Final week

Look! No snow! In fact Ian has had rather nice
weather

In the last week of my trip to the UK, I slept on the sofa at my son's house. Each morning the children would come down after eight o’clock, when the sun rose on their clock (what a brilliant invention, where the clock face changes from a moon to a sun to tell them when they can get up), I would then give them their breakfast. Most of the time they wanted toast with the lemon curd made by my mother that I had brought down for them. One morning though I was asked for snap, snap by the little one. I had to ask her older brother what she meant and found out she meant rice crispies – You know! The ones that go “Snap! Snap!” of course and has a picture of a crocodile on them. I should have guessed.

Someone has found a cosy spot

It might have been nice but it was still muddy. Ian
took the wheels off to give them a clean as he
didn't want all this lot on the wheels when he was
travelling

The last morning there was a bit of a problem as I woke just before 7am and thought, oh good, a whole hour before they come down. Wrong! Mummy had got a bit mixed up when putting them to bed and turned the alarm to the wrong setting and so the oldest one was up almost a whole hour before he should have been. Fortunately, I managed to persuade him it was still early and Daddy would only be up later to make pancakes so he needed to play very quietly at the other end of the sofa from me, although he was allowed to snuggle under the quilt to keep warm. The little one arrived about 20 minutes later and snuggled up to me and sat quietly reading a book to herself – well she was running her finger under the words anyway. I was quite surprised that they were quiet for the whole hour so I could catch up on the news.

It might just look like a dew drop on a dried up
twig but this is the sign of the grapevine beginning
to wake up from its winter sleep. The drop is sap
that is rising up the vine

I like the idea that all my kids have made Saturday breakfasts family events with special breakfasts. Their own kids seem to enjoy it and I think it is an important part of cementing their families. I also like the fact they all have their evening meals together as a family as much as possible and so continuing our tradition. Ian's family and my family did eat together sometimes but not every evening, however we decided it is something we wanted to do and felt it was important for our family. Sometimes it was tough, but the outcome seems to be have been worth it.

Our smaller apartment lacks cupboard space and
so we will use the kitchen from the old apartment
and squeeze in shelves wherever we can. This one is
above the sink in the toilet 

Most of my third week was spent at home, as we couldn’t go far with the little one, especially as their Mum couldn’t walk too far. There was also not enough room in the car for all of us and some days we had to wait for midwives and health visitors to turn up to monitor Mum and baby. That meant plenty of time for playing games with the older ones, lots of changing of nappies and cuddles with the baby and a foray into the park on one occasion.

With the alpacas, but not ours

We did manage to get out a bit, and on one day I went to a mini-farm with my son and the older two, where we got to see some alpacas, along with a peacock with the most amazing green iridescent tail that I have ever seen. We tried to see if any of the alpacas looked like Brencis, as the older one considers that Brencis is his alpaca since he has an adoption certificate for him. He is looking forward to seeing his alpaca one day but for the time being we had to make do with the ones on this farm. They weren't as friendly as Brencis, in fact Brencis ran up to me when I got back. I suspect he thought I had some food, rather than because he missed me while I was away.

A clear frosty morning for Ian - yes I'm pretty bad
at remembering to take photos 

One afternoon my son dropped me off with his two older ones at Messy Church (a church service for little ones). I got to be on the other end of messy craft activities with the children. Oh! it brought back memories. I used to run craft activities for large and small church-based conferences and so I would have been the one devising the craft activities for people to do with the children. It was nice just to work with my two grandchildren and help them make things.

However I did take these at the mini-zoo so that I could
show Ian some ideas for the roofs for egg boxes on our
chicken arks. He plans to make some new ones

So this is the other version

Sunrise through the mist on our land

My poor son still had to do some work - one of the problems of being self-employed and having a baby at the beginning of his busy season. Whoops! He runs a mobile bike repair and servicing business and of course, at this time of the year, business is just beginning to pick up. He took off as much time as possible though or popped back from time to time when he could fit it in around jobs. It is not so easy nowadays to run a business like that from home, especially a small home. There were upsides to having a workshop as part of the home in days of yore I guess.

In the lift heading for departures

I arrived back late on Saturday evening and I could tell immediately that the weather had been much better in Latvia while I was away, as Ian looked quite tanned already. It was well after midnight when we arrived back at the caravan where we will be based until late autumn. Unfortunately this fact didn't seem to bother the cockerels who were crowing in their arks just outside our caravan at just after five in the morning. Back to rural reality with a bump.

Ian was busy taking out the kitchen
at our old apartment while we were
away. The idea is eventually to put
it in a new house! One day!

We had a pretty chilled out day on the Sunday, but now we are getting back into our summer schedule with the added job of continuing with the house move. Ian had moved some boxes and the kitchen bases from one apartment to the other one and I spent this morning trying to figure out where everything should go, so that we can make room for the next load. It is nice not having to do it all at once. The next round is to fill more boxes and then get the large items moved. That should be fun! Not!

More signs of spring

I have also been getting in the garden and getting a jump start on the weeds as well as digging over a vegetable bed. It is always much easier at this time of the year, but it won't be long before the weeds get ahead of me and other jobs need doing.