yarn along

joining in with Ginny's yarn along.

This is a hat I have been knitting for ages. It's been my 'in the car, 5 minutes now and then' knitting, but since the weather's getting cold, and it's getting towards Christmas it has been upgraded to 'finish as soon as possible' knitting, as I can then either wear it or gift it.

The book is 'How mothers love' by Naomi Stadlen, who also wrote 'What mothers do'. It's great. She has been running discussion groups for mothers for a long time, and the books are based on what she hears mothers talking about, and her insights. A lot of the quotes are from first time Mums of young babies, and it's really a good reminder of what those times were like. I find this useful for the breastfeeding support volunteering that I do, as it's all too easy to forget just what a complete upheaval the first baby is. But I have also found a lot in here of relevance to me now with a 2 and 4 year old - the chapters on fathers and mothering more than one child in particular. And her style is just lovely, observant and non-judgmental, but still full of interesting and thought provoking reading. It's not a how-to book but more of a what-is book.

yarn along

 joining in with Ginny's yarn along

I haven't done yarn along for months due to a bit of a knitting hiatus. However, thanks to the Friday craft mornings at Hannah's kindergarten, when I can knit without (many) distractions, I now have a finished top for Hannah. Hurrah ! The books are a couple I picked up at the library for when I have a garden that I can actually dig up (we are currently renting). Oh and a greenhouse so I can grow lots of tomatoes and hopefully even have some left after the kids have picked them to use as missiles (Hannah), or stuff down the drain (Thomas).

out and about Wednesday

Today we ventured to the King George recreation ground in Bushey. We chose this park because it had paddling pools. Hannah stayed in for about 3 hours with a short break for lunch.

Thomas opted for a rest after lunch with some light reading.

There was the added bonus of a funfair in the park. This was the first time that Thomas wanted to go on a carousel. He was not happy when he had to come off !

{this moment}

out and about Wednesday

Our expedition on Wednesday was to the park at Aldbury, a picturesque little village close to us. After a short walk from the car park, and a stop to see some horses trotting past, we found the park in a lovely location in the middle of the village allotments.

The park has a large wooden climbing structure, as well as swings, a slide, small and large seesaws and the all important roundabout.

 

We ate our picnic, played with some other park visitors, and then, on the walk back to the car, came the undoubted highlight of the trip, watching the bin lorry.

{this moment}

out and about Thursday

Now that we are in the summer holidays I am trying to do more trips out with the kids. I'm also trying to use public transport more often. Thomas has not been on a train very often as you can perhaps tell from his body language.

Today we went to Bletchley Park, the place where many codes were broken in WWII, which has now been turned into a museum. There is a direct train from Berkhamsted to Bletchley and the park is only a few minutes walk from the station.

We headed first for the play area but unfortunately it was closed for maintenance, there were however some giant chess pieces to play with.

In the rest of the museum we enjoyed the re-furbished and working Colossus computer - an enormous beast of valves, flashing lights, switches and punched paper tapes - which took up an entire room, and the collection of toys from the 1940s, in particular the trains and the old school desks.