Tuesday picnic

This week is half-term and since Tryfan has the chicken pox, we can't really go anywhere in public so we are staying close to home. Today I worked from home but took a lunch break with the kids and Bentley to have a picnic in the forest! Such a luxury to be able to do this spontaneously... Here we are setting off.
And going deeper into the forest. Rhiannon decided to take her baby (actually it is Tryfan's baby that Rhiannon gave to him for his birthday, but now that has evolved into 'Pink Baby' belonging to both of them) for a walk in the pram as well.
The paths we took to find our perfect picnic spot were pretty narrow and rooty, and not terribly flat either. Fair play to Rhiannon who didn't complain - just pushed Pink Baby up and over the rooty path!
Finally our picnic spot next to the blue rope swing over the creek. After doing some swinging first, we ate all our food and then played "Leaf Snap": I hand each kid a different leaf that I have collected and they have to find a matching one on the ground and then find the tree that it comes from! Tryfan turned his part of the game into "Stick Snap", where he finds loads of sticks the same length and thickness, but Rhiannon was eager to learn about the leaves and trees.
Then we walked home a slightly different way so we didn't have to backtrack too much, and we all had a rest in the afternoon before playing outside in the back garden again before dinner.

How Elderflower Champagne led to Spontaneous Hospitality

Today was an interesting day.
One sort of trendy thing to do (especially out in the country where we are) is to make Elderflower Cordial or Elderflower Champagne. I tolerate but do not love the smell or taste of Elderflower anything, but since they grow on Elder trees (and there are several around here) and are free to harvest, I figured I would try making something. I decided on the champagne version because...well, I like champagne and so even if this has a low alcoholic content and tastes of elderflowers, I figure it is worth a shot! So I harvested some elderflowers the other day and followed this recipe...
But then I got to the bit where you need to filter all the flowers and lemons (and dead ants) out and pour the substance into large plastic bottles - the kind that soda, Coca-Cola, sparkling water are sold in. The thing is that we don't buy that stuff so we don't have any such bottles. Fortunately for us, though, the village hall recycling depot is only a few hundred meters down the road so I reckoned I would go dig through the plastic bottle dumpster. Needless to say, Rhodri was absolutely horrified that I would be 'dumpster diving' in our own neighborhood in broad daylight! But I figured if I put a baseball cap on and sunglasses, nobody would recognize me. Bentley and I walked up there and I had a reusable bag folded discreetly in my pocket to carry home the goods. Everything was going well and I found my bottles, but then a car pulled into the parking lot and saw me! Whoever was driving quickly turned around and left, but as I was walking back home I saw the same car looking very suspicious and parked outside the village bus shelter.
The man driving the car was wearing a football (soccer) team uniform and had a brightly colored plastic bag which he quickly put in the trunk of his car when he saw me approaching. I walked past, said hello (with my black bags of rescued plastic bottles from the dumpster), and kept walking. As I turned around I could see him putting the brightly colored plastic bag suspiciously into the bus shelter! Then the car sped away with his hazards still flashing (clearly distracted or paranoid).
I got home, told Rhodri about the episode, and he immediately persuaded me to go back to see what was in the bag! Soooo, I did this and that is when I met Roy, a Welshman (from south Wales) who has been walking around the world collecting statistics on "Spontaneous Hospitality". Here is Roy and his "push/pull" contraption:
Well, you can imagine the surprise on Rhodri's face when I brought home my new friend who had accepted my spontaneous offer of a cup of tea! Bentley was definitely not so sure about this wild-looking stranger wearing just a reflective vest, shorts, red socks and shoes with the toes cut out (for ventilation, he later explained - not because they didn't fit).
So, Roy spent an hour or so (more, I think) chatting about his findings which he has compiled over the past 10 years and keeps neatly written on the back of a cut out cereal box (durability, i suppose) inside a laminated map case. At the moment Roy is making his way from Cardiff to Israel, by way of Belgium and Turkey and whatever else is in between. Definitely an interesting fellow. Here he is getting ready to walk to Crowborough (about 9 miles away), photo taken around 2pm.
After we all said goodbye and good luck to Roy, Rhiannon and I went on to the next stage of the Elderflower Champagne recipe, which is when you pour the liquid gold into the sterilized (or at least mostly sterilized) plastic bottles.
Will keep you posted on the next chapter of the Elderflower champagne saga, but I don't think we'll hear any more from Roy.... It didn't sound like he has made it into the internet age yet....

First sleepover

Since it is a holiday weekend and also the start of the half-term holiday, we agreed to finally let Rhiannon have a sleepover at her friend Sophie's house. Not just any sleepover, but her First Sleepover. She has been asking us for months now and so when the invitation was extended this time, Rhiannon happily accepted!
Of course the first thing she wanted to do (at 10am this morning) was pack her suitcase. It took us awhile to locate the Piglet suitcase, but eventually we did and she packed her stuff in there: 2 sets of jammies (in case she wet the bed), a pair of knickers (panties), change of clothes for the morning, 2 coloring books (1 for Sophie to borrow), lots of pens and colored pencils, her toothbrush, toothpaste, and 2 stuffed animals! Here she is just about to get into Sophie's mum's car and go to their house for supper, bath and a sleepover.

Pox in da house

Tryfan came down with the chicken pox last night.
Hopefully it will just be a matter of hours before Rhiannon does the same! Rhodri and I are glad - let's get it over with.. Plus it is half term holiday right now (as of yesterday) so the troops won't be missing any school or other fun things. It's just us at home in slightly cooler and less summery conditions - perfect for laying low and just being our little family at home.
** Update: as of Monday afternoon, Rhiannon still doesn't have any signs of chicken pox but poor Tryfs is really miserable :-( **

Foresty days

I am really starting to enjoy living here in the Ashdown Forest.. we all are! One recent development which is making life more enjoyable is the Forest School Program that I started with Rhiannon's school. Every Thursday (starting 5 May), I get to spend a few hours with half of Rhiannon's class in the morning and then after lunch I spend another couple of hours with the other half. We got permission to use some private woodland which is quite close to the school, and this is what our "Circle Spot" looks like (without kids!).
Actually that photo was taken about a month ago now before we started using it... I can tell because the bracken hasn't even poked up from the forest floor yet and now some of the bracken stands nearly 4 feet tall in some places! And also during our first weeks, we were treated to gorgeous thickets of bluebells (some of which unfortunately got trampled on). Now most of the bluebells have gone and we have budding fox gloves instead! Springtime is so exciting.

I am so grateful to be able to spend part of one day a week with Tryfan and his Nursery out in the Forest (though not this particular site) and part of another day in the week with Rhiannon and her classmates (and teachers). I feel so very lucky to be able to do this while still working full time for SLB - the only thing which makes it possible is me having an understanding and supportive manager who has young children of his own. Thanks, Boss!

Bentley's other family

Hurray! Bentley's foster family is here staying for the weekend.
Its been so great having them here. I am pretty sure that this is the highlight of Bentley's life so far - getting cuddles nearly every waking second of the day and going for long walks in the forest.
We've done a lot of our normal weekend routine - just generally hanging around the back garden... kids playing with Bentley and with each other, adults sitting around talking and just enjoying the company.
Yesterday we went on an expotition to the North Pole, a place in the Ashdown Forest which we had actually not been yet. First we visited the Heffalump Trap and the memorial to AA Milne, which R&T then climbed all over.
Then we set out to find the North Pole, which is just near the stream in the bottom of this valley. As the story goes, Roo fell in and then Pooh found the North Pole which he used to rescue Roo. So in this photo below, the Hundred Acre Woods is actually on the other side of the valley on top of the hill and the North Pole is in the trees below.
At the top of the hill on the far side, we stopped to rest a bit.
Then we made it to the ice cream van just as it started to rain.
And afterwards we went to Gallipot Inn & Pub near Hartfield for a delicious Sunday dinner, which our guests treated us to.
Great!

Bentley reunited

Here is the happy scene when Bentley got to reunite with his other family from Norway!

Finally out of the cot (crib)

This weekend we finally got Tryfan a new bed. Well, its not a NEW bed because we bought it second-hand for 50 pounds on eBay, but its new to us!
Its a full size single bed - none of this child sized or toddler stuff! He went straight to work decorating the railings with Star Wars stickers. Yay!

Bentley's self-help tapes

Our sweet dog Bentley has been suffering from separation anxiety over the past few months and we didn't realize it until both sets of neighbors (either side of us) complained about his constant barking while we are away. Poor Bents! We were advised to talk to the vet and see what solutions they could prescribe, but Rhodri came up with an even better idea.

I came into the house one afternoon when Rhodri and the kids were out and only Bentley was left at home, and there he was listening to a recording on endless repeat of Rhodri talking in a soothing voice..."Alright then, Bents, what's going on....[5 sec pause]... Bentley, lay down on your bed ... [5 sec pause]... Good boy, Bentley.... [10 sec pause]... It's okay Bents, that's a good boy, thaaaat's it. Good boy..."
And now he is cured! No more barking while we are away! He just listens to the same 47 seconds of Rhodri talking and lays on his bed. He will probably start having nightmares or some other affliction, but I guess we'll deal with that when the time comes.

Anyway, to celebrate his newfound calmness, we treated him to a grooming session at our neighbor's new dog grooming salon. Apparently it took her about 5 hours to deal with the dreadlocks and toe hair, but he came back to us a well-trimmed, shiny and clean-smelling dog. Hard to believe that he is 8 years old already - he still has such a puppy face and a lot of energy to chase squirrels in the forest! And he doesn't have any way of knowing that his beloved foster family is coming all the way from Norway next weekend just to visit him for the weekend! We are so looking forward to that next Saturday...

The creek

We live across the road from the forest, and as the spring has been springing I have grown particularly fond of a certain section which just has a lovely feel about it. So on Saturday, the kids and I walked over there just to see what we could see. We brought Bentley too, of course, so that he could scamper and wander freely.
We haven't had a lot of rain this spring so the creek (stream in these parts of the world) is slow and small - just perfect for getting familiar with. Once we got down here, I intentionally ignored Rhiannon and Tryfan so that they could just play.
Unfortunately after about an hour of totally wonderful free play for them, Rhiannon scraped her back on a rusty nail that was hanging below the bridge. They had been playing "3 Billy Goats Gruff" and she was the troll...
There was no panic, but we did start making our way back home. Luckily we found a rope swing which went pretty high over the creek bed. I helped Rhiannon up and she was sooo happy to be swinging way up high.
Tryfan had a go on it too but it was a little scary for him so he only went for a few minutes before we continued home.
The next day Tryfan went to a birthday party and got some crazy balloons. He always wears his Superman outfit to birthday parties. The mother of the birthday boys (3 yr old twins) was so kind that she even sent home a party bag for Tryfan's big sister!
I've decided that I really, really like doing nearly nothing on the weekends except just being at home.