Monday, February 26

Wow, eh?


This has to be one of Olive's finest don't you think? Sorry about the crease, the quality of the paper coming home from school isn't what it should be for work like this... We'll have a word!

Despite her grumpy, sullen exterior our little girl isn't all bad moods, shouting and stomping about. We love the little flicks at the bottom the hair and the flowers in the hair too. Fantastic.

From The Luke Collection


Not wishing to be left out, Lukey was rather pleased with himself when we collected him from nursery this afternoon. And with good reason we think. He's not really showing the signs of artist bent - there are only so many hours in a day and these need to be filled playing with cars.

That said, he was really quite taken with this painting and was very insistent that I touch the painting to feel the amount of paint used. Van Gogh would have been proud.

From The Olive Collection... 1


It's been a while since we've had any of Olive's pictures up here - and yes, we know it's been a while since there's been anything new on the site full stop, but... oh you know. And no one's complained about the lack of activity.

Anyhoo, Olivia is really turning in some quite stunning artwork at the moment. She's gone big on people, and they are coming along a treat as you can see. There is another part to this picture - an alien - but you'll have to come round our house to see it. It's on the wall.

Tuesday, February 20

School Dinners

Rather fantastically, Olivia's school are having a family week where you can go an have school dinner with your child. Brilliant. Obviously, having absolutely no idea if she eats everything or nothing at dinner time, we jumped at the chance.

We decided on a pincer movement with me going today and Caryn going on Friday. So there I was at midday in a little person's chair, at a little person's table, waiting for Olive. I love seeing her in school, it's like a whole different child. I guess it's because this is her world - we only know what goes on if she decides to tell us. It's a really nice thing.

Anyway, on the menu today was pork loin (not lion as previously reported, thanks Ben), mashed potato, carrots, peas and gravy with jam sponge and custard for pudding. To my amazement Olive polished off the lot except the peas. And then tucked into the sponge. The dinnerladies - who were all brilliant - say that despite being super slow, she always eats that well! Blimey eh? Full of suprises our daughter.

Sunday, February 18

Back to school


Half-term is officially over. Back to school with you, little monkeys.

Had a good time at the Play Barn today. Olive, especially, loved it - the happiest she's been all week. Think we'd forgotten how good it was, I had anyway. There's a place like it near our house which is a bit grin and bear it, but this one somehow seems very chilled. Maybe it's just a better class of child. And they do surprisingly decent food. Good bacon roll, bit posh, but good.

The wife wondered how long, in theory, we could be there before our children got bored. No 'five more minutes', or 'time to go soon', just solid, wall-to-wall at their beck and call playing. Maybe we should try it one week. Get there at opening time, set them free and wait... then again, maybe not.

Friday, February 16

Cloth Ears No.4



I don't post as much music as I probably should, but by crikey when I do it's worth the wait isn't it? I might be a few light years behind - I do live in the sticks - but Mark Ronson eh?

We loved his version of Radiohead's 'Just' and knew about his Amy Winehouse/Lily Allen things and then this week I found his East Village Radio show (Fridays, 8-10pm, but don't fret it comes as a podcast).

Blimey is all I can say. Nicked this from the show hence the jingles all over it, but boy what a treat for a Friday. Play it on repeat for the rest of the afternoon. I am.

Wednesday, February 14

... whoops

So we took the kittens to the vet. They were as good as gold, got into the cat carrier thing no bother, didn't make any fuss in the car and let the vet mess with them. Apparently, they're at an age where absolutely everything is super interesting... even having a worm tablet and an needle stuck in them for all manner of horrid diseases.

So, job done and we found out that little Sage is in fact a boy flavour cat. Poor thing, hope we haven't given him some sort of crisis in the short time we thought he was a girl.

So... the cats then.

All seems to be going well. Olivia's little face was picture when she got home from school on Friday. I don't think it was something she would have expected in a million years which makes it all the better.

The cats seem to be making themselves at home. They even appear to quite like us, which is a bonus... although we are taking them to the vets today for injections and if they're really unlucky things stuck up their bums.

They won't be so keen on us then.

Tuesday, February 13

Life On Mars starts TONIGHT



Magic Alex for those who have been living under a pile of leaves for several years were a band from last century featuring one John Simm on guitar. John Simm for those who have an apartment underneath the people living under the leaves is the star turn of Seventies cop drama with a twist, 'Life On Mars', which starts a second and final series tonight. Huzzah.

Anyhoo, Magic Alex's skunk rock louchness lead to their fair share of newsprint in our once esteemed music weekly. They also turned out to be very nice people which was always a bonus. There's a good interview with him in this month's issue of The Word.

What I especially liked was that Simm (very much on the up after his role in 'The Lakes') just wanted to be the guitarist in a rock band to see what it was like. Thing is, if they'd made it we'd have nothing to look forward to on the telly for the next eight weeks. Small blessings.

Interestingly, or perhaps not, they were managed by Sue Whitehouse who I recall went on to, erm, 'success' with The Darkness. How things could have been different eh?

Friday, February 9

Sage and Onion

The kitties have arrived. Onion is a boy, the black one, and Sage is a girl. They've been here since lunchtime and so far so good. They're having a good poke around and have found the litter tray which we are very grateful for. Luke doesn't seem bothered in the slightest about having pets, couldn't care less. Olive? Still at school, doesn't suspect a thing. Off to get her shortly...

Thursday, February 8

They arrive tomorrow

The kittens, all two of them, arrive tomorrow. That's all I'm saying. May vary from illustration.

Monday, February 5

From the Olive Collection... 2

A dragon. "It's a Chinese dragon," says the artist. "We had to draw another one to go on the pile. I like it. I did the sky by rubbing on the side of a crayon and Peggy said, 'Can you do the body multi-coloured?' So I did the body multi-coloured, but I wanted to do the rest blue."

From the Olive Collection

It's been a while since we've had much from the fair hand of Olivia Rose. Too busy learning to read and write. Then this came home, it is a picture of her teachers. They look just like that.

The surreal chimney sweep

We got this postcard this morning. It's for a chimney sweep in the area. We will of course be ringing him on the strength of his advertising sensibilities.