The Everyday - and a Saturday Morning Walk in Redcastle

Just over a week this time since I last posted - and this time I believe there's even more photos - 13 in all. Haven't been up to anything much exciting - just the usual everyday things, though seems that I keep busy enough with just them. The weather is soooo unpredictable - we've had about a week of rather cold weather. If the sun comes out it's not too bad, but once you're out of it, you'd nearly think it's winter. The children are even in fleece pjs at night - whereas a few weeks ago they were in short pjs! I think Scottish summers require a full winter & summer wardrobe, as you never know what season it will be from one day to the next. :)

Here's Abigail wearing a skirt and matching shirt that I made for her the other week. I've recently found out about fabrics from an American company called Painting Red Rhinos (tho unfortunately I think they've recently gone out of business). Anyway, they made lovely children's clothing - sort of speciality shop stuff and also sold their fabrics. The unique thing about the fabrics is that in addition to the cute & colourful prints, they all come with a white background and you can easily dye them to any colour you like, but the print is just as perfect & bright as ever, un-affected by the dye! They do knits, cords, canvas, cotton etc - all very sturdy - I think someone told me Carters in USA used their fabrics/sort of fabric for their knits/sweats. Anyway, long story short (I hope) - last month someone here in the UK was selling off lots of their fabric stock and had loads of the PRR. I think I ended up getting about 10 metres of different fabrics, so I have lots of fabric for sewing children's clothes (well, at least 10 outfits). So, the outfit I made Abigail was from one of the fabrics I got, which I dyed with a lilac Dylon dye. I've got everything cut out to make Benjamin a short & shirt set from a fabric with trains, which I dyed a dark green. He was so excited about the trains on the fabric, so I really must get it stitched together before the few warm days are gone for the year!

Abigail & Benjamin playing on the front porch (a pieced together photo, tho they were both in the same area, just taken several minutes apart). Benjamin looks like he's thinking "haha, look what I've got!" He likes to pick my flowers, not to mention walking & sitting on top of them as well! Tho amazingly, I still have quite a few alive - the slugs are the worst thing for small seedlings that are in the ground (as opposed to the flowers in a pot in the above pic).

I thought this was an interesting angle to take a photo from - looks like he's got flowers up to his head! Though you can see from the photo above it, my pot was only about waist high on him. :)

Last Saturday morning we went for a walk around Redcastle (Milton of Redcastle). Peter knew there was a derelict castle in a private estate, so we set out to find it! :) BTW, there is (broadly) unrestricted access to private land here in Scotland as there is not a formalised public footpath system, such as occurs in England. As an American, I find it rather weird to wander around someone else's land, but having done it quite a few times since being married ;-), it doesn't seem quite so odd anymore. LOL

A view of the firth (I think) as we were walking along the single track road looking for a way to get into the stone walled estate.

Benjamin, Abigail & Peter - stopping along the road for a photo. It was very warm & sunny that morning - just lovely!

A beautiful & lush green field (inside the estate)

Looking down to the water which is along the road we had been walking along.

A pretty & unusual farm house, with brightly painted red window frames - almost right next to the castle.

At last we found the castle - Redcastle. Have a look at this page here: http://www.clan-mackenzie.org.uk/clan/castles.html#Redcastle and you'll see a very different looking Redcastle in 1950. As the page says, a more recent owner took the roof off to avoid having to pay taxes on the castle!! And now, 40 years later, the castle is derelict and dangerous to enter. It's sad such a beautiful building was just ruined.

A beautiful bridge just beyond the castle - well, the bridge isn't anything too fancy, but the green trees made it look very peaceful.

Back around in the "village" of Milton of Redcastle, Abigail standing beside a Victorian post box that's in a stone wall.

Just along from the post box was this boat filled with flowers - I think the villagers love flowers and it was a lovely & bright place.

Perhaps an old mill stone?

Well, guess that's me finished for tonight. I should get some sleep while my children are sleeping. Goodnight. :)

Back to normal

Well, I knew it had been at least a few days since I'd last put up a post here, but hadn't realised it was actually over 10 days - sorry! :-) I think we're all back to normal now - at last, no one is sick! After so many weeks of ill children, it's great to have them happy & healthy - even if it means lots of energy for occasional mischief! ;-)

Nothing much exciting happening - just ordinary days, or at least trying to get back to normal again. I've got lots of photos for this post, so I'll just "write" the blog around the photos. I hope it's not too annoying to have a post that is miles long with a dozen photos!! I just don't get round to blogging very often, so they all get shoved into one big one.

The cake Abigail made for her Daddy's birthday. Well, obviously she didn't do the words herself, but she did all the sprinkles and helped put the candies on, as well as putting ingredients in the bowl & mixing the cake up. As it happened, we were on holiday on Peter's birthday and Abigail was rather disappointed that she didn't get to make him a cake (in her opinion, cakes are a very important part of birthdays!). So, soon after we arrived back home she insisted that we baked Daddy a cake and she wanted it to say "I love you" on it as well. :)

I thought she looked really cute here - pretending to be sleeping!

Enjoying one of the neighbour's cats! He is very friendly and they both love playing with him - Benjamin even tried to pick the cat up by his tail and he didn't even mind!

"Pretty" - that's what Benjamin says when he puts Abigail's headband on (well, perhaps "pretty" with extra e's instead of the t's)! lol

My sweet little girl - probably wearing pjs in the middle of the day! Last week when she wasn't feeling very well, she kept on taking her clothes off and putting pjs on instead - I guess they were more comfy and cosy!

Wild hair! Bit of an action shot - she was jumping up & down and the camera caught the hair standing up.

Climbing up the slide...

And at the top, ready to go down! :) Now that Benjamin has mastered the slide, it's actually fun for Abigail to use it! She's not used it much since she got it for her last birthday, but seems that having a little brother to take turns with has made it fun.

Cleaning teeth before bedtime!

Hiding in the bushes! Seems this is their new hide-out - they had so much fun. Abigail said the branches were gates that they were opening & closing etc. There was light rain falling but as I was cooking dinner I let them go outside in their wellies while I watched them from the kitchen window. Being outside keeps them out of trouble, as seen in the pics below! ;-)

This is what Benjamin did within the first 60 seconds of coming in the house! I let them play in the rain as long as I reasonably could - but eventually it was getting heavier & I had them come in before they got soaked. So Benjamin thought he'd climb the table and play with the fruit.

And Abigail thought since I was taking a photo of Benjamin, it must be a good thing to do! (Not!) Anyway, here she is joining him on the table. And no, I didn't leave them up there - though Benjamin probably repeated the climb a half dozen times before I got dinner on the table.

At the moment it can be quite difficult to keep an eye on Benjamin every possible second of the day. Obviously that isn't possible to do. However, it just means a little boy getting bumps and falls all the time, in addition to knots & bruises, and even busted & bleeding lips (tho that was just from running into the kitchen door!). Anyway, between the two of them, there's always something (or a half dozen things) to keep me busy with. :) I obviously had it very easy with Abigail since she only started walking at about 16 months - and was always a calm & quiet person. Whereas with Benjamin, now at 15 months, he's already running about and climbing anything that looks like a challenge - very fast moving! Thankfully, he actually will spend quite a lot of his time sitting looking at books - he *loves* books! The best books are ones with tractors, trains, and farm animals (sheeps, cows & ducks esp!). Not that it's always a quiet exercise - lots of very loud baaaa's and quacks! :-)

OK, enough of my ramblings - I'll have put everyone to sleep by now - or at least bored them! I think I'll go climb into bed. Goodnight.

Holiday in Yorkshire

Hiya! :) Anyone wondered where I've been? I'm back now. We had a wee break away for just over a week. Peter thought that maybe we could squeeze in a short holiday before the hay fever season starts (which makes him feel pretty miserable in the summer) and that we needed a break after getting rather exhausted with a few weeks of ill children (and parents!) etc. So I did lots of web hunting and managed to find a self catering house for the first 4 days and then Peter phoned some people we knew in another place and managed to secure a self catering cottage for the remaining 3 nights we needed (it seemed *everything* in Ykshire was booked up for the bank holiday weekend).

Anyway, everything seemed perfect! We went to Fort William for the weekend of 24/25 May and stayed with my family. Anna (who my dad is engaged to) was there as well, so Abigail & Benjamin got to meet her for the first time, which was nice - and they liked her too! :) Then early on Monday (26 May) we headed south to England, where we stayed in Sowerby Bridge (Yorkshire). On Tuesday we decided to go to the National Railway Museum in York (great fun for Abigail especially!). Then on Wednesday we were planning to go see friends in Barnoldswick. We headed off in good time but only got as far as Halifax (the next town/city over) before we realised the car's speedometer wasn't working, and then the power steering failed briefly! We tried in vain to find a Fiat dealer (or authorised repairer) there locally but eventually located one in a town that was en route to Barnoldswick and they said they could look at it later that afternoon. So we went for lunch as planned with friends and then afterwards the children and I stayed at their house while Peter took the car to the dealer and got a hire car from Enterprise etc. He was gone for several hours and only got back barely in time to go to our other friends' house for dinner! We thought the car would be ready the next day (only needing a speed sensor and new battery), however it turned out the part didn't come in on Thursday and when we eventually went for it on Friday (the day we were leaving the area to go stay in a different town) we were told they hadn't a clue what the problem was - still not working after the new parts were installed! So Friday was spent (many hours sitting in the car, which was crammed with all our bags, etc!) waiting for the RAC (breakdown recovery) to come (after we'd taken our car from the dealer) and they eventually picked it up & towed it back to Scotland, and we had to continue our holiday with the hire car. It wouldn't be so bad except that I'm only a "learner" driver here in the UK and I can't drive a hire car - so all the driving was left to Peter! (In the end, after we got back this week - our local dealer was able to fix the car - only a broken wire - but took them 3 hours to locate it!) Anyway, after the car was sorted (late afternoon) we headed for our final destination - Reeth - a most beautiful place! :) And it's extra special since we stayed just outside of Reeth on our honeymoon! ;-) So it was nice to be back there again. The house was lovely & cosy - very welcoming - (a nice change from the previous place we were at, which really needed a face lift and some dusting!). We managed to get something to cook for dinner in the tiny local shop before they closed and so had a meal before it got too late! It is so nice & peaceful there (as you'll see in the photos to follow below). On Saturday we spent the first part of the day in Richmond though Peter started feeling unwell in the afternoon and ended up sleeping when we got back, but seemed to recover fairly by evening. We spent the Lord's day with the Mohons and were at church with them in Stockton. It was lovely and encouraging to see everyone again and enjoy their fellowship. Peter started feeling unwell again in the evening and was getting a bit of chills/fever etc. However, the next morning we headed off (tho he was in bed late & I had all the packing to do etc) - I knew it was going to be a difficult day since he had to do all the driving back to Scotland while he wasn't well. We got home at 11pm - a long day, though it seemed to go smoothly.

As I said in the beginning, we thought we could use a break after getting run down with colds/viruses. However, as it turns out, we all came home with something else! :( Abigail's had a tummy bug - vomitting several times (once at 2am in her bed, which was an awful mess and traumatic for her!). Benjamin is full of a cold (tho thankfully not as chesty as the one he had before we left which went to an infection). I've had a cold as well, though have been thankful I was well enough to look after everyone else! Especially as Peter was rather seriously ill - it turns out he obviously had some sort of urinary infection, though we thought it was just some sort of ordinary virus at first. He kept having fever, severe sweating, chills, and just being generally exhausted ever since we got home, and getting worse rather than better. He'd been in bed most of the time as well. By yesterday (Thursday) morning he was looking pretty bad - and it became even more clear when he fainted!! I managed to catch his head and hold him up until he came round again (about 90 sec prob). It was rather scary and I wasn't sure what to do should I need to run get water or something to make him wake up - especially as he was sitting on the edge of his computer chair without anything behind his back, and worse still, was inside a "baby cage" (the gate enclosure we have around his computer to keep Benjamin out of it!). Thankfully he woke up and cooled down. I took him to the doctors shortly there after and they've given him a course of antibiotics (yes, I think that's all doctors are good for!). However, they're obviously working and he's out of bed today and looking nearly normal again - so yay! :) Now I just hope the children are about recovered as well. Nearly 6 weeks of illnesses (with only a very few days of semi-wellness) is rather heavy going!

....Phew! Well done if you've managed to get through reading the above introduction/rambling about our holiday! If only I knew how to be concise! Anyway, here are the photos - split across two postings.

In Fort William before we headed further south - Benjamin learning to skateboard!!! He looked so natural on it - I don't think anyone told him what to do - he just did it!

Just arriving at the National Railway Museum in York - you can see excitement in Abigail's eyes as she points to trains! :) BTW, the museum is the largest of its kind in the world and is totally free!! It's huge and you could spend all day there and still not really see everything!

Benjamin also enjoying it - pointing to something interesting, obviously!

Trains

Taking big steps as he runs across the museum - I think he looks rather grown up for a mere 14 month old!

Me & the children (tho I look pretty awful in this photo - I think I was rather tired by this point)

The Wheel in York (by the museum) though we didn't go on it

Benjamin & Abigail waiting in the car when we first realised it had problems, while Peter went to try and find out where the Fiat dealer was

Wakefield Cathedral, dating from the 14th & 15th centuries, if I remember correctly

Wakefield Cathedral again

Benjamin & Abigail again - looking rather hot and tired - it was very warm the afternoon we walked round Wakefield

Yorkshire holiday - part 2

Remaining photos from our holiday! :)

Bolton Castle - built in 1399

A beautiful view at sunset in Reeth - we took a walk after dinner on Friday night and it was so peaceful and relaxing. Just the sounds of birds, sheep & cows! :)

We found a park at the end of the road where we were staying. Abigail & Benjamin were delighted to get a chance to stretch their legs & play - especially after spending nearly the whole day in the car!

Having lots of fun! :)

The very adventurous little boy who always has to try something different (and daring!).

A cow - obviously! :)

Reeth Suspension Bridge

Another view along our evening walk

Reeth Suspension Bridge again

Looking out from the end of the bridge

So, that's the end of my photos! Nothing too exciting, but shows a bit of what we did & saw. Goodnight for now.