Grandkids galore

Ian is still sending me alpaca pictures and so I can
keep in touch with what is happening back at home.
Here the girls and the youngsters are all outside
enjoying the sun - or probably shut out so they go
outside

This week has revolved around the grandchildren mainly. The first part of the week revolved around school times. I went with my son's partner to take my granddaughter to school and to collect her most days. I got to see her at Mass at the Catholic church linked to the school one afternoon as her class took part in the re-telling of the Easter story. She played one of the soldiers who arrested Jesus. I also went to the Star of the Week Awards at the school. It was lovely to hear her being awarded the Science Star, especially in recognition of her enthusiasm and obvious knowledge gleaned from outside school. She has such a natural curiosity that it is easy to chatter about science when we meet. I have a science background and our family also used to talk about science subjects at the evening meal at times and it is nice to see some of that has rubbed off.

The snow is taking time to go on our land but also
coming and going

I love this picture of a cattail
seed head from our pond

We also got an invite one evening to my son's partner's father's house for an evening meal. He asked what we wanted to eat and I suggested something Chilean, since he is from Chile and I have never eaten Chilean food before (well if you discount the vegetables that originally come from that area of the world). We had Empanadas to start with, which are pastry filled with meat, cheese or mussels. Ours were filled with meat or cheese and had raisins and olives in, amongst other ingredients and they were tasty. It was an eclectic meal with pork and chicken in a mango sauce, plenty of veg and ice-cream and apple strudel to finish with. So around the world in one meal I think.

The snow always goes quickest off our south facing
ski hill

Still plenty of ice around 

My granddaughter and I made a chocolate fudge type thing, similar to what I have been making at home for us. She even liked the dark chocolate taste. It didn't turn out quite the same, but I think that was because the cocoa was slightly different. It still tasted good anyway. We enjoy making things together, so we experimented in making a scratch card where you put black paint on top of wax crayons. I'm not sure yet how that turned out as it needed a lot of layers of paint to cover the wax crayons and it wasn't dry before I left.

Every year our ponds goes through a phase of looking
like an agate when the snow begins to melt

Sofie looks a little windswept

On our last day, the weather was not so good and I had to do some work on the academic paper. As I mentioned last week it had to be handed in by the end of the month, so I had been taking bits of time to work on it then send it on to others to work on it too. Anyway I finished in enough time to go out and we went to a soft play area for lunch and to let my granddaughter run around. At one point I had her racing against time to see how fast she could complete a route through the play area and back. She managed to get under a minute on her last go.

Enjoying a good scratch on a spruce tree

Freddie is starting to look quite big now

On the Saturday my son and his family and I went up to my daughter's for my second granddaughter's birthday party. She will be five soon but her party was at the weekend for friends and family. I did take a pause mid-afternoon to finish off my contribution to the paper during the middle of the party, but since it was from the afternoon and into the evening, it wasn't too long a time away. I did help the littlies to make bracelets and necklaces from beads and elastic though.

Turbjørn eating hay

Enjoying a snack break on our walk. This is the
granddaughter whose birthday will be soon with her
cat ear headband she got at her party.

Sunday was a slow start to the day after the slightly hectic party day and in the afternoon we took advantage of the lack of rain to go for a walk. I should have taken some pictures of the paths though, as in places they were a little deep in mud. One point would have made a great picture as my son-in-law was perched on a rock holding the gate open while my daughter tried to navigate the buggy through a rather deep puddle with baby still on board. Not sure if he was awake at that point or not. I could only observe while holding the hands of the other two to make sure they didn't slither their way down the muddy rocks. Another point to take a picture was probably the one of me leaping a large puddle as there was no way around it and I was the only one without proper waterproof hiking boots or wellies on - they did all stop to watch my performance though. I am glad to say I did not disgrace myself by falling over or into the puddle, as everyone was probably hoping.

Tellus

Snow this morning in the UK

Today we woke up to snow but still needed to get out a bit for some fresh air. We took a walk into the town to get a few things and noted the lack of stallholders on the market. Only one had bothered to turn up and there were not many folks about. Even Costa was shut. We trudged back but had some wailing from the granddaughter who wanted to hold Daddy's hand and not mine and then claimed she couldn't take her wet boots and socks off. I did explain that if I took them off there would be time spent in the bedroom to calm down and so my next few minutes were spent waiting for calm outside the bedroom door. Lol that does bring back some memories.

The view from our walk

A bit of a misty picture but it is of a group of trees in the
middle of the picture that I know very well but from a
different vantage point. These trees can also be seen from
a cafe we used to visit often when we lived in the UK

It wasn't all bad though, while Mummy and Daddy went out, Grandma Oh Oh was left in charge (that's me, just in case you don't know). The little one was in bed anyway and I played with the older two. We played at picnics, dominoes, fire rescues (pretend I hasten to add), clearing up playdoh from earlier (when I made a green dragon wth yellow fins on the back, purple arms and pink eyes - I know how to have fun) and then we were just about to have hot cross buns and grapes when Mummy and Daddy returned. So I am surviving well, no colds or coughs picked up from any of them and also I am getting plenty of cuddles, especially from the youngest grandson. Still waiting for news though of the next one to be born - it had better arrive before I leave the UK.

Is Aggie laughing because I'm away? Whatever,
I think the windswept look deserves a suitable
caption