like to be held and stroked. Humbug is definitely more inquisitive at the moment while Fudge just seems content to take it all in. Humbug is a Merino breed and Fudge a Texel. You have to brush their fur now and again as well as cut it if it gets too long!

Out on the ice

Christmas was spent in Braintree and Lydney. Martha was happy enough with her empty hutch and at the prospect of getting guinea pigs at some point in the future (more news on that soon).



We had a lovely dinner topped off with home made Christmas pudding - we've still got 2 left!



While in Lydney we went ice skating (on synthetic ice unfortunately) at Beechenhurst Lodge in the Forest





There's also a great play area at Beechenhurst with lots of fun things made out of wood. Here's Thomas, Martha, Amelia and Grace perched on a wooden horse.