Gardenastics

While helping Mum in the garden this afternoon, I took the opportunity to practice my gymnastics and test my strength a little...

Lumberjacking

We are in Kingussie today and with the help of Uncle Ian we did a little bit of surgery on Granny's cherry tree. The tree needed a bit of pruning, particularly after a couple of bad hair cuts (not by us!) in the past.

Dad wasn't up in the tree for long when I asked if I should join him for an #inappropriateparenting photo. You should see some of Dad's Instagram feed for more examples inappropriate parenting!

We did a good job though and the tree's looking a lot better. Dad and Uncle Ian plan to have another go at it soon to make it better still.

Moving

Everyone agrees I'm getting too big to continue sleeping on the floor in the same room as Mum and Dad when we stay at Granny and Grandpa's so Grandpa has very kindly agreed to relinquish his workshop. We all feel bad about this, and not just because it's going to be quite a lot of work to get all his gear out of there and then get the room decorated and carpeted!

So, after everyone had picked it clear of everything worth keeping, it was time to help Dad dismantle his workbench and lift the floor and then get all of that stuff out to the shed ready to be burned. Ah, I knew there would be something else worthwhile in all this - can't wait to burn this stuff!

Gardening

I helped Mummy out in the garden today. It's just as well I was there as she was having trouble spelling sweetcorn!

Newtonmore

We saw Auntie Carol and Uncle Dave today! It's been ages since we've seen them! I always have great fun there. They have the coolest house, garden and big-boys-toys! I even got to drive the tractor with Uncle Dave today!


Then I got to wear Uncle Dave's boots so that I could play in the puddles!

Water Balloons!

Firstly, a great big THANK YOU to Auntie Lesley and Uncle Roger for bringing me water balloons at some point in the dim and distant past! Mummy had hidden them but Daddy insisted we play with them since the weather is so nice. It took Mummy and Daddy ages to fill a bunch of them up and they got the cloakroom soaked while doing it but eventually we had a bucket full of water balloons and out into the back garden we went.

We carefully threw them back and forward to one another and I even caught one once! Most of the time I either failed to catch them or dropped them and they burst at my feet when they landed on the grass - keeping me mostly dry. Daddy, on the other hand, wasn't quite so successful but it would have been pretty amazing for him to avoid the balloon Mummy launched at him! He failed to return the favour so I suspect this might not be the last of the water balloons this year!

Picking Brussel Sprouts

Our last full day and Auntie Lesley and Uncle Rogers today. In the morning, we went to see Grandpa Sid - he's Uncle Roger's dad and he has the greatest knives I've ever seen! If Auntie Lesley sends me the photo she took of me and him together I'll post it here.
In the afternoon, between sessions playing computer games, we did a bit of gardening and I helped pick some brussel sprouts for dinner. And they were delicious too!

It's been great staying with Auntie Lesley and Uncle Roger. I've played the computer *a lot* but probably not as much as Auntie Lesley has ;-). I got to sleep in a tent in the spare room! Uncle Roger has given us excellent food. And it's nice having the cats around. I can't wait until we can come back here.

Frozen Veg

Since the snow stopped for a bit this afternoon, Daddy and I went outside to play in it for a wee while. We played in the undisturbed snow in out back garden - it's not undisturbed any more! It took some digging, but we discovered that Mummy has been growing frozen brussels sprouts.

There were also some frozen carrots but they weren't big enough for our requirements so one was retrieved from the fridge!

A-maze-ing

Daddy got the grass cut today. He says it'll be the last cut this year - looks like just about its only cut this year to me given how long it was! But that was good - I got Daddy to cut a maze into it for me to get lost and play in. I made sure he did circles around the trees and put in some dead-ends and some short cuts. It was good fun, but once he was finished creating the maze, Daddy cut the rest of it and it was gone. He completely filled the brown bin with grass so I went inside it to stomp it all down. I squeezed it into half the size it was before I started!

Clippings

A bit of gardening today. I do like cutting - always have. If Mummy is going to insist I come outside and help in the garden then at least I get to have a lot of fun playing with the seccateurs!

Survivor

Earlier this year we planted 6 sunflowers and looked after them in the conservatory and they grew really well... Until we went to Disney Land. They suffered. Although a friend was watering them, it was a really hot week and they roasted in the conservatory. Only one plant had any chance of making it and Daddy potted it out into a bigger pot in the garden and let nature take its course. It took a couple of weeks but it started to grow again and now, after a rather long and worrying wait, look at what we've got! It's a really cool and very yellow sunflower. And check out the size of it! It's bigger than Daddy. I wonder how big it would have been if we'd planted it out before we went to Disney Land..? And look, it's even attracting the bees - Mummy is happy!

New Veg Plot

Mummy's extending her greenfingers and has invested in a raised vegetable plot. She let Daddy build it and he managed to break one of the posts (but blamed Mummy). She also made him fill it though! But I helped to tramp it down (making more work for Daddy!).

I also helped Mummy write the name-tags for the vegetables we planted. This is me writing Carrots.

And then I helped to plant them.

I also helped to water them and managed to get more water on Daddy than the plants but unfortunately there's no photos of that! Oh. And Mummy says please ignore the falling down fence in the background. It has now been replaced with a rather nice new one.

Fence painting again

Mummy wants to plant some climbing plants on the fence between us and our neighbours but Daddy says she'll need to paint the fence first. So she dragged us all to B&Q and bought a *lot* of paint and then made me help her. She obviously hadn't learned from Daddy's last effort. I actually had more fun this time around as you can see. I played in the paint and then painted handprints on the fence!

But then I got bored. And also Mummy decided she didn't like the colour. And Daddy suggested that maybe the fence was in a worse condition than he thought and we need to replace it all anyway. So for now, my handprints are still there! And the plants Mummy bought are still in their pots...

Very Cold

It's been really cold recently. But still no snow and Daddy is desperate to get me out on the sledge. I think it's really him that wants a go on it! Look at the thickness of the ice from the top of the sand pit paddling pool. It's completely captured my wee truck.


Daddy and I have been kicking this ice and breaking it up most nights and it hasn't been this thick before. The other night when we came home from nursery I stayed to play with the ice while Daddy headed indoors. The conversation went a bit like this...

Daddy: "Be careful, I don't want you getting soaked."
Me: "DADDY! I'm soaked."

He'd no sooner left me than I'd stuck a foot through the ice into the water beneath. My shoes had to go in the airing cupboard that night!

Birthday bash

A couple of weeks ago we went up north to have a family dinner. There are a few milestone birthdays in Mummy's family this year - a 40th, a 50th and an 80th so we got together to have lunch. It's unusual to get all of Mummy's family together at the same time so it was really fun. You can't beat being the centre of attention for 4 women! So Daddy says anyway.

While we waited to be seated, Uncle Ian and I had a wee game of chess. I think he found it pretty challenging but I let him win in the end.


Lunch was excellent, even with the inevitable ordering debacle, but the food and company were superb. A good time was had by all.

On the way home we stopped in at Auntie Carol and Uncle Dave's house again. We spent a while in the garden and I helped Uncle Dave dig up some of his new potatoes which we had with mince when we got home (very good too, thanks Uncle Dave!). Daddy also snapped a photo of Mummy stealing more raspberries while she thought no one was looking!


Unfortunately it was just a day trip so we had to head home again pretty quickly. We're all already looking forward to the next trip north.

PYO

We went along to Craigie's Farm just outside Edinburgh to pick some strawberries and raspberries. It's a really nice place and you pick lots of different fruit if you're into that sort of thing. We picked loads of strawberries and Mummy and Daddy also picked some raspberries as well. Daddy made me try one of the raspberries but I still don't like them - which is a shame. Interestingly, strawberries are probably my favourite fruit at the moment and this time last year I didn't like them so maybe next year I will like raspberries?!


The farm has its own wee shop too and cafe. We were going home for lunch so we didn't get anything from the cafe. Mummy and me made Daddy wait in the long queue to pay for the fruit while we went outside to play on the toy tractors then came back just in time to make Daddy buy us some ice cream too! I got a very tasty cone but not being that experienced in eating cones I made quite a mess getting through it in the hot sunshine. Mummy helped me and then I was stripped and wiped clean for the drive home afterwards. I'm still wearing just my pants and socks while writing this.

Fence painting

Mummy was in hospital last week for a wee operation. In order to give her peace, Daddy figured it would be a good idea to paint the fence. The fence badly needed painted and it would keep him and me busy for a few hours and out of Mummy's way while she got better. You can see us here about a third of the way in.



Except that photo is completely staged and I'm posing under duress. I had agreed with Daddy that painting the fence was a good idea and would be a lot of fun. But after one spar (and saturating two paint-brushes - that was fun!) it turned out that painting the fence was boring. So I went and bothered Mummy and left Daddy to finish it. He made quite a good job though.

Tulips from Amstergran(ny)

Just a quick one for Granny. When she was here earlier in the year she bought some flowers, including these excellent orange tulips. I helped her plant the bulbs and now they are up and looking fantastic in the afternoon sunshine. Thanks Granny.

Also, since it's a quick post, here's a picture of me playing at Buzz Lightyear in the garden this afternoon while Daddy cut the grass. To infinity and beyond!

Updates

Hiya! Sorry it's been such a long time since I posted. It probably would have been even longer but Daddy has insisted I post something. He says he's added Google Adwords and I'll get to use all the revenue (whatever that means!) for toys. He says it'll be an incentive to post more often. Well, I'm pretty sure that Mummy and Daddy will buy me toys if I insist enough anyway so I have my doubts about its success as an incentive..!

I was thinking of cheating and pretending I had been posting by putting up a lot of little posts and changing the date so that no one would know but I know all my readers (both of them) are cleverer than that so I'll try to tell you everything that's been happening in one post. With as many pictures as I can add. All we need to hope is that I can remember everything that's happened over the past 6 weeks.

Well, we've been up to see Granny and Grandpa several times recently. We do this so that Daddy can cut the grass. And play on the stilts. And so that I can play with the other grandkids. We have a lot of fun together. We also went to the beach and Daddy and me climbed a tree. It's funny how easy it was to get up the tree and I found it quite easy to get down as well. Daddy on the other hand..! Mummy was wishing she hadn't been so quick to put the camera away because Daddy getting off the tree would have been the best photo ever!

I changed classes at nursery in August. Went from the 'twos' class to pre-school. Pre-school is downstairs with better toys and a bigger garden. It's pretty tiring and it's become quite common for me to nod off after a long hard day at the office before dinner.

There's been a lego phase. We've been building houses and towers and monsters and robots and shapes. And this wall, which you can even hide behind!

I know some people will be looking for a gardening update. But there isn't much to tell. We've learned a fair bit. Especially that no matter how much it rains (and it's rained a lot) you still need to water plants in planters every day. This means that you have to go out with your watering can in the rain and get wet yourself. Daddy didn't like to do that much so our plants haven't done as well as they could have. Some things did OK despite our best efforts but the tomatoes that we expected great things from really didn't try. They were Tumbler Tomatoes and we planted them in a hanging basket. Should have been ideal territory for them. Daddy attempted to keep them well watered but they still didn't do very well and out of two plants we only got three tomatoes.

Mummy has got a new car. A very shiny new car. It's a Seat Altea XL and I love it. I have my own door at last. And the window has a blind to stop the sun from hurting my eyes. There are no photos of it yet but it looks just like the one below. And here's a photo showing that it only had 8 miles on the clock when Mummy and Daddy picked it up (you have to take the trip value away from the miles value). Best of all though, the window goes up and down by magic!


And speaking of magic. This month we have mostly been Pottering. I have been watching lots of Harry Potter. I like Harry Potter 3 with the Dementors and the man that turns into a werewolf. I'm a wee bit frightened of Harry Potter 2 - Dobby is too scary! I've been doing a lot of magic. Especially with Daddy. We duel with our wand sabers casting spells at each other. I have made up some excellent spells that cause Daddy to writhe about on the floor. My favourites are 'areckyzebra' and 'protomadonna'.

OK. That'll do for now. I'll try to post more often but I make no promises. I had hoped to post a nice picture of me and Daddy washing Mummy's new car today but Mummy didn't know there was no card in the camera so the fantastic photos she took of me rinsing the soap off the car with the hose and Daddy ending up wetter than the car (not sure how he managed that) don't exist. Shame, I think they would have made folks laugh.