Family photos

90th Birthday celebration

Today was the big birthday party for Grandma Bucky, who turned 90 in January. Aunt Hobbie also got a shout out for being almost 95 (on Sept 15th). They do a lot of sitting around heckling and laughing with each other.

The event was actually a potluck with yard games including badminton and washer toss, but mainly it was a chance to sit around chatting with friends and relations. It was a gorgeous afternoon, quite hot, but with a definite breeze and plenty of shade. Perfect ingredients.

 Uncle Phil assumed the position of MC and told some stories about his Mom and the lessons he learned from her growing up. Then members of the audience were invited to come up and share memories of her or Aunt Hobby (or both) before we sang Happy Birthday and ate cake made by Robbie from the Bakery.

Stehekin at last

Finally we made it to Stehekin and have happily reunited with all our friends and relations. Accommodation arrangements have been a little tricky, but we all found places to settle in throughout the valley. After first having lunch at the Bakery, then spending the afternoon settling in, we went over for dinner at Grandma Bucky's house. It was a particularly hot day, so everyone gathered in and around Rainbow Creek. It made me feel so happy to reach the crest of the bank by the yurt and see this scene of family members chatting and splashing in the evening light.

 The mosquitoes were not bad at all, so it was fine to sit outside on the deck chatting as well.

John w Luke, Heidi w Jordan, Annie w Naomi, Rebecca, Phoebe, Will, Ingrid and Jody

Sussex to Stehekin

We finally left on our summer holiday on Wed Aug 3.

We were fine getting to Gatwick and having a nice lunch, then flying to Reykjavik. Our flight was about 1.5 hrs delayed in leaving, which meant we had not much time to change planes. But the same was true for the rest of the people on our flight, and so the airport was heaving. That was a low point. And then when we actually got on the flight, we didn't have seats together so there was a bit of a kerfuffle as we tried to get to sit closer together. The flight itself from Reyk to Seattle seemed Very Long.

Once we landed in Seattle, it was fine and we sailed right through immigration and customs, rented our car, and then got to Will and Rebecca's house in time to see Phoebe and Ingrid before they got into bed. We had some dinner and then went for a walk around the neighborhood before going to bed.

The next day we woke up really early (4am) and tried to keep quiet for a couple of hours while the rest of the house slept. Tryfs and Rio played with Mr and Mrs Potato Head and co.

We got out of the house just after 6:30am and went in search of coffee and breakfast pastries, then returned with those goods to the house. 

We then made it to REI just after 9am and shopped for a couple of hours before hitting the road to drive over the Cascades to Wenatchee.

There was some air show going on, so I-90 was shut and we had to go a different way (520) to get out of Seattle, which was slow and hot. But the country music on the radio was great and we were on the road altogether, everything fine, and we inched along until our detour finished and we could get up to highway speeds on I-90. We stopped in Cle Elum for a Mexican lunch and then did a big grocery shop for all our Stehekin supplies. By the time we got to Dave and Shelli's house it was just past 5pm and time for a beer and a swim in their pool!

We never did get to see Shelli but Dave treated us to sockeye salmon, pasta pesto and salad. Delicious and wonderful, and we went to sleep around 10:30, then woke up early and I went for a scamper along the loop trail of the river. We hit the road around 7:30am and made it to Fields Point in plenty of time to unload, repack, reunite with Will, Rebecca, Phoebe & Ingrid, and then Heidi, John, Jordan and Luke rolled up just as the boat pulled in so there was a bit of a panic to get them sorted and on the boat before it left for Stehekin.

We got to Stehekin finally at 11am and had a grand reunion at the Landing, then headed to the Bakery for lunch where we saw every member of our 34 person family!

Cub 100 camp

This weekend Tryfan and I went to "Cub 100" camp, which was a camp out for 2000 cub scouts. We were part of the Rama camp, so we wore buffalo hats.

 Here is a pic of our camp. Tryfan was sleeping in the tents to his left, and our cook and dining tents are in the background by the flags.

 Sat and Sun consisted of scouts being free to go around and do whatever activities they wanted to. Some of the activities had long queues because there were 2000 of the little buggers!

Playing mop hockey with dishsoap, mops and a tarpaulin.

Back at camp, in the downtime between activities and dinner, I sort of hid in my tent and was peeking out at the cubs who were making their own games in the soft grass. Being able to listen in on their hilarious conversations was a definite highlight of the weekend for me!

 Everyone washed their own dishes and were supervised by some older scouts

 The whole weekend was actually pretty fun. My expectations were rock bottom, but there were some good people there and I got to sleep in my own tent. Tryfan had a blast, as did most of the other cubs. I say most because there were a few tears along the way as kids got tired (from not sleeping) and hungry and cold. In fact, on Sat morning it was particularly grim around 11am when it was pouring rain, most kids didn't have coats, and we had to go to the far side of the showground to find the alleged area we were supposed to be at. But we survived and the sun came out later.

Trevor and Jean wearing the ears and tails I made for them

I ended up leaving today (Sun afternoon) after lunch and not camping the final night since I had to work the next day, but it was all good.

Counsellor Lewis

Its a new era in the village
Over the past year or so, tensions have been rising amongst our community and then a few months ago the entire parish council resigned. This even made the national news!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/05/elderly-villagers-overthrow-parish-council-of-newbies-amid-bitte/

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/new-councillors-forced-out-by-revolt-of-village-elders-d5lvbx0kw

And so someone talked Rhodri into putting his name forward. There were meetings, discussions, flyers sent round, twitter accounts tweeting, facebook accounts fluttering, and then yesterday was the election. 12 candidates were running, and 9 were selected including our own Rhodri Lewis and also our friends Emma and Mac.

We will see what happens next!

Boys and football

Tryfan is here somewhere along with the boys from Years 3 and 4

Pavlova

We made some mint chocolate chip ice cream the other day using mint from the garden, and since the recipe called for 8 egg yolks, we needed something to do with the egg whites!  So we made some pavlova for us and also one for the Coldbreaths down the road since they've been through a rough patch lately.

This photo captures the calm, simple happiness that I feel on summer evenings here.

Trampoline sleeping

The kids slept on the trampoline last night and although they didn't get much sleep, they had a great time. Brings back memories of when I used to sleep on the trampoline with Polly, and I'm so glad that my kids get to do this too.

Summer photos

School is finally finished and the summer is here!

Sophie and Oscar came over one day to play and have dinner and sleep over on the trampoline. We've had a spell of lovely weather and it has been such a treat.

A weekend of parties

The Cieplies came back from their travels to Wales and Scotland on Friday afternoon and we all went straight to the end of year school picnic at the local cricket ground.  Fortunately it was walking distance.  It was a great atmosphere and we all got fed, and then we walked home. On Saturday, we went shopping in Uckfield, played family football, and then went to the Swinnerton's party.

On Sunday we went on an expotition to the Cat Center where there was the Summer Fun Day going on. We were all a big long line of friends and relations stumping along and it was fun.

We met up with Lou and some of her kids there. I love it when my friends get to meet each other!

Part of the weekend was taken up by sewing a sleeping mask for Mr Wilkins as his leaving present. Its been awhile since I busted out the sewing machine and fortunately Annabel is a whiz with it so she ended up doing most of the work!

 In the evening, we were treated to dinner by the Cieplies at the Red Lion, and it was wonderful.

 The sad part of the weekend came on Monday morning when the time came to say goodbye to our wonderful guests.

I can't quite believe that Annabel and her whole family actually came all this way to see us! 

Bugsy Malone

Tonight was the much anticipated performance of Kestrels class performing the musical Bugsy Malone. They performed at Cumnor House School auditorium just up the road, and this gave their performance a truly professional touch!
Rhiannon had 2 parts - first she was a gangster and then she was a backup dancer.

I'm not one to exaggerate, but this was a shocking performance because it was on a totally different scale to what their school has ever done! It really was amazing to watch these kids shine.
We have ordered a copy by DVD but it won't be ready til the autumn. 

Little Stock and other festivities

This evening we had planned to go to our friends' festival "Little Stock" down the road, but then Rhodri came down with something and didn't feel like going so the kids and I went.
But actually it was Emma's birthday today also! And she had an impromptu celebration at her house which we wanted to go to also. In the end, we first went to Emma's, then to Little Stock, then back to Emma's, then home.

Troops at Little Stock

The gathering at Emma's birthday

Fortunately we could walk between all these venues and it was decent weather. The kids and I had fun walking and chatting and making plans.

Dose of speed golf

I had a quick game today at Chartham Park Golf Club and I played pretty well!
It felt good to run and hit balls, even though I lost several of them.

My tee time was at 07:00, so it was an early Saturday morning start (which i am not used to), but once I was up it was great!

Sports Day 2016

I took the day off to celebrate Sports Day at the school today.

This year’s sports’ day had an Olympic theme. Each team was given a country to represent: Brazil, Great Britain, Iceland, Jamaica, Greece and Botswana (?) The teams were made up of mixed ages and each child could win points for their team by getting a Bronze, Silver or Gold. Events ranged from the missile throw, standing jump to a classic sprint.
At the end, there was a team challenge that involved guttering. Yes, that classic Olympic sport – the gutter distance challenge. This involved using several different lengths of guttering to transport a tennis ball for as far as possible without it hitting the ground. It was a brilliant demonstration of teamwork and kept us all entertained.

The morning ended with a family picnic and the award of a trophy and medals to the winning team of Jamaica – well done to those guys!

Year 5 students (Rhiannon's class) singing camp songs from PGL