He's Been !!!

Father Christmas has been very good to us again this year - Ella now has a mini supermarket complete with fruit, veg and a selection of cakes (all knitted by Nanna).. Daddy was the first customer as you can see in the picture..

Ella also had lots of lovely books and a super wooden pumpkin with theatre puppets and some art and craft things.

Tom also had a lovely selection of books, finger puppets and wooden toys.

Nan, Tom and I went to the midnight service at the church last night. Luckily Silent Night wasn't one of the hymns and Tom seems to have an aversion to it.

Nanna and Bampa came to visit on Saturday. Bampa went in the car with Ella to see the lights at Eathorpe. As you can see from the picture, they take it very seriously. Apparently they even had an official "switching on" ceremony with hot dogs and mulled wine.

I hope Father Christmas was kind to you all. Wishing you a very Happy Christmas from us all ..

p.s. The joke from Ella's cracker :

Q : How do you get two whales in a car ?

A : Over the Severn Bridge

Winter Walks, Woodpeckers and Wobbly teeth

Ella's toothache is slowly improving, but she's had a tough couple of weeks with it. Lots of sleepless nights and Calpol.

We went to the Home Ed group's Christmas party on Monday. It was a bring and share party, and it has to be the most nutritously healthy party I have ever been too !

Nan arrived on Tuesday for a 10 day stay, so Ella's had lots of fun playing, reading and mucking about.

It's been very frosty and cold this week so we've not ventured too far. We plan to drive Ella to Eathorpe later (it's a village about 4 miles from us) as they have lots of Christmas decorations and lights on the houses. Will post some pics next time.

Karl had his company Christmas party this week - at his new office in the Gherkin (picture of their lovely Christmas decorations below). I did request a doggy bag, but it didn't materialise unfortunately.

Aunty Sandra and Uncle Brian just came back from a holiday in Goa to celebrate their Silver Wedding Anniversary.. Happy Anniversary from us all. Ella is looking forward to hearing about Aunty Sandra helping to give the elephants a bath.


Nanna and Bampa are coming to visit tomorrow - hopefully with a boot full of gluten-free mince pies and pickled onions.. Hooray !! They will stay overnight so we can all go to the family service at the Quaker Meeting House on Sunday.

The bird feeders have been busy this week with finches, blue tits, robins, a pied wagtail and a very energetic greater-spotted woodpecker who nearly pecked the peanut feeder off the hook.

Toothache, Trees and Tinsel

We had quite a busy week last week.. Monday was the HE group meeting at the library. Ella decorated pine cones with glitter, and made an angel, which was also glittered, of course..

Wednesday we went on a trip, organised by the HE group, to a local organic farm. We learned about their rare breed cattle and sheep, then went on a tree spotting walk. It's incredibly difficult (for me at least !) to differentiate trees with no leaves on them.

Friday we spent some time on our festive seasonal table (picture on left). We decided to have "Three Wise Gnomies", bearing gifts of pretty stones. So we have (from left) foliage, glitter cones, the Three Wise Gnomies, angels and stars, Joseph, Mary and the empty cradle for our baby Jesus. I made the baby Jesus last year our of stockinette and finger bandage, so he actually looks more like a severed thumb, so I may put a face on him this year, in case it gives Ella nightmares.

Saturday, Ella and Karl went out to get a Christmas tree. Here's a picture of Ella decorating it. She started decorating it unsupervised, and half of the decorations were on the bottom 3 branches, bless. It's a lovely age for her - she's enjoying doing festive crafts, decorating the tree and reading Christmas stories.

Ella's had a tootache since last Friday, so we missed the HE group yesterday, because she (and subsequently everyone else) had a very broken night's sleep. However, she's got some medication now and we're going to the dentist Thursday, so hopefully that'll sort her out.

Mr Pheasant has started coming back to the garden on a daily basis. Here's a picture of him hoovering up the seeds dropped from the feeders..

GPs and Glitter fun

Nanna spent the week with us last week, so Ella had lots of fun playing and I had time and space to crack on with Christmas.

Monkey also got a new jumper knitted for him..

Nanna arrived on Melissa's (Ella & Tom's big cousin) birthday, so Ella spoke to her on the phone to wish her a Happy Birthday.

Saturday we had Imogen and Cameron (plus parents !) over to make Christmas cards and go out and collect things for ours and their nature tables.

Auntie Jules came over to visit on Sunday, so Ella and Jules made a start on the new nature table. Hopefully the nativity figures I made last year haven't been eaten by mice in the loft..

Today was the HE group at the library. Ella made glitter covered pine cone decorations for the Christmas tree, so we're all covered in glitter (probably from now until Christmas). We then finished off our Christmas shopping in the afternoon.

We've got a trip on Wednesday to an organic farm one of the villages near us. The farm does a seasonal visit for the HE group - this week we're having a tour of the farm and we're going christmas tree spotting in the forest.

I'm personally looking forward to another 22 days of "Can I look behind the stable doors now" every time Ella sees her Advent calendar (which is currently about a thousand times a day, or so it seems..)

Frosty The Snowman, Friends and Glitter

Ella was amazed to discover on Monday that the gnomies had allowed a snowman to take refuge in our freezer.. She checks every morning to see if she is still there, bless !

We went to visit our neighbour Nora on Monday, since the Rugby Home Edders were on a trip to a butterfly farm. Nora took possession of a new baby kitten last week, so we went to meet her..

Tuesday Ella's library came so we got a few books out, then in the afternoon we went to play with Eddie next door.

Thursday we went into Rugby to meet Gillian, Imogen and Cameron for some grocery shopping, then Ella meet one of our Quaker friends, Ann, for lunch.

Friday we had lunch at Gillian's, then headed off to Ryton Gardens for a wander and a play in the Children's Garden.

We started making our Christmas cards today, so we are finding glitter everywhere - including in Tom's ear...

Big Girl's Clothes, Siskins and Snow !

It's Snowing !! I was getting Ella ready for bed earlier when Karl came upstairs, pulled open the curtains and said "LOOK !". Huge chunks of frozen water falling from the sky... It's almost half past nine now, and it's it's still quite heavy and starting to stick. So, as you can imagine, Ella went to bed quite excited at the prospect of building a snowman tomorrow..

Ella is still getting over the sickness bug she had at the earlier part of the week. She could do with a nap at mid-day, but struggles through the day regardless (with lots of melt-downs and throwing things at the moment !).

Thursday we caught the bus into Rugby to get some groceries. Rural buses are fantastic. We get one a day - from the village at 9.30 then back from Rugby at noon. The drivers know us, so they stop outside the house,rather than at the official stop and occasionally carry the shopping to the door. We can also get the bus from Birdingbury, which is a brisk 20 minutes walk through the lanes and they run every 2 hours (luxury !). We can also get a bus to Leamington Spa from Birdingbury, but it takes forever, and the bus back has already left by the time we get there !! I'm not sure who's in charge of the bus schedules, but they should be sacked...


Yesterday we went to Ryton Pools Country Park, which is a couple of miles from us. It's a huge park with nature walks, a few natural playgrounds, a bird hide, natural ponds and a big lake.

Ella took Miffy with her.. We met with our friends Duncan and Gillian, and their children Imogen (6) and Cameron (3). We had a wander about, visited the bird hide (Ella asked the age-old question "Is that a Siskin") and played in the playground.

Ryton Pools is (not surprisingly !) a just a stones throw from Ryton Gardens which is a place we visit regularly. We have family membership to Ryton Gardens, and go there once a week if we can. Outside is a huge expanse of ground split into various "gardens" - wild flower, woodland, orchard, butterfly, biodynamic etc). Ella's favourite is the Children's garden, which has a big natural pond, musical instruments, natural insect houses, and best of all, the play house.


We went there for Pumpkin Day with our next door neighbours Joy (mum), Harry (8), Connie (5) and Eddie (3). They had lots of fun playing in the leaves and mucking about in the play house... Here's Ella and Harry on the balcony...


Ella was delighted to hear that her big cousin "Menissa" had posted a comment. She has recently been the very lucky recipient of many of Melissa's old clothes and Ella seems to think these clothes contain magical qualities. Her sentences used to start "when I'm a bigger girl I can... (do a cartwheel, bounce higher etc)" but the mere action of putting on one of Melissa's t-shirts means "Now I'm as old as Melissa I can...". Bless...

Well, we'll let you know if our snow has stuck, and if so, post pictures of the various snow sculptures Karl and Ella create..

Drizzle and Detective Work

We've been a bit housebound the last few days, since Ella picked up a sickness bug on Sunday. She was poorly Monday and Tuesday, so we missed our Monday morning at the library with the Home Edders group - they were celebrating Diwali; making crafts and tasting Indian sweets and food. They also had a quick yoga session..

Tuesday we had a day of what I consider to be "November weather" - grey and drizzly. Ella was a bit perkier, so we went out in search of things for me to sketch for my nature journal. Also, we fill in the online Autumn Watch pages on the Nature Detectives website (http://www.naturedetectives.org.uk/) so we did a bit of detecting on the way to the fruit and veg van.

Actually that's reminded me something.. We have a mobile library which comes to the village on alternate Tuesdays and it stops outside our house. We're usually the only people to use it. We often go to the libraries in Rugby and Southam too, and Ella used to differentiate them by the "house library" (Rugby/Southam) and the "van library" (mobile). For the last few weeks, Ella has called the mobile library "my library", so she has developed the assumption that everyone has a mobile library that comes to their house every few weeks ! Bless..

We're planning to go to Ryton Gardens tomorrow to buy some supplies and have a wander around the gardens if the weather is good enough.

Adventures to far away places, leaf mould and gnomies

We've had another beautiful, mild day today, so we have busied ourselves collecting leaves and putting them into our leaf mould cage this afternoon. Ella pottered around the garden on an adventure to "the big wide world", complete with rucksack and sun glasses..

Granddad gnomie took the other gnomies and (possibly naively)the Sly Old Fox on a day trip to feed the ducks.

Tom woke up mid afternoon for half an hour, then went back to sleep again. Here he is mid-yawn. It's a hard life being 8 weeks old...

New blog, new friends and squirrels

Welcome to our blog!

We've had an unusually busy week ...

Monday we went to the Rugby Home Education group for the first time. Some of our friends already go, but we met lots of new friends. Ella did some painting, played with her friend Cameron and listened to stories. It's a lovely little group and most of the children are aged 3-6 with a few older children, so a good mix of ages.



















Tuesday we collected a few bits for our Autumn table (see picture). Now we have (from left) a magpie feather, teasel mice, walnut shells and Ella's squirrel nutkin, our sunflower head, conkers, pine cones and dried leaves, plus a few gnomes to keep an eye on squirrel nutkin (see later)...

Ella had more fun collecting leaves than thinking about the nature table, as you can see. We also discovered where the squirrels in our garden are burying some of their walnuts - in our herb planters ! I took all the walnuts out, but the next day they had buried more in there. Then on Thursday, we saw one of them scamper up the lawn, jump into the planter, dig up a nut and eat it just yards from the kitchen door. Cheeky.

Wednesday we went to visit another home edding family in Rugby. Ella used to go to the same Steiner kindergarten as Imogen and Cameron and they had a nice day playing together.

On Friday my friend Vicki came to visit, with her two girls. Another nice day playing and making things with dough...

Today Ella invented a new nursery rhyme "Hairy McClary, quite contrary.."

If you're wondering why I haven't mentioned Tom, it's because he's slept all week.. When he is awake he is very generous with smiles and cute baby sounds though...