Long Overdue...

...update.

We have been busy! We pulled E out of school a month early (since we were moving to North London anyway) and went to California for 7 weeks. What we did there... well, that warrants about 5 blog posts on their own! Suffice it to say we had a family reunion and did a ton of stuff that was almost a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Uncle Howard, his wife, and son Jack (7) were there, and we were able to see many good old family friends. B, the kids and I also traveled to Mendocino for a midweek break at one point.

I hardly know where to begin with this update. Certainly I want to catalog what we did in CA, but maybe I should start with mundane matters. We're now living in the top bit of B's parents' house, with much more room than in our old flat. E is in Year 2 in a local school, and C is at the same school in Nursery, going 5 mornings a week. They seem to be settled-ish, although we have our doubts about that particular school. We may try to get them into a different one. This is mainly because a lot of the school's funding is focused on bringing children with skills below their age level up to an appropriate one. E doesn't need that, at all. Neither does C. So... we wait and see. Meanwhile, he is not unhappy there although I don't think either of them are challenged quite enough.

This year, we've taken life by the horns and really lived it. I've learned that sometimes the actual doing of things is difficult, but having done them is awesome. Like flying that Cessna in Cornwall. This year we have been to Cornwall, rural Norfolk to stay with family, California, moved to North London, and this weekend we went back to Norfolk again. We're so lucky to have family members who have access to a holiday cottage up there.

So, since CA will have to be its own updates, here are some pictures from this weekend.

E catches a crab! All the kids caught some, and we wound up with 20+ seething in our bucket. Drama ensued when a little girl next to us went right over and into the water! We helped her and her grandfather (who went right after her) out.

C stirs her witchy cauldron at the festival we went to. She was making a potion (with leaves, water, mud and her magic wand).

E and C at the top of the biggest "drop slide" in the play area we went to on Sunday. Yes, they both went down it, multiple times!

The boys conquered this tandem zip wire. It was enormous.

One last photo, from the festival's candlelit procession. The children carried jars they had decorated earlier, with little tea candles inside. There were drummers and fire dancers. It was a very cool thing.

And that's it for now. I'll do my level best to update again soon, but National Novel Writing Month begins Nov. 1. I am going to try to write a heist/thriller in about 30 days. I won't finish it, of course, but it will be fun trying.

More Cornwall

I'm on a roll, so I might as well keep going.

On Mondays, I tend to have some spare time in the morning between E's school drop-off and the beginning of C's sports class. Right now our schedule seems just right. C goes to playgroup Tuesdays and Thursdays and we do varying activities (library, park, etc) on Weds/Fri. Obviously this will all come to an end in late June, but I'm enjoying it while I can. And I'm sure I'll get into a similar groove in N. London.

One of the cool things we did in Cornwall was visit a miniature steam railway. It had a good amount of things for kids to do. Miniature golf, other miniature train tracks (all ride-on), go-karts, pedal tractors, canoes for paddling around the lake, and an adventure playground. Unfortunately, rain arrived and got us pretty wet, so we didn't enjoy it as much as we could have, but we still had a good time.

Yeah, it says minimum age 6 years, but E crossed it just fine. And he didn't get wet. This was part of the smaller, initial playground next to the station where we caught the steam train.

Cousins and children and dog all waiting to board.

E enjoyed watching the locomotive on the turntable. Found out later that the guy driving the engine was the owner of the place.

Little Red Riding C getting a hole in 20.

Rainy go-karting. These things went fairly fast!

After we got back to the holiday cottage, we built up a nice fire in the woodstove and played cards. E and I (and B) have been reading 101 Dalmatians, the original unabridged version. It's a long book for a 5 year old. He sometimes reads independently, sometimes takes turns with us. He's enjoying it.

E's school sends a lot of books home. Six per week. So he has a lot of books to read, but he's always up for a challenge. Besides, I have great memories of 101 Dalmatians.

So, that's pretty much it for Cornwall. We had a fantastic time, rain or shine, and are planning to go back in two years.

When we do, we'll probably visit the Eden Project again. We had a good time there! Those domes are biomes. One's a rainforest and the other is a Med-type climate.

C and her cousins took most of their clothes off partway through our walk around the very hot rainforest biome!

I must say, being inside felt a bit like walking onto the set of Logan's Run. Minus all those cool zippy gadgets and the very 70s garb.

There was a small natural playground outside and a fair amount to do here. Things tended to be quite hands-on and child friendly. There was also a very neat (and long, and high, and terrifying) zip wire, but that was for adults and you had to pay. Maybe next time...

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.