Park

Nice being able to sit around at the park again. Foxy choosing to play with cars, which, of course, he does at home all the time.


I like view from our bench.


Quintessential Victorian England park. Whenever I'm here I remember last summer having tea & cakes with the SLC contingent and Sam telling me that we have the perfect life. Maybe not perfect, but good to remember how v lucky we are.

Life IS good.

What a difference...

...a week makes. Term finished on Friday, and boy did it feel good. I'm trying not to gloat too much as Nearest & Dearest still has this week to go. But it's GOOD!

We had a fab weekend. A little time at Spring Barn Park Farm:

We also met up with the Eastbourne clan for Sunday lunch. I used to find such things quite stressful because Foxy has a pretty hard time sitting nicely, etc, whilst cousin G, well, what can I say? He is a lovely & much less hyper boy. Anyway, MUCH better now. Development, it's a good thing. How cute are they?

Running on Fumes

We are feeling very end-of-termish around here. There's nothing for it but tea-time in front of the telly and early bedtimes all round. Today, Foxy is even beyond sitting upright:


Roll on Spring break.

Beach Trip

This afternoon we made our first seaside visit of the year. There were stones so Foxy was happy:


(Thanks for the great hat Homestead Mom!)

We bought donuts so I was happy:


Probably the fresh air and Foxy were keeping Nearest & Dearest happy:


And look at what a great photo this one is in comparison to the rest:


I wonder why ;-)

Spring

Into another good time of year. We can ignore Jan and Feb, and start ENJOYing again. 6 more working days left of the term. I've been super busy lately, but look what I get to see walking onto campus:










Pretty huh? And tonight I'm tucking into the season's first mini-eggs:




Yum.

Real-life baking

Just pulled a madiera cake out of the oven. Yum! Nigella's How To Be a Domestic Goddess rarely disappoints. I even managed a photo kind of like the ones in Real Blogs:




But the rest of the table looks like this:




And the prep area like this:




So, still awaiting perfection. I'll let you know when it gets here.

Foxy's First Protest

Last week there was a march and teddy bears' picnic to protest the threatened closure of campus childcare facilities. Of course it rained and the kids didn't know what they were doing, but still poignant and A Good Thing. Fascist management actually had riot police waiting for us. Sad times.

One last laugh

This stuffed dog has been part of our lives for about a year. Eastbourne Grandma "won" it from a charity tombola. First she tried to fob it off on cousin G, but he had the good taste to act scared of the giant beast. Not our Foxy. He squeeled with delight and rode it like a bucking bronco. Ergo, we got stuck with the thing. Imagine my delight when stuffing started coming out of its back. This was the dogs finest moment, IMO:

It's True

I am a Knitting Champion. In the 17 days of the Winter Olympics, I challenged myself to complete a Baby Bubbles cardigan, and my god, I did it. It is the trickiest knit I have ever done, and IMHO, the most gorgeous:

If only I found writing academic papers/grants this satisfying...