It's snowing in Derbyshire.

Well, sort of anyway. In a sort of fake-snow-worthy-of-a-70s-film-set sort of way.
I finished making Joshua's pirate bean bag. Having filled it in the corridor (I figured the tiny white balls would be less likely to spread so far) I thought it would be a good idea to hoover up before Joshua himself got up from his nap. I was distracted from doing so though, and in no time I heard him shuffling down the corridor in a sleepy sort of way. In retrospect, I'm glad I hadn't hoovered the mess up, because we ended up having half an hour of riotous fun.
It turns out that they're pretty staticy (my computer doesn't like that word - I mean they stick to you!). What's more if your roll about in them, they feel really cool. In no time at all, we went from sitting in a small pile of them:
To playing ridiculous games, including the aforementioned 'it's snowing', resulting in the length of the corridor being covered! (The end of the red carpet is the end of our bit of corridor!)
Of course, the game had to come to an end eventually, but I can nevertheless recommend it most highly! You can tell how much I was enjoying it, because I don't seem to have taken Joshua's dummy off him, which is most unusual!
And if you're wondering, it's actually raining here. I'm quite pleased really, partly because I've been indoors working at the computer much of the day, and partly because it'll help the parsnips and carrots along a little!

And in other news, I'm thrilled to see that I've smashed through the double figure barrier in 'followers'. :o)

Hair today, gone tomorrow. And the home help.

Well, I have to say the first week of term hasn't gone to plan. (Well, not ours, anyway) But setting that aside, here's some of what we've been up to...

Tuesday saw the politics society (run by Anna) host a highly acclaimed question time with our local MP-hopefuls (including flying brick, of the monster raving loony party - who happens to be a past pupil of the school!) It went down very well, so I hear!

Joshua and I braved a trip to the hairdresser on Wednesday. I'd been the day before to have mine done, so Joshua couldn't really refuse. As usual, there are the before and after shots. And as usual, the before one is bath time!

In fact, not only do we have before and after photos, we actually have a during too:

This was the point at which he could see again. Maybe that's why he looks happy with life. It was quite an amusing trip actually. When I told him we were going, his first question was, "Will I get a lolly?" Very impressive memory indeed. (He gets them from the hairdresser, I hasten to add, not me!)
Then, we got there at 4.45, and Joshua had not had a nap, with the result that he sat in the chair and was very quite, and a little floppy. I did wonder if he was going to make it through, but he did. I think it was probably the lolly that did it!
Later on Wednesday, we had one of our more odd conversations. We were playing with Happyland, specifically with the church and the fire brigade. Joshua said, "Remember when the sheep got stuck on the church and they asked Jesus to get him, but Jesus couldn't reach so they asked the fireman and the fireman rescued him?" Wasn't quite sure where to start with my response to that. Maybe Fireman Sam should be banned for a few days...

And finally, his haircut seems to have triggered a desire to help around the house. I was wiping tables in the girls' dining room after tea, when it dawned on me that Joshua
a) wasn't there
b) hadn't had the telly put on for him and
c) wasn't complaining.
This was clear reason to be suspicious. I abandoned my cloth to go and look for him. I found him in our kitchen, thus:
Very sweet, very helpful, but not very well controlled. The floor was left looking like this:
And that's after it had had some time to dry :)
Ah well, he meant well!
I've got a couple of lovely shots of playground action (again!) which will go up soon.
I need some more people to follow this, one of my 9 followers has jumped ship *sob* (yes, I know who you are!) ;)

Surely this won't last...

I've just had one of the most productive mornings I've had for ages.
Got up just after six (ok, so maybe that's part of the reason the morning was productive - it was longer than usual!) because that's when Joshua got up. Had a quiet time, then a shower. Went downstairs for breakfast with Joshua at about ten past seven. Finished breakfast and took Joshua to pre-school (usually, we both go into breakfast with the girls, but I managed to get us out the house early!). Got back from pre-school and registered the girls in breakfast. Chatted to chef about gluten-free needs in the house, sorted out a couple of other 'house' things. Went into town (about half-eight) to do the gluten-free shopping. Bought it all, along with osme furniture polish and stuff for us. Still had an hour left on the car's free parking, so went to have my haircut (got into the fifth hairdresser I tried!). Had a look at a derelict cinema I'd like to buy in Burton. (We can all dream...). Got home, unpacked the shopping. Sorted out claims for the bursary, took them and pocket money to the bursary. Wrote up accounts on computer and caught up with the news online (also checked emails and stuff). Went to pick Joshua up from pre-school, doing the recycling on the way (and there was lots!). Got him home, sorted pre-lunch drinks for guests, put Joshua down for his nap, had lunch, during which I read a bit of RT Kendall, sorted post dinner hot drinks, and sat down to write this.
Surely this level of organisation and purpose won't last...
Oooh, lunch guests are coming back, gotta dash!

Spring cleaning.

Well, it has to be done sometime, doesn't it...
I did a bit of a clearout of the kitchen this week. Sorting through the cupboards and the like. All very fun :) Had a couple of surprises. There were, as expected, a couple of things that went out of date in the last few months. The disturbing thing was that there were also some things that went out of date some time before... The oldest thing I found was best before March 2006. Ooops. That's obviously even worse given that we actually moved house in 2008, so we managed to pack things that were already two years out of date, then put them in our cupboards for another two years. Grimbo Jimbo.
In fact, thinking about it, it's stuff that went out of date before Joshua was born! Ew, yuck!

A couple of funny comments from the boy recently:
As I was scraping his unfinished ('I don't want any more') Coco Pops into the food waste, he said, "Hey, what are you doing to my poor coco pops?".
Prayer tonight involved thanking Jesus that Joshua could open the freezer...
I've managed to teach him to say, 'cashback'. (I also seem, unadvertantly, to have taught him to say 'silly muppet' ... oops)

And in other news, one of Joshua's friends has shown him how to open the stairgate on his bedroom door. Cheers mate. I'm going to have to work out some sort of revenge.

The life of the lumberjack.

Well, for those of you townies who read this, I thought I'd give you a little glimpse into life in the country, where you stand shoulder to shoulder with nature. The sky is your ceiling, the earth is your bed. Your very existence hangs on the rhythm of the seasons. Life is simple. (As are some of the people...)
So here's a little something about collecting firewood.

First you get your employer to cut down a bunch of trees on your property (well, their property, strictly speaking). And the trees were cut down because they needed to be (falling over, rotting through, that sort of thing!). Then you have a whole load of wood, but because our fireplace isn't the size of a large tree, you need to cut the wood down. That's where your visitors come in:
Now, I'd obviously have put shots of myself here, but it's tricky to take photos of yourself splitting wood, not to mention slightly dangerous... So here's a very obliging relative :) This is a demonstration of the classic 'I've got the wood stuck on the axe (or as it's more correctly known, the maul)' pose. This can be quite common, depending on the type of wood you're splitting. I have to confess, I enjoy demonstrating splitting with some easy-to-split wood (like birch) and then placing a different type of wood ready for visitors to have a crack at :) (Sorry Mark!)

This next photo shows the more satisfying result of striking wood with maul, that is, a clean split.
As you can see, one bit of wood is flying off the the right (this is where feet can get hurt!) and another is flying off to the left. For bonus points on this split, you'll see the bark has also come off the wood, and is flying in another direction (it's the black shape that's hiding the blade of the axe/maul).
This is a truly satisfying activity for all. Particularly in winter, as you can then go inside and enjoy the nice wood fire, though obviously not with the wood you've just split - it needs thorough seasoning. And no, I don't mean a pinch of cinnamon.

Watch out for the installment on 'chainsawing'. It'll have to wait until we have more visitors though...

A runaway cow.

Gutted. I'm absolutely gutted. It turns out that we had an escaped cow in our orchard, and we weren't at home to see it! The guy from whom I'm collected the pallets told me that he'd phoned to school to let them know there was a cow in the field behind our house. It then dashed off into our orchard, and there was chased around by a number of school staff. It got away and was last seen heading off down the High Street.
I can't believe we missed it (and yes, there are hoof prints in the grass to show it wasn't just an April Fool!) and I really hope someone was taking photos... If they were, I'll get hold of them and post them, because it's about the funniest thing that's happened all year!

And another thing living in the country, while I'm on the subject. I was hoovering the patio this afternoon (sad, I know!) and discovered that we've got a bird nesting there again this year. Not exactly sure what it was, because it saw me before I saw it, and looked pretty terrified, so I figured climbing up for a better look probably wasn't very kind! Will get a photo tomorrow though, with luck!

Sunburn in April.

In Derbyshire! Shocking I know, but I managed to actually burn myself by spending the entire day in the garden today. Well, I popped inside for the occasional drink and pee, but other than that, it was a proper outdoors day. Fab weather all day (thus the burn...) and great fun to be out in it.
Anna did a marvellous job of looking after Joshua while I was fulfilling some weird desire to turn a couple (three actually) of old pallets into flowerbed things. They're kinda flower troughs, I guess, but I can't show you a photo, because it was too dark to take photos by the time I'd finished sweeping up the mess. Very manly business though, even managed to use a couple of power tools for extra stud points. Sadly couldn't find my crowbar (Iso, is it in the lean-to? Don't worry, I won't ask you to post it), which meant I had to dismantle the pallets with my hammer, chisel and screwdriver (not the proper way at all!).
Joshua and I went to pick them up this morning from a friendly chap down the road. Well, strictly speaking, he's down the path, the other side of the field... Joshua was sporting his brand new Gruffalo tee-shirt, so wasn't allowed to help carry the pallets, as the tee would have got even dirtier than it did. The boy's a dirt magnet :) He stuck around for all of about ten minutes, then did a runner. To be fair, he'd already spent a fair amount of time wandering 'round the garden this morning doing the watering (still in his pyjamas - should've got a photo of that!) He did manage to water his jacket fairly convincingly too...
Anyways, the troughs are now filled with gravel and compost (yes, from the compost heap that I sorted out about a month and a half back) and are waiting for their plants. It's going to be sweet peas in the back, and tomatoes at the front. Hopefully, the sweet peas will be trained up some wires to produce a dazzling display, visible from the sitting room. Fingers crossed...
I'm now heading for bed for a well-earned sleep. There's something very satisfying about going to bed aching (well, when it's from hard labour, anyway!).

Happy Easter.

A couple of weeks ago, I was talking with Joshua about Easter. Figuring it was a good time to discuss the whole question of what Easter's about, I asked him, "Why did Jesus die, sweetheart?". His response? "Uh, was he eaten by a shark?". Uh... no sweety :o) Now, to be fair to Joshua, we had spent the previous weekend away with a bunch of friends from church and we'd been looking at the story of Jonah, so I'm kinda guessing that he was getting a little confused!

The next week in church, we heard about a kid who asked their mum this question: "Mummy, why did Jesus have to die? Why couldn't we just say sorry?" What a great question! Wouldn't it be easier that way? But then that doesn't take into account how serious it is when we ignore God's way. And that's what's so amazing about Easter. I think about what it means to me to be a Father, and then multiply that by about a kazillion and you're probably getting close to imagining the feeling of closeness between God the Father and God the Son, and from that, you can consider the burden of seperation that the cross was for them.
Wow.

He is risen.