The boys are in a constant state of dress rehearsal / non-dress rehearsal / choir practice / choir performance. Either that or they are running around the house as crazed Jedi Knights or lolloping on the sofa watching another episode of CBeebie’s driving academy, too tired for crazed Jedi Knight action.

I nearly had some type of nervous breakdown on Friday trying to get our busy work schedules married with our busy other schedules. We’re trying to cram as much work as possible into December so we can take a break over Christmas and even a trip abroad in Janaury. I feel a bottle of calms coming on. Either that or a bottle of gin.

I really love the whole Christmas lark, but I find the run up a little stressful – the card writing, the present buying, the numerous post office trips and then once you’ve got all that done you then have to work out the whole Christmas eating thing, and go to the supermarket, where all shoppers look like the are bulk buying for the next millennia. Usually by this time it becomes very apparent that I left my Christmas spirit in the post office queue on my 83rd visit of the month.

To complicate matters further my first born, my mam, most of my first born’s friends, two of my closest friends and my grandmother have all gone for Christmas time birthdays, which is lovely for them but doesn’t shorten my lists any. I love you all very much though, so apologies for my Bah Humbugness this evening.

As usual, I digress. I created this post about pretty things in my head at 6am this morning. I was woken by a herd of elephants (biggest boy) trotting off to the loo and then my brain started whirring. I tried to calm my mind and started thinking of the amazing ‘Field of Light’ which is currently wowing the good folk of Bath outside the Holburne Museum of Art.

So while I was trying to calm my mind I thought of all the amazing pretty things I have seen this month, and about how much I love my iPhone and it’s lovely little camera. With it I’ve snapped these pretty things and then fiddled about with their appearance using one of my many photography apps.

It has really rekindled my love of photography, which I spent time studying at university. I loved all the theory about composition and light, I loved planning my projects and wandering around Leicester with a beautiful old Pentax. But I really, really hated going back to the photography centre and developing my photos. It was all too fiddly and scientific. I got into so many pickles in the pitch black trying desperately to get my film out of the camera and onto a reel. Even now, thinking about it makes me a teeny bit anxious.

I think I drove the staff mad with questions and requests for help and there was a palpable sigh of relief from them when I returned my Pentax for the last time and told them that my course modules for the next term would mean I wouldn’t be disturbing then with cries of despair as I realised there was another load of blank film hanging in the drying cabinet.

Having a hand-sized gadget that does all that for me really is quite mind blowing I think. We even have a wireless printer enabling me to print straight from my phone. 15 years or so have passed since my Pentax days. We hadn’t event heard of digital photography back then and as high tech as it got was a cool machine that did some kind of cool shit with exposure (I wish I actually knew what it did and what it was called!) Anyway, hat tip to you Mr Jobs.

So here are some of my little iPhone snaps, which you can look at while listening to this rather splendid Rufus Wainwright song, which is called, of course, ‘Pretty Things’.

On Friday, at dusk, Mike and I took the children to see Bruce Munro’s Field of Light. It is spectacular and beautiful and totally mesmerising – a huge expanse of glowing loveliness, swaying in the breeze. The boys adored it, as did we.

Field of Light, a wonderful light installation by Bruce Munro

Boys loving their first experience of fibre optics

I took the children to see the grandparents in my home city of Durham last weekend. I was really pleased to catch this year’s Lumiere festival, which, apart from some hairy moments among the heaving crowds (Durham is tiny and *a lot* of people had come to see the delights of the festival), it was really, really breath-taking. Durham is really rocking the whole festival thing (we caught some of the brass festival last summer) and it is great to see my home city thriving with really cool stuff going on.

 

A sound and light installation that was part of November's Lumiere Festival in Durham. If you haven't been to the Lumiere festival you *must* go.

Another fabulous Lumiere installation - a snow dome in the market place. Stunning.

Another Lumiere installation - this time inside a derelict shop

And finally, my last light installation of the night was seem at this week’s DJ Shadow concert in Bristol. Mike and I are both fans, so I bought tickets for Mike’s birthday pressie (win, win).

I guess it’s hard for a man who creates his wonderful music by mainly pressing a whole array of brightly coloured buttons to put on a visual treat for his audience. He certainly pulled it off, playing the whole gig from inside a rather delicate looking globe shape structure. Onto this moving structure they projected images, accompanied by secondary projections onto the backdrop…it was very cool…see for yourself…(listen from about a minute in)

and here’s my pic of it…

It’s been a pretty nice couple of weeks all in all.

Have a lovely week xx

The busy, busy weeks mean that Mike and I *really* try to focus on family stuff over the weekend. We’ve become a little bit insular to be honest, we’ve even put away our iPhones and the accompanying noise of twitter etc. It’s what we’ve all needed.

The ubiquitous Autumn snuffle has had the boys operating at about 90% either side of half term. Nothing that would keep them off school, but a little extra TLC and a little less galavanting has been in order.

Littlest boy headed off into the big wide world of reception in September, and being a just-turned-four-year old, we’ve had to handle the induction with more of a kid glove approach than we did with the biggy, who was almost five when he started school.

He has settled really well, but I think is still a little bit in shock from the ‘every-day’ aspect of his new gruelling routine. He can be very tired and grumpy, which is a bit of a shock for all of us – he’s usually our perpetual sunshine boy. To that end we have agreed with the school that a mid-week ‘mummy day’ is the best solution for everyone concerned. He gets time to get his breath back and spend some time getting some quality one to one time with me, and I get to spend some time with my lovely boy, who I have missed so very much since he donned his school uniform.

This ‘bedding down’ period for Family Ellis, although slightly enforced upon for one reason or another, has made me think about the simplicity of life which I craved when I first jacked in my career two years ago. I dreamt that I would stop the constant rush, rush, rush of child-rearing and career progression. I dreamt that I would slow my pace and enjoy the simple aspects of my existence – from hanging washing out to dry, or reading a book to making something for our home, or preparing a meal for the boys. All these things before I did at full pelt, somehow, I think, missing the journey whilst in pursuit of the destination.

I dreamt that the changes that we were making to our family life would make us live more in tune with the world around us, responding to the seasons and perhaps treading a little less heavier on the planet we inhabit. I wanted to waste less, consume less and spend less and in the process perhaps live a little more.

Of course my blog posts often coincide with happy times, when the children are, in the main, delightful, when sleep is plentiful and when I’ve had time to play a board game with the kids, or spend a whole evening reading a book. They tend to be when I’ve found time to make healthy meals, and take some exercise.

Of course many of our weeks aren’t like that. Many of our weeks include work deadlines and both of us cramming work to all available hours. Mike would probably testify to most weeks being like that at present. Some weeks I lose my cooking mojo and we eat less well, and we frequent the fish&chip shop or use up food from the freezer. Some weeks the boys challenge us or make us worry and push us to the edges of our patience or sanity.

But this week is a good week so I thought I would share a few of our current favourite things that keep us happy on our slightly slower journey through this life.

Drinking hot chocolate and watching the sunset

Last weekend we headed to Clevedon, our little bit of seaside heaven, which we all adore. There’s a small, pebbly beach, good for pottering on and watching all the lovely Clevedon-esque type activities – like the old(ish) people who strip down to their speedos and head out for a swim around the pier – IN NOVEMBER! – or the sailing club people doing their sailing club type things, just off the shore.

 A stroll along the pier is a must, and last Sunday there was an angling competition and a fine view of Wales. Another must is a hot chocolate in one of the nice seafront cafes. We even stayed and watched the sunset as the boys wanted to watch the lovely twinkly lights on the pier come on at dusk. The cafe had blankets as well as hot chocolate, so you can sit outside. Perfect.

The last time we watched the sunset in Clevedon I was heavily pregnant with littlest boy. I still had almost three weeks of pregnancy  to go but as I sat and watched the sun slip below the horizon I felt all was right in the world and ready for the arrival of the final piece of our Ellis jigsaw. Twenty four hours later my waters broke and our little boy began his slow journey into my arms.

Gadding about at the orchard
Recently we joined a lovely community orchard share in Bath. The place is beautiful, with lots of space for energetic boys to run around and climb trees. The clay oven and compost loos are an endless form of fascination for my boys – poo and fire – a winning combo.

A few weeks ago their was a lovely open day when people came and ate apply things, hung out, admired the view and listened to some talented folk play some nice folky tunes. The day was a picture of autumness and we paused for a while and just enjoyed being together in a lovely part of the world.

Star Wars

The boys have arrived at the age (well mainly biggest boy has) where Star Wars is the ultimate type of pastime. They play Star Wars type games, read books about Star Wars, draw pictures of Star Wars type things (mainly guns) and on Saturday they finally watched Star Wars. Mike sat happily with them, reciting lines learned off by heart over thirty years ago. Yesterday I brought them a book from the library that is amazing cut away drawings of every Star Wars machine / gadget / vehicle.  Biggest boy was very impressed with my book choice. I suspect it will be renewed several times over the coming months. God Bless our wonderful library in Bath. God Bless Star Wars.

Haba Games A lovely mum at school passes lots of games and jigsaws in the direction of my boys from her older girls. The best haul from her came last week with two wonderful games by the fantastic German company Haba. We’ve enjoyed many a happy hour playing with Haba games with our friends Jo & Neil and their littles. Neil is board game crazy and even travelled to Germany a couple of years ago to replenish their Haba collection and bought us our first Haba game which involves wearing a pig snout whilst searching for magnetic truffles. Genius!

The games are very surreal, which kind of makes them all the more amazing. They are also beautifully tactile with gorgeous wooden pieces and lovely little things for little hands to play with. We highly recommend!

 Tabby McTat

This is is littlest boy’s favourite book the moment, it may have even taken over from his Cat in The Hat love. I love the rhythm of Julia Donaldson’s books and at the moment I haven’t tired of reading it over and over again. There’s a lovely picture in this book of a family which one of Tabby McTat’s kitten goes to live with. They have a garden that looks like ours, it’s scruffy with a big compost heap and chickens and children roaming free.

Our other favourite Julia Donaldson books are Tiddler, the story of a fish who tells tall tales and who is *always* late (I like!) and The Snail & The Whale, which always makes me want to go to New Zealand because that is where I think the school on the beach is, either there or a Hebridean island.

I think it is Julia Donaldson’s books that I will lovingly squirrel away, when the boys have outgrown then, keeping them for when my boys have children of their own.

Space, black holes and stuff
Biggest boy loves this book published by the Science Museum. He was obviously born with a love of all things Science Museum due to it being the place where his parents met! For any child who is into the whole mind blowing nature of the universe, this book is for them.

This morning, before I had even had my first coffee of the day, I was having a conversation with a 7 year old about Copernicus. Oh how nice it would be if he fancied being an astronomer when he was older!

I notice they have another title in the series called Why is snot green. I feel a Christmas present purchase coming on!

And finally…
Another lovely school mum friend recommended a fantastic book to me recently. It is a perfect book to see you through the long, cold, winter nights, tucked up by the fire. It’s called We, The Drowned  and is a wonderful tale of the inhabitants of a seafaring community in Denmark. The story spans over 100 years and weaves together tales of characters who lives are interconnected by their town and its reliance on and relationship with the sea.

I am currently researching my Danish ancestors, who lived not far from the town that is the focus of this book. This book makes me want to visit Denmark immediately!

I have a handful of chapters left to read and already can feel how sad I will be when I have run our of pages to immerse myself in each evening.

Thank you Ginny for recommending this wonderful book. We are both a little bit in love with the cover – and I’m am very jealous that Ginny’s copy as coloured page edges too! Who said you can’t judge a book by its cover?

A sure sign is that my car is filled with beautiful conkers and fallen leaves that are collected by small hands and deposited with me on the boys’ busy journeys through each day. I’m not sure what they want to do with them, apart from amass a large collection and I don’t seem to have had the time or the inclination to think of anything creative or fun or educational with them. Maybe I could create a little nature table  straight from my rose tinted childhood memories. Maybe they’ll just stay in the car.

Anyway, as the seasons sweep forward I thought I would post a simple photographic record of the summer when our boys were lovely, difficult, poorly, happy, wild, funny, rude, but, most of the time, breath-takingly beautiful.

A wet day exploring Castle Drogo on Dartmoor

The biggest waves they’d ever seen

Marshmallows toasting on an open fire…

Digging up potatoes with Grandad

Rohan turns 4

Let’s go fly a kite

Bunting for our leeks – why not?!

Forest school – making a bug hotel

Making Mini Bug Houses

Oh how we love the Angel of the North

As I watched I was appalled with myself for not having noticed this week that there is massive flooding in Pakistan and that over 2million (2 bloody million) have been affected. Over half of this number are estimated to be children. Jesus bloody Christ. That’s all there is to say really – just Jesus bloody Christ.

What the hell have I been doing lately to miss something so big? And, seriously, why does something like this only make item number 3 or 4 on last night’s news agenda?

It seems that I’ve been so wrapped up in the minutiae of our life that I have missed something that is so catastrophically affecting the lives of so many people.

Yesterday I worried a lot about totally crap stuff. I worried about how much work we’ve got on, I worried about whether I currently have enough time to still be a school governor, I worried about whether I’d have enough time to get to the local orchard to pick up a box of apples if I also went to get the boys hair cut, I worried about how many new tyres our car currently needs.

At no point yesterday did I need to worry about whether I could actually feed my children. or whether, if they needed urgent medical attention, whether I would be able to afford it, or even get to a hospital.

Today, I have spent a lot of time reflecting on our lives and how bloody charmed they are and how utterly lacking in charm other people’s are.

I try, occasionally, to have a point to my blog posts. Today I don’t really. I just wondered if you’re one of the 50 or so people who drop into my blog each day, whether you might donate a tenner, or maybe even 20 quid to Save the Children .

That’s all really.

Cheers, Rach x

I write them because I like to write about my boys and I hope that they will, one day, provide the boys with a nice snapshot into their lives as children.

So today lovely boy 2 turned four, and here is this year’s poetic offering to him.

For Rohan, who is four.

To my lovely boy Ro
Who today turns four.

Four? No way!
It seems just like yesterday,

That you came into our world
With your big wide eyes.

It seemed just like you knew us
And this big wide world outside

For four years now, you have filled our world with giggles
You are full of love and kindness, and always seem to wriggle!

Your cuddles in the morning, make the world a better place
You’re as cheeky as a monkey and you’re rather keen on outer space.

Well have a lovely birthday
My fantastic August boy.

Keep giggling and wriggling
And bringing us so much joy.

Love Mummy xx

The ‘all time low’ week is here. Last year we managed to get it over and done with on week one, when we were all on holiday and I had Mike’s support and a good dose of cream tea and Devon cider to get me through.

This year I have been lulled into a false sense of security and apart from biggest boy’s bloody awful bout of pleurisy, we have been having such a nice summer.

The ‘all time low’ week is when one (or both) (or all) of your children totally freak out. They become a child you don’t recognise, and on some days, a child that you don’t like too much. There have been tears and tantrums, arguments and attitude, and luckily, for me, two big work deadlines to throw into the mix too. It’s been a blast.

I know, I know; it will end as quickly as it started. The boy in question will return to his old lovely self, and I will wonder what it was all about. After talking to my mam this week, who was really struggling to remember whether my brother and I had similar phases (of course we did), I expect I too will park it up in the darkest reaches of our family history and not quite be able to remember it when my adult children ask similar questions in years to come.

Anyway, it’s not been very simple this week, and after taking away trips out and TV we are still no further forward. Tonight we drew up a back to basics star chart together where I wrote down four things I wanted him to try and do every day and he wrote down four rewards that he will get in return.

I’m not holding my breath but wish me luck for week six anyway!

Last week the sun shone, we did lovely things, we saw good friends and our eldest boy pottered off to spend a few days with his Grandma in Devon.

After a lovely couple of days with grandma, our boy became very ill and we had to make a dash to Devon to be with him. What we thought was a nasty gastric flu bug, turned out to be a rather nasty chest infection and we ended up back in Bath, spending Sunday afternoon in hospital, after a rather hair-raising journey on the M5.

Even when poorly, our boy is *very* funny.

The wee man has taken a truck load of antibiotics and has been given some more by the GP today. He thinks that our boy has had pleurisy and that it still hasn’t totally cleared. He is, thankfully, a lot better than he was, but still pale and tired and, of course, I am worrying (my curse of motherhood it seems).

We are going to get him to rest a lot over the weekend and I’m off to the library in the morning to pick him up some books that he’s had on order.

Anyway to brighten up what has turned into a bit of a bleak post, here are some cheery summer holiday snaps that I’ve taken lately.

Off on an adventure

Rainy day butterfly

Making paper garland's for my August boy's birthday party.

Sweet peas grown by my lovely friend Jo.

New garden blackboard.

The boys took a few days to settle into it all and there was a fair bit of shouting, some arguing and a few tears. And then magically, one morning, it was all ok again.

The boys love spending mornings in their PJs (and I need no encouragement to stay in my PJs for as long as I can each day!)  The sun has shone – a lot. The paddling pool has been out.

We have picnicked in the park and walked for miles in our lovely city.

Last week we went on a little trippette to stay with my fab friend Claire and her lovely babe in London. We had a great time but were exhausted when we returned. Mike tucked us all up on the sofa for the afternoon and put Bedknobs and Broomsticks on the TV. Bliss.

We spent most of the weekend in one garden or another and caught up with old friends and new. We sampled Macedonian food made by the very talented Laura and celebrated the safe arrival of her lovely little boy. Biggest boy managed to throw up on her beautiful and newly laid lawn, but other than that, the weekend passed without incident.

Last night we decided to do a bit of harvesting in the garden. The potato crop was really good and the boys loved searching in the patch for them. While digging we spotted this amazing bug and all marveled at how unusual it was and how we had never seem anything like it before.

Our biggest boy, who spent last term doing all things ‘mini-beast’ at school, told us, matter of factly, that it was a baby ladybird. We, as terrible parents, dismissed his suggestion and told him it couldn’t possibly turn into a ladybird (it seemed way too big). He, our beautifully laid back child, shrugged his shoulders and carried on with his potato hunting.

Mike then posted the image online and asked his Twitter friends to identify it. And of course (of course!), the beautiful little weird creature was a ladybird larva!

And so with out tails firmly between our legs, we hugged our lovely laid back boy and admitted our dreadful parental ways.

This morning we were having a look at The Natural History Museum’s Kids Only website and saw a gallery to which children can send in their wildlife pictures. I suggested to biggest boy that we send in the image of ladybird larva and tell them that he had identified it.

A few hours later he got a link through to say they had posted the image on the site and how impressed they were with his identification skills. They also sent through links to other things relating to bugs that he might be interested in doing. What totally brilliant people those Natural History Museum people are.

The fun continued when we went into the garden (yes, still in our PJs) and found this lovely thing down by Mike’s office.

Totally inspired by the amazing wildlife that we have living under our noses I devised a nature hunt for the boys to do. It only took me a few minutes and they spent a good hour or so hunting around the garden. I’ll tart it up a bit maybe and put it as a downloadable thing for other parents to do with their kids over the summer.

Next week we’re off on a forest school day, all about bugs – I’ll try and write a post about that too.

Happy summer holidays,

Rachel xx

In the main, I’m looking forward to it. I am clinging desperately to the last few week’s of my boy2′s freedom. Our August boy has snuck into the school year by a whisker and as I curse my womb for giving me early babies, I am trying to share his happiness at starting school. I don’t think he has quite yet grasped that school doesn’t actually mean that he gets to be his big brother’s constant companion. Ah well, we’ll deal with that in September.

I also haven’t grasped yet how I am going to balance the challenge of running our new business with the challenge of six weeks without any school or nursery time. I have some plans which involve grandparents, and cricket courses, but in reality I think I will be working a lot of evenings and spending the summer being a little bit tired. It’s all brilliant really; lots of clients and two lovely boys; I can’t complain (but probably will at some point!)

I’ve spent a bit of time today booking some stuff up for the kids over the summer and seeing what stuff’s going on around and about at the moment. We’re planning a quick jaunt up to London for a spot of site-seeing next week, I’ve also booked a forest school day for us all later in August and we will no doubt do some of the old favourites – The Roman Baths, The Bristol Museum & Art Gallery,  Steam Museum in Swindon. If the weather’s good, the boys are always happy in the garden, or the park and if the weather’s bad, there is always waterproofs.

Biggest boy has just signed up to do the summer reading challenge which is organised by our brilliant library people. Save the blimmin libraries!!

I’ve been loading up the model-making box with anything that looks like it can be made into a rocket, an international space station, or a volcano and I’ve been checking out lots of blogs from inspiring folk, who do really amazing crafty stuff with their kids.

As I will undoubtedly spend the summer nicking other people’s craft ideas, I thought I’d post a couple of simple things I’ve done with the little people recently which might fill and hour or two in your summer holidays!

So enjoy, be brave, try not to shout too much and have fun with your littles – and see you in the pub in September!!

Rach xx

Painting pasta keeps them busy for hours

And it's rather beautiful too

Then they can 'pimp their scooters'

I think they're lovely.

loo roll painting

Bit more loo roll painting

And with some string, a felt tip pen and some help from mummy, I've made a sea monster!

I’m always so, so pleased I was one of the first of my friends to take the plunge into motherhood as I think I would not have coped well with the talk about how much their lives had changed. I’m sure I bored my child-free friends rigid when I took the plunge.

Yes, I can talk with the best of them, about how these little blobs come along and change EVERYTHING. I can do the positive take on it all, the negative take on it all, and the somewhere in between take on it all. I am a pro at the ‘life changing experience’ chat.

But I wont. Because, unless you’re a parent (and probably for some people who are parents) it can feel pretty dull. Close friends are let off, of course, they have a special place and are allowed to bang on about it until the cows come home – they listened to me do it after all!!.

What I want to talk about is how I’ve only just recently realised that the having a baby or two changed me totally and completely. It made me into a maker. And not just of the baby variety. I finally joined the ranks of my fore mothers and fathers, who between them,  have made a lot of shit in their time.

My mam is a master knitter and dressmaker, my dad is a joiner, my granddad was a toolmaker, my nana was a cook, nana2 could re-upholster a sofa, before you or I had even threaded q needle. I could go on.

Something strange happened when I was pregnant. Mainly I spent my pregnancy looking and feeling bloody, bloody awful. I wanted to puke 24/7 and the lovely ‘isn’t she glowing’ phase, never came close. I collapsed in a heap every night after work and demanded that Mike cook me “something plain” to eat. It was not the honeymoon-just-found-out-we’re-having-a-baby-phase that we expected, I can tell you.

And in those long and nausea filled evenings I rather spontaneously started to knit. I had learned from my nana2 when I was about 8 and kept the knitting up until I was approximately 8 and a quarter. I still remember the aquamarine acrylic and bright green children’s knitting needles.

And then suddenly, at the age of 27 – and with a rapidly expanding baby waistline – I bought myself a pair of needles and an ENORMOUS ball of wool (some of which I still have). I got my mam to cast on a few stitches for me. I bought a book about knitting. And away I went. The resulting scarf is longer than Dr Who’s famous one, as I just kept knitting and knitting until I saw my mam again, and she helped me cast off!

Since then I haven’t progressed significantly in any of my chosen ‘crafts’. I just love doing them, no matter how crap I am at them. I think that my mam secretly despairs about my slap dash attitude to everything that I learn, but I doubt I’ll every change

I now sew and crochet (and sometimes I still knit).  I do it for the sheer pleasure of creating something. I hate patterns (I’ve never been that good at being told what to do). And I tend to mainly have a bit of a ‘freeform’ style. I have millions of unfinished projects all over the house, which I am sure drives Mike wild. But if I can only finish the beautiful, grey wool hat for him this year (I started it nearly 18months ago), then I guess he might forgive me!

He’s some of my latest finished, and half finished projects:

new curtains for the boys' room in Devon

half a cushion!

Bathroom curtains in Devon.

This was meant to be a bedspread. It hasn't made it yet. Ah well.