Mary's boy child

Contrary to the media reports regarding its demise; the nativity is alive and kicking at Bocking Church Street school. If not as a play then in the form of a nativity tableau during the school carol concert. Coming as he does from a long line (actually pretty much limited to his great grandmother) of people who can't resist the smell of the greasepaint and the roar of the crowd Thomas was handed a key role, that of Joseph. There was no lines to speak as such but he did need to carry a sheep.
Mummy, Martha and Nanny all went along to watch, Martha was so keen to see her brother in his first starring role that she decided to go up and see him during the event.

Simply the (personal) best

I know it was a while ago now but back in September Rachel ran her first 10K (see here). On 7th October she did her second - the Southend 10K along Southend sea front. It being flatter, less windy and Rachel having the benefit of having done one already she improved her time to under an hour - 58 mins and 12seconds.
It was quite a family affair, with Lynda, John, David, Nicky, Paul and Stella all taking part as well and a similar number of people on support / childminding duties.

Here's another shaky handheld digital camera video clip of Rachel arriving at the finish.

Strike a pose, there's nothing to it!

Rick, Rebecca, Amelia & Grace came to visit on the weekend of November 3rd. Although it was a bit late for Halloween all the children made lanterns out of some of Grandad's home grown pumpkins. Here are the results.



We also went for a walk up to Doreward's Hall farm and fed some of the animals. Amelia wasn't too keen on the goats but Thomas and Martha have been there several times before and seemed OK with them.



For some reason the children decided to go all Freemans catalogue on us for some photos taken on the walk back.



We had fireworks on Saturday evening, complete with sparklers for everyone





All in all a very pleasant weekend.

Happy Halloween!

Pumpkin lanterns and dressing up in seasonal costumes, what's not to like?

Bear Necessities

Saturday 6th October was the occasion of Martha's 3rd birthday party. There was a theme running through the event - Teddy Bears. Everyone made a teddy bear out of cardboard, material, pipe cleaners and anything else that came to hand.





Then it was outside for a bear hunt, chocolate bears cunningly hidden by Kate and Dan.





Martha got lots of lovely presents, here she is opening one of them.



We even managed to record the rugby and watched it 'as live' afterwards.
Thanks to everyone who came along, especially Pauline for making the teddy templates.

Running up that hill

Or, more precisely, running up those hills. Rachel did her first 10K run on Sunday 23rd September with Vicki in the lovely grounds of Bowood House in aid of Cancer Research. You can make an after the event donation at the link on the right.





Rachel completed the distance in a little over 63 minutes, hopefully the flatter course at Southend in a couple of weeks will be covered slightly quicker.

Here's a short clip of her arriving at the finish (with Martha providing vocal encouragement), just click on the play button.




Thanks to everyone who sponsored Rachel, you can still add some more at this link.

Second home by the sea

Another short trip over the holidays to Waxham Sands in Norfolk to take advantage of the Crisp / Collins joint venture holiday home. Yes, it's a Sprite Alpine caravan.
There was some rain and the on site chippy's chip machine was broken rather scuppering our dinner plans.
Thomas and Martha took to sleeping on the bunks really well in their new sleeping bags.



The sun was out the following morning so we headed for the beach (all of 2 minutes walk away).



Guess who had to do all the digging for this!



Here's the co-owner



It was also a good afternoon for kite flying, Martha enjoyed it.



Having sussed things out this summer we'll probably go back next summer.

(Theme) Park Life

A milestone in Thomas and Martha's development over the holidays with their first visit to an actual theme park. In the company of Jamie, Claire, Lily and Isabelle we chose the relatively sedate surroundings of Legoland where disappointingly many things are not made of Lego. This is a swizz.

We went on lots of fun rides, queued for what seemed like an age for some of them (although they thoughtfully provide Lego bricks for the children to play with while waiting) and saw a fun puppet show. We seemed to have walked miles by the time we left at 7pm (closing time) and a good time was had by all.







One tip, it costs a fair bit when paying cash for a family of four so paying with all those loyalty points the supermarkets give you is a good idea.

I would like a hut I could call my own

We've rented a beach hut at Walton on the Naze for the summer (and some of the autumn). It's great to have somewhere to make a decent cup of tea, store your stuff and chill out when the tide comes right up to the sea wall. As you can see it's very blue.
All we need now is some half decent weather.



Some children enjoying the benefits of having a beach hut:


So, if you know anyone who's selling a beach hut in a nice place on the Essex coast, tell them to get in touch.

We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo. You can come too.

Sorry for the lack of updates recently, we were offline for a bit while TalkTalk did their best to dissuade us from ever using their services again.

Rachel, Thomas and Martha went to Colchester Zoo with Fiona, Billie and Freddie where they had great fun feeding the elephants and giraffes and watching the penguins eat their lunch.

The penguins have an early lunch


They're that colour because they're moulting apparently.

I raced for life

The Braintree Race for Life in aid of Cancer Research UK took place on 17th June at Notley Country Park. Loads of participants including Rachel, Lynda and Stella. Obviously children, male members of the family and dog went along to offer moral support.

Everyone finished in under 30 minutes, which was pretty good.

Next step for Rachel is a new set of running shoes and twice the distance in Wiltshire on 23rd September (sponsor her at the link on the right).

Rachel raised just over £100, so thanks to everyone who sponsored her.


Before the start



Waiting around


Lynda, Stella, Jackie and Rachel afterwards


Sally, Rachel & Debbie, the Rickstones contingent

Stood on the seafront laughing

Given that the weather was generally rubbish over half term, we didn't do much. However we did go to Walton on the Naze for the afternoon with Jamie, Claire, Lily & Isobel. Some paddling, some rides on the pier - Martha had never seen so many flashing lights; her eyes were the size of saucers - and some doughnuts. So what if it rained?













Thanks to Jamie for the photos

It's not all beer and skittles you know

Someone once said that life's not all beer and skittles. Well, here's a few photos of us playing skittles and if you look very carefully there's probably some beer in there too. If you can't see any, it's definitely just out of shot. The occasion was Rachel's mum's 60th birthday party. A good time was had by all.

Waiting for the Duck Race

May 7th is a big day in the north Braintree area - the Bocking Village Fayre, culminating in the duck race down the river to Kings Bridge. We had a few friends round and despite the less than ideal weather forecast had arranged a barbecue for when the fayre had ended.
Luckily the weather wasn't too bad in the afternoon so we all wandered up the road to see what was happening and get wet in another downpour.

Thomas and Lily seemed generally positive having played at the new school playground.



Martha is still getting to grips with the fact that ice cream melts, even if it's barely above freezing.



We took our places early next to the bridge for the duck race, perhaps a bit too early given that the previous couple of weeks unbroken sunshine meant that the Blackwater was hardly a raging torrent. It took quite a while for the ducks to travel the couple of hundred metres down from the other bridge and for the third year in a row one of our ducks failed to win.

Still, the weather was good enough to enjoy the barbecue when we got back, too late for the fayre organisers unfortunately and we'd done enough to ensure that some of our guests were worn out.

Flying visit

We had a visit from Kate over the weekend of 5th /6th May, a weekend break from her RAF basic training. Thomas and Martha were naturally delighted to see her and the general excitement level went up a further notch with the simultaneous arrival of Rebecca and Amelia (no Grace sadly, she wasn't feeling very well). Everyone went to Boydells Farm in the afternoon (does anyone detect a pattern emerging?) and spent the rest of the afternoon in the garden. Here's a picture of Kate and three of her nieces and nephews on the hammock in the garden.



On Sunday Kate ironed her RAF greens, sadly the camera was charging at that point so there's no photographic proof, you'll just have to take our word for it.

Pleased to meet ewe

Despite the fact that this messes up the chronological order here's a little roundup of Easter holidays activities.

Three visits to Boydells farm in Shalford (got to make sure we get full value from the season ticket!). It's a great place where you can get really close to the sheep and there's lots of other animals like goats, chickens and llamas to feed. Their website is here, they're well worth a visit and if you come to ours we'll probably drag you there ourselves.





Thomas and Martha also visited Halstead fire station thanks to our builder Dan needing to put in a couple of 'community relations' hours.

Here's Martha in the back of the fire engine.



And Thomas giving his verdict on the whole fire station experience.



Martha also had a play in a toy digger at the site of Tom and Dan's latest construction masterpiece - Dan's extension.



Finally, we visited the Bignall family in Hempnall and as usual made full use of Hempnall's far too good for a small village in Norfolk playground. Here's Martha on some Finnish wooden bouncy thing that had just been installed.