A million things to say.

But probably neither the time nor the inclination to say them all...
We had a million people in our garden at the weekend for end of term drinks.  Well, I think it was about a million; I lost count around the eight hundred thousand mark.  It was invitation only, but I'm sure someone must have put a sign on the gate saying, 'free food, all welcome', because we were inundated.  But hey, it was good, everyone was on top form (it being the start of the holidays helped!) and we've now recovered.  (Though the grass hasn't...)
I keep taking photos to blog about, and then not actually getting around to it.  So here's a random assortment of them, with captions/comments.  If any strike you as interesting (which, lets face it, is fairly unlikely) then comment and you might get a fuller blog post on them some day.  We are on holiday, after all.  (Did I mention that already).
Anyways, here they are:

I saw a mouse ...  I told Joshua that I'd learnt the song when I was about his age.  He replied that that was because he'd taught me.  Still not grasped some aspects of time yet...  But his year at school did dress up beautifully as mice for the performance!

Another great thing to wear.  A school bag.  On your head.

Don't you just love these?!  Big eggs that turn out to be:

double-yolked.  Sadly, in my excitement, I broke both yolks.  Oops.  Needless to say, this egg came from a farm, not a shop.

Barking mad.  This is the bark that went as the 'base' for Joshua's climbing frame.  There was a lot of it.  A lot of wheelbarrow action.  There's only a tiny pile left in the drive now.  The rest is under the climbing frame, in the pig sty, and on one of the paths in the garden.  Phew.

I'm concentrating so hard it almost hurts.  Mind you, the bird did look mighty fine at the end of it.

A gooseberry!  (Look closely - it is the only one!)  These were only planted this year, in my defence...

And some plums too.  These are a little more established, to say the least.  I now need an orchard ladder...

I like this.  There's a sort of 'distant' quality to it.

And this is the boy enjoying the cricket.  Oh no, hang on, he's looking the wrong way.  He enjoyed the inflatables, anyway.  That's something, I suppose.
These pics were all taken last month.  Shows I'm a little behind.  (Stop giggling - I said I am one, not I have one)
I'm now going to do another post ('oh no', I hear you cry) about last weekend's activities...

So much to say...

Where to start?  I've got a bigger-than-ever backlog of photos which are supposed to be going on this (and the other) blog(s).  I'll start with these ones:

It's yet another trip to the ever-delightful Calke Abbey.  (We're saving a fortune by being National Trust members!)  In fact, I think there might even be pictures of this stump elsewhere on this blog - I know it's a favourite.
This time, however...

 We went for the humour...

 Pretty deep, this hole ... going ...

 ... going ...

 ... gone ... (well, almost!)

Then Joshua took a couple of pics.  I think this is my fave:

Me and my lovely lady wife.  Ok, so the picture's not exactly straight, but it's a nice corner of the gardens that we'd never been to before.   And there aren't many such corners left, given our frequent trips!
More pics and news later...

Chores.

I figure that 3 is plenty old enough to start doing a few little jobs around the place. This week, we started with laying the table. Seemed, pretty straightforward to me. However, it's obviously not as easy as it appears ...
So, having established that table-laying wasn't really something that featured in his skills matrix (as they say), I thought maybe something a little more outdoorsy would be more fitting.Three problems spring to mind though:
1) He can't reach the brake (is that a problem? well, given his steering, yes)
2) He can't reach the lever to engage the mower blade
3) When the mower blade is engaged, he isn't actually heavy enough to be 'registered' by the seat, and so the power cuts off (it's a safety feature - blades engaged + driver off seat = powercut) I guess the bright spark who designed the cutoff feature figured that people driving would be over the age of three.
In all seriousness, we had a fantastic time mowing today. He's a bit nervous of the mower, which, frankly, isn't something I altogether discourage (though he clearly doesn't take after his father) because I reckon that a dose of anxiety may be useful in protecting him from doing silly things as a general rule (living in hope!). That said, he was more than happy to sit on my lap as we chuntered up and down the orchard hoovering up the leaves along the way. The aim wasn't actually cutting the grass, just clearing the leaves. Today was the first time in a while that it's been anywhere close to dry enough for such a task - I tried a couple of days ago and the leaves were glued to the ground with all the moisture (combo of rain and fog) we've had recently.

Have I mentioned that the boy is REALLY into taking photos at the moment. I could merrily set up another blog dedicated to photos he takes. But maybe four blogs is quite enough. For now, I'll just slip the odd one in here.
Unfortunately, he goes for the element of surprise, rather than taking time to compose his shot. This generally results in a picture that is less than flattering of the victim it features.

New camera.

Just had the new camera delivered. Very exciting.
First ever pic:

And then we headed into the garden (slightly gloomy day though...) for some more:
Slight problem I can see developing here though ... that just took 1 minute and 35 seconds to upload... Wonder what a 'large' one takes...


Oh dear, a full 1:47

And finally, how about a 'small' one...

Weird. 1:48. Oh well. Maybe it's a connection difficulty rather than anything else.
Will upload others when I have lots of time to spare!