Old friends reunited

We had our friends Chris, Candice, twins Shawn and Sophia and new baby Liam over for dinner Sunday night. They were our good friends when we lived in Norway together and then they moved over to this part of England just before we did, but this was the first time we had reunited on British soil.
Tryfan and Rhiannon were sooo happy to see the twins - all 4 were instant friends again and took off playing upstairs and down again, giggling hysterically (esp Tryfs) throughout the evening.

Campfire cooking

On Saturday we decided to cook dinner over the campfire in the far back garden. First we made popcorn using 2 sieves wired together and held over the fire while shaking it to not get the kernels burnt. Here Rhiannon is holding the sieve full of popcorn and Policeman Tryfan is trying to get at them.
We also had baked butternut squash with butter and brown sugar, and pita bread with sausage and cheese melted inside. Yum. Simple, but tastes so much better when cooked over the fire.
The air is getting colder though and the leaves are starting to turn. Yay! I love autumn.

Bikes and bars

The troops have been really into riding bikes full speed down the sloping driveway and weaving between the recycling bins and brick wall to get down the passageway to the back garden. The other day Rhiannon insisted on wearing her princess dressing up outfit to do this. It is waaay too long for her and kept getting tangled in the pedals (not good when weaving between recycling bins and brick walls), so she tucked the skirt into her knickers. Nice.
Tryfan is still wearing his Fireman Sam jammies every chance he gets (i.e. changing into them the minute he gets home from nursery), including when he is tricycling full speed down the driveway as Rhiannon does.
The other favorite activity of late is going to the park in Forest Row to swing on the monkey bars from one end to the other. I love her look of concentration in this photo!
And conveniently next to the monkey bars is the fireman's pole to slide down. Here is Tryfan in mid slide, making sound effects at the same time.
It was a long week because Rhodri was away again but we survived.

Happy Birthday Rhods

Today is Rhodri's birthday and we had a fairly quiet celebration. Over the weekend while Rhodri was out climbing Gaustatoppen in Norway, the kids and I bought some birthday presents for him. Tryfan decided to get him a bottle of Ribena fruit drink, and Rhiannon decided to get him an egg timer with some little egg ladles to cook boiled eggs (aka dippy-dock eggs). Strange presents, but he put on a brave face for it all. We also made him some cheesecake as a birthday cake but then I couldn't find any candles. So actually it wasn't much of a celebration at all really, but we made the best of it!

Our little award winner

On one Friday each month at Rhiannon's school, there is a school assembly where there are announcements and so forth, and then 1 or 2 kids from each class are recognized for something positive they have done that month. This was the first assembly of the year and Rhiannon was one of the two kids in her class to get her name in the Golden Book. Here she is circled in red in the midst of the whole school.
And here she is being recognized by the Head Teacher for doing such a good job of sitting quietly and being a good listener. As Rhodri said, I think she uses up all of those skills while at school because we don't often see this well-behaved side of her!
All of the parents of the recognized children were invited to the assembly, so Tryfan and I were there to smile and applaud her. Rhodri was away this time, but I'm sure there will be another occasion in the future.

Veg out

We harvested some of the veg from the garden this week, but not the giant pumpkin just yet...
This isn't too impressive of a harvest, but these beauties sure tasted good for supper.

Sunday dinners

Ever since we moved to England, I have been making an effort to cook a traditional Sunday roast dinner. Usually that means roasting lamb, potatoes, parsnips, carrots, and maybe steaming some broccoli as well, then serving all at a relatively early time of 5pm (ish) with a bottle of red wine, candles, and an attempt to maintain good manners throughout the whole meal. Yeah, right! But I do want to master this meal. We haven't gotten there yet, but it's fun trying. Usually.
The troops were playing "Policeman and Meanie" but I thought Policeman Tryfs looked like a little homie with his beanie on and his trousers hanging low. Here is their Homie Stance.
All of this was last Sunday actually. Today we were really busy and I didn't really feel like cooking a roast dinner. It was gorgeous warm weather today and we did things like dry the tipi out, harvest some beets and carrots and runner beans from our garden, put away summer clothes and other useful things like this. We dined outside under the umbrella for what is likely to be one of the last times this year... maybe? How would I know? We only just moved here. Maybe we have several more weekends coming of this kind of weather. That would be nice. Anyway, we will take it a day at a time...

Camping in the backyard

We set up our tipi/ wigwam/ lavvo in the backyard (oops, i mean back garden) and spent a couple of nights camping in it last weekend.
The kids and I built a firepit and bought stuff to cook on it (nothing special .. just hotdogs and marshmallows) and we brought the lawn chairs out here to sit on. It was great!
Nain and Taid joined us on one of the nights but they didn't sleep outside (and also we didn't take photos that night). Its so great to be able to do this in our own space without too much planning! Plus our proximity to Gatwick means that there are always planes to watch overhead (though we are far enough away that they don't make a whole lot of noise usually).

First day of school

Today was Rhiannon's first day at school!
Such a big milestone, and I can't believe that my baby girl is already in school with all the big kids - wearing a uniform nonetheless. She was pretty excited about it though.
Here she is ready to leave the house in her new school uniform.
She is going to the local primary school rather than a private or independent or otherwise 'fancy' school. In fact, I still haven't really worked out all of the different school options in this country but anyway I like this one which all of the neighborhood kids go to as well. There are only 61 kids in the whole school and it is just a small stone building in the middle of the forest. Tryfan will go to the childcare/ nursery part, but he won't get to/ have to wear a uniform. Tryfan and Rhodri came along with me to see Rhiannon off to her classroom today. After all, one only starts school for the very first time once.
Today was only a half day but she was very excited when I came to pick her up. They had all done handprints to commemorate this occasion and their teacher wrote down how each child felt about starting school. Rhiannon said that she felt "sad and excited".
Here she is sizing up Joe (our friend and neighbor). It was so cute to see all the familar faces of the neighborhood kids wearing their new school uniforms.
Rhiannon's class is a mix of Reception (aka Kindergarten in the US) and Grade 1, and I think there are 12 Reception kids. They have a main teacher, a full time assistant and a part-time assistant as well (I think). Its all new to me -- starting school as well as the whole school system in this country -- and I've been feeling very anxious about this day. The whole uniform thing is strange to me and I'm still trying to figure out the rhythm of life here, the way things work and so forth. Hopefully now we will settle into a swing and enjoy the autumn that is on its way! But at least we got today off to a good start and we celebrated with champagne this evening before dinner.
Glad its the weekend now though!