Big Changes, and Cornwall

It's been a bit busy around here. Our landlady gave us notice earlier this year, and we're due to move out in early July. We looked hard at renting another place around here, but prices are high... too high for us to be comfortable in the long term.

So we're moving further afield, to North London. In with B's parents, to be exact. We're excited about it, although we'll really miss this area (and E's school...). At the same time, we'll be close to family and B has old friends in the area. In any case, living in a house will be nice... and, ironically, we'll have slightly more floor space than we did in this flat. We'll see where we are in a year and then reevaluate.

Anyhow... Cornwall pics! We decided to visit Cornwall with B's parents, S, a family friend, and B's brother and sister-in-law (and their two kids). We were all under one roof and it worked out splendidly. Oh, and we had a dog with us as well.

Our first visit to Perranporth beach. The kids were excited. This beach was a three minute walk from the holiday house and had a wonderful lagoon (dependent on tides) that the kids enjoyed splashing in. And that rock in the distance? E and I climbed it.

See that pole on the top of the rock? We went up there. Pictured is a (mostly) natural seawater pool. We didn't swim in it because it was rainy that day (despite being sunny when we arrived, and then sunny later on). Maybe next time we will.

My favorite part of the trip was a three mile coastal hike we took with all the kids. The youngest (2) was in a back carrier, but E (5) and C (3) both made it the entire way! There were lots of cliffs like these, with tin or copper mines here and there (safely capped off or collapsed), so we had to be careful not to run or slip.

Along the way we found lots of neat things, like this nearly-hidden entrance to a mine.

By the end, even E's formidable energy was dented.

We also had plenty of time on the beach, and some sun as well.

The kids loved every minute. We mostly stayed outdoors but we also went to an aquarium in Newquay and to a big indoor swimming pool with waterslides.

I'm out of time, but I'll post more pictures next time. Coming up: our trip to a steam railway in Cornwall, and a lovely, impromptu weekend in Norfolk.

Flying

I flew a plane today. Also, I have not updated this blog for MONTHS. I'll have to keep it short... a few photos this time, a bit of commentary. Maybe another post when I get time.

In the beach pic, there's a rock in the sea. E and I climbed to the top of it when the tide was out. Fantastic fun. That beach was a three minute walk from our holiday house.

Anyhow, we're back from Cornwall and I'll see about writing up a blog post sooner rather than later. But yeah, I had a flying lesson today. I know enough to know I don't want to be a pilot, but it was, nevertheless, very worthwhile. And E enjoyed himself as well.

2013 Recap

Happy 2014!

I'm sitting here thinking back. Jan 1 of 2013, I was walking on air because my editor had requested to see my full manuscript. In publishing speak, that's... very promising. A week later, I was offered a contract. A year later, I have two things published--a novella and a short story--and three more pieces accepted. One of them, a novella, has just been edited and the cover request sent in. I don't know exactly when it will release, but I guess Feb/March.

The children have come a long way as well. I can hardly believe that C is three. She's a dynamo. Strong-willed, yet savvy. She can climb like crazy yet she knows her limits and sticks to them. She loves animals, art, and cooking. She enjoys carrying lots of various things around, generally small toys or things like corks and acorns or conkers, and refers to them as her "freasures" (treasures). A few weeks ago, after I scolded her for doing something silly, she put her hand out to my face and then made fake chomping noises.  I asked her if she'd just eaten my nose.

"No," she said, "I eat your mouth, so it stop talking."

She loves her brother, and tries to boss him around. Sometimes she's successful. When they play together, it's awesome.

C will continue going to playgroup twice a week (I attend too, but I can often nip out for an hour to run errands) and she will be starting a sports class in January. I will also sign her up to attend the same nursery that E did, beginning in September. (In the bottom pic, she's "vacuuming" at her regular playgroup.)

As for E... he's so much fun to have around! He makes amazing observations, his math sense is superb, his reading is off the charts (probably literally), and he wants to be a volcanologist when he grows up. Sometimes that changes to "train driver" and occasionally he'll say he just wants to do "EVERYTHING!" which is also fine. He still loves trains, and volcanos, and he loves talking about anything under the sun. We have a big map of the world on his wall and he likes to point to different places and talk about them. Sometimes we play a game, covering our eyes and pointing to different parts of the world. Often, we wind up in the ocean, but that's part of the fun.

E is in Year 1 now and has really found his stride in school. He's popular with other children but he isn't afraid to march to the beat of his own drummer. He's got his own sense of what's important in life.

2013's been a good year.

November

Long time, no blog.

I tallied up the words I've written since January and right now, I'm sitting somewhere around the 150-160k mark.  That's spread over multiple pieces - a novella, several short stories, two incomplete-as-yet novels and one nearly-finished novel.  I intend to have the latter finished by Christmas.  Then I'll clean it up and start querying agents sometime after the New Year.

So... quick summary of the last few months?  The summer was hot (gasp!). E started Year 1 (first grade equivalent)... okay... I'll sprinkle some pics in because why not?

Dad came to visit and was there for the first day of school.  E is doing really well although he's tired at the end of the day.

C is going to playgroup two mornings a week and is really flourishing. She will start proper nursery school in September of next year.

Dad's visit was absolutely wonderful.  I have INTERESTING PICTURES. I'm trying to decide whether I should retain them as blackmail for one of his homemade apple pies, or whether I should give in to instant gratification and post them. Hmm.  Maybe I'll go for the middle approach.  Here's one.

Incidentally, the kids were absolutely AMAZED that he climbed up there.

Personally, I was amazed that he arrived beardless:

Reader, I probably would have passed him in the street had I not been looking closely.

Anyhow, I have plenty of photos and some stories of what we did - lots of museum visits, Kew Gardens, biking around Hyde Park... there was nothing fancy in that list, but we had a good time. I had visions of a Paris daytrip via Eurostar, but that will have to happen next time.

What will also have to happen next time is more photos and a longer post, because I am totally hitting my bedtime and I would love to crunch out another 500 words in the steampunk novel I am writing.

So until next time...

June

We went on vacation last week! Or, as the Brits say, "holiday."

We stayed in a Centre*parc*s again - this time in a different location, in Wiltshire. Slightly easier to get to than the other ones, at least from our area of London, there was also the perk of driving past Stonehenge en route.

The kids really enjoyed themselves - and B and I had fun too.  E and C are small enough to enjoy the free parts of the resort - swimming, playgrounds, the "land train" that you can catch from the cabins to the central area.  B got a massage, E went to a pirates playgroup one morning, and we all generally hung out.

What's that you say?  Pics or it didn't happen?  Well then...

Kids enjoying the tire swing in one of the large adventure-type playgrounds.  This place also had huge wooden structures for kids to climb up/in.  Designed for 6+ but my kids shrugged that off and went gleefully roaming.

Feeding time for the goblins kids.  Note huge wooden structure in background.  Did I mention they were alll over that?

Oh yeah, and on the zip wire.  They both loved this.  There was actually a larger one that we stumbled upon later, but this one E could do by himself, and C wasn't too intimidated by.


Gonna leave you with one last picture because I'm running out of time to blog.  Here's E at the Pancake House enjoying a kids cocktail, a real treat for him.  The view was amazing.  I never knew how much I missed redwood trees until I left CA.  Being among them again was really nice.

That's all for now!  We have been really busy - we came home to the school fete (summer fundraiser) on Saturday and a classmate's party today (swimming party!).  Tomorrow we're settling back into the groove of school, sports class, C's playgroup, etc.  C and I are a bit under the weather but nothing terrible, probably just a bug picked up in the last few days of vacation.  Looking forward to winding down the last few weeks at school and enjoying a hopefully not-too-rainy summer.  I'll come back as soon as I can to post the last few photos.

Recent Photos/Days Out...

Got a photo backlog, so grab a cup of tea.

Easter... we dyed eggs using food coloring and shaving foam.  It didn't work too well, but the kids were pleased and, well, the eggs smelled nice and masculine.

For UK Mother's Day I got a very nice breakfast in bed with a homemade card and ornament.

A few weeks ago, we went to a farm in Surrey with animals to pet and a huge outdoor playground.

I have no pictures of the kids actually playing (we went with another family and their trio) but here's the aftermath:

I built a playhouse (plastic, flat-pack) in the garden.  Humphrey the classroom bear came home with E to enjoy our home life for a weekend.

We visited Kew, multiple times.  Went yesterday, in fact, and traipsed to one of the far corners and saw a tower we'd never seen up close, plus the bamboo garden.  Here's C on a swing in the playground.

And that brings us to today.  We went to visit the Bekonscott Model Village.  There's a scaled-down train that takes you for a short ride through the grounds.  Here's E, C and their cousin S enjoying:

Then we traipsed through the model village itself.  It was a wonder of detail, and frozen in the '20s/'30s or thereabouts.  Of course, many small model trains ran through the place, under bridges, through detailed stations, etc.  The children paused many times just to watch....

E found the signal box.

So much detail in this village, very impressive.

And... that's me, 99% caught up with photos.  I have a few more I'd like to post, but the site's being slow now.  So there may be a small Part 2 to this model village post.  For now - I'm planning to get cracking on my wordcount for the day.  This novel won't write itself, etc.

Whew....

I just haven't had the time/inclination to sit down and write down what's going on... mainly because I've been too busy living it!  I went to a large book fair in London (the LBF, to be precise, but I'm trying not to make this post Googleable since privacy and all).  It was amazing!  Reader, I felt like a grownup again.  I wound up going to dinner with editors, publishers, agents. And it was nice to connect with other authors. I feel like I'm going somewhere with this whole writing thing.

My novella is going to be published in 2 weeks.  I'm not going to link it here because I'm writing under a pen name... and at this point I think I'd like to keep the specifics of my personal and business lives separate.  This blog is mainly for family stuff, recording how the kiddos are doing, blogging about trips and days out, maybe a rant here and there.

And pictures, of course.

Top - climbing a tree.  They have helmets on because they'd ridden their scooters to the Common.  I'm not one of Those Parents.  Below, exploring one of the structures at Kew.

Up until a few weeks ago, the above is how C did a "thumbs up."  At the time I snapped the pic, we were going down the Strand, near Fleet St, on our way to visit a museum.

'Scuse the quality of these snaps - they're all from my Dumbphone.

I will have more stuff later... once I get a bit more time to sort my head out.  Right now I'm writing two novels at once.  I'm 9k into one and nearly 16k into the other.  The former will be shorter - 55-60k.  The latter is a big undertaking, different than anything I've done before, touches on socioeconomic stuff that I don't often see tackled in fiction, and should run 80-90k.  Right now my editor is looking at three of my pieces, a short story, a novella, and a novel.

We are going off to Wiltshire in about 6 weeks, staying in a little family-friendly resort type place (Center*parcs) for four nights.  I think that'll be our big trip this year, due to car issues (the sucker was in the garage for 10 weeks or something ridiculous, and did I mention that we bought it with only 25k miles on it?!).  Fees here, fees there, Tories cutting things left and right - it just seems prudent to live a slower life.

So since this post is totally stream-of-consciousness, tonight I made a smoothie from fresh bananas and strawberries and a few splashes of apple and beetroot juice.  Nothing else.  It was pretty tasty.

At some near point in the future I'd like to post a) a more extensive Dumbphone set of photos and b) "regular" camera photos.  Right now I am off to get the kids in their pajamas and into bed.