Summer Maize #oneweek

Late to the party again…but sliding in hopefully before midnight with a combination post covering every linky i can!

Yes?

Yes…*fans face*

My lovely friend Older mum is running her one week posts this week and i thought what a good way to get some of my summer memories up all in one go. Ive done a few before you can check out some of them here and here. So here we are with one of my little set of images i took on our recent holiday to France. We went from the North West of the UK to the Western coast of France with one car, a trailer, 4 bikes, 2 bike seats, 2 sandcrabs, 5 children and 2 adults (with the occasional loss of sanity). I could lament about the craziness of travelling long distances with kids but i recently read a blog that does it so much better. Read it and you know pretty much exactly how we felt.

So after our ‘trip’

We arrived in the beautiful Vendee region of France and the sun was shining. Which is BIG for me. I need the sun. Like properly need. 🙂

Once we got through the stress of set-up and thats A LOT of stress. Our rule..is any negativity on the first day of holiday is to be discarded and let go…its the set up stress.

Then we started to take in where we were….

one thing i noticed..

Maize.

Yes. Maize.

Lots of it. Everywhere and it was SO incredibly tall. High as an elephant’s eye 😉

Knowing that Maize is obviously grown in this country and thinking i just be overwhelmingly unobservant of UK agriculture to have not noticed this jumbo sized crop before I actually went and took some pictures of it. It really does go for miles and miles and I could stand under it and shoot up in to the leaves.

Incredible.

And since returning we have noticed some british maize and it is nowhere near as tall as French Maize. So it must be the weather, or the soil, or the general Frenchness..I don’t know. But it is a lOT bigger over there and…

e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e

 

one week

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Walking in memphis #countrykids

Okay so its not really memphis..and being honest with you i wouldnt know what that is like because i have never been and i just really love the song…..

but…

this hill near where we live around this time of year backs onto loads and loads of crop fields and we like to go walking over there and it always reminds me of that line in the song ‘walking with my feet ten feet of the Beale’ which until recently i thought was ‘off a field’ ( you can see my connection here) but apparently it is  a road and not a field… HAH!  So my comparison falls down in so many ways but in my imagination it works!

So okaaaayyyyy…

The hill is one of the high points around here and so you can get a decent view of the landscape, which it is, to be fair, slightly blotted by a motorway and lots of plyons but it is a peaceful place and i love the sound of the wind moving through the crops. It isnt that far away so its not really a day trip but we took a lunch and sat for a while. Well some of us did! 😉

Generally the kids eat and run when we are picnicking. I have never had a child that hasn’t come complete with ants in their pants and they seem to be unable to sit still for very long. Fortunately there was a large rock to play on and some little sisters to give piggy back races to. Im amazed there were no injuries and it actually had the added benefit of my toddler asking someone else for a carry!

The rock here on this hill also gave me an idea for an image i want to get with a friend’s older daughter who is currently doing ‘en pointe’ ballet. I have been searching for a possible location and i think i may have found it. I was getting one of my girls to pretend to be a ballerina to see if it would work and she went for a classic ‘first’ position! 🙂

We walked back through the wheat fields. Once they stopped moaning about having to walk..(is it only my kids that do that?) They really got into looking and noticing the different flowers and how the wheat is planted in lines and how much ‘crop’ a farmer might get out of these many fields..oh and how much actual wheat it takes to make one loaf of bread. Something to google i think as OH and i had no idea whatsoever!

A nice little afternoon. All in all

🙂


Family Farm Holidays Cornwall

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Where they are. right now. #motivationalmonday #themondayclub #whatsthestory

This months theme on motivational monday is children. Hey..guess what…

I have a few of those 😉

So i thought i would give a little run down of each of the little folk who dwell here in this dwelling.

So first up. My guy. My only one.

Yes..thats right he is the only boy..

yes he is surrounded by women, yes he has lots of sisters, no he isn’t henpecked…

blah blah blah…

you can tell i have heard those sort of comments LOTS before right?!

We all know a baby doesn’t come with a ‘tick the box’ option don’t we. *stares*

A-n-y-w-a-y  (thats a whole other blog post) 😉

My pioneering child. Breaking all those first boundaries of parenthood. He is the one that we have had to scale that steep learning curve with and i reckon that fact that him and us are still all alive and vaguely sane is the sign of a success!

Yes?

Anyway our not so little boy is now staring down the barrels of 11.

Sweet. mary. jo.

We are so close to teenager it could spin my head clear off my shoulders!

But right now he is 10.

and right now he is:

 

  • Very very much into Minecraft, which is a game that i cannot understand the attraction in. He is asking me to download all sorts of guides to it on the Kindle and then spending hours working out how to make houses. The graphics remind me of something that was around in the days of the ZX-81 😉
  • Finished year 5 this year and waved goodbye to one of his favourite teachers. The teacher is leaving the school as well so there is no chance that my girls will have him which is a shame. We liked him a lot

  • He loves formula one. You could talk to him for ages about cars. He knows so much about cars, their makes, models and how fast they can go. Largely fuelled by his father’s interest in formula one and all things a bit petrol head ish. 
  • He currently wants to work for Nintendo and has taken it quite personally that the Wii U has bombed slightly! 🙂
  • He is a great big brother to his sisters and is pretty balanced about being a big brother to a bunch of girls. He is especially close to our youngest girlie.
  • He loves movies, and scripts. He remembers dialogue and quotes it often! Currently we are all about dispicable me 2 and Monsters U.
  • He is after a phone…we are resisting..we might meet middle ground with some walkie talkies 😉
  • He still likes trains
  • He has no love for girlie pop groups such as one direction and the like. Usually a point of conflict in our house!!
  • He has never ever tasted tomato Ketchup, he used to tell people he was allergic to it. He now develops a big kinship with anyone who comes to our house who feels the same. 😉
  • He is a natural musician and plays by ear, which sometimes frustrates his music teacher. He isnt, however, a natural practicer (is that a word?) so we have to use increasingly inventive ways to get him to practice!
  • He can be a bit ‘chickin lickin’ Which we laugh about but we sometimes have to have very serious conversations about how the wind outside is not going to turn into a tornedo!
  • He is, to date, the only one of my children who has had to endure a general anesthestic. (thank God). He fell onto a coffee table when he was 2 and has to have surgery as it had gone across the line of his lip. He now has a cute Indiana Jones type scar.

He is also turning into a little bit of a photographer and this weekend asked me to help him take this sort of shot. I think he did a pretty good job.

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A miracle at christmas… #motivationalmonday

We had been expecting this.

Things were not looking good. There was an anxiety in the air, a tension and just a little bit of palpable panic.

It was one of those days when you don’t go far, you stay and hover like moth attracted to the light.

Except this wasn’t light, it was dark.

It was a darkness that was threatening, rising on the horizon like a storm, blue clouds slowly turning black and joining together and moving faster.

It happened quickly…..as it often did.

Fast.

His heart rate drifted, colour quickly changing. movement silenced and still.

Smiles disappear from the parents faces as they glance from the monitors to his face to my face.

I move quickly but quietly, smiling reassurance, words hushed but firm.

‘i just need to get next to him if i can for a minute’

They move. So fast. pushing chairs back like they have suddenly been charged with electricity.

Jumping aside.

I check, listen, watch.

Suction.

Extra breaths.

Waiting…

Watching.

No change.

Quietly i say ‘I just need to get some help’

Reaching for the red button.

and Action!

Doors burst open. Quick words are exchanged. A plan begins.

Settings are altered and a tube is changed.

More breaths. Counting slowly and waiting…

watching.

exchanged glances over the bed. Quick words to the parents stood paralysed at the end of the bed. Do they hear us? Im not sure. Their eyes search mine for reassurance, pleading..

is he going to be okay?

We wait.

I say quietly in my head ‘ not today little man, please please not today’

Might have even been a prayer.

An eternity frozen in 30 seconds……

colour returned slowly

numbers began to rise. Heart rate picking up.

chest moving.

Panic is over. Fear has passed by on this 25th day.

This was not going to be that day for this family.

This was not going to be that day.

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A baby for christmas #motivationalmonday #themondayclub

The day before, the day before came and went with nothing,

presents wrapped

the day after too, passed by in silence.

Candles lit, carols at midnight

The day itself dawned and crawled by, slowly, with festivities and anxiety.

Not today, no..not today. Let this not be the day.

It wasn’t.

I sighed.

Sighed that it wasn’t that day.

Sighed that it wasn’t a day.

Come on that day.

Come on!

pudding and cream eaten, washed with cups of tea.

More days came and went, a whole seven days…

24 hours of waiting..

seven more night times wondering, waiting, niggling…anticipating!

Slowly giving up and settling in for a long haul but then….

surprised….

tossing and turning…

becoming breathing and leaning..

phone calls, decisions, excitement rising…

Twinkling lights.

little ones sleeping…still

Kisses dropped on heads, bags by the door.

Ready to go.

The journey.

little donkey plays, then silent night

short and painful journey.

cursing.

speed bumps.

jingle bells all the way

Breathing

heavily.

rocking.

sitting.

standing.

pain.

rocking around the christmas tree.

momentum disappearing

Heart rate drifting.

People running.

Alarms blaring.

We wish you a merry christmas.

Panic starting to flood my veins. Fear.

My hand held, strong words spoken.

Time to get to work.

Fast.

Game face on.

She arrived. Screaming, full of life.

Indignant.

Here.

Safe.

Our beautiful Christmas baby who arrived on New years Eve.

This post is inspired by one of my favourite writers who I have mentioned before. The fabulous Oldermum.

Also by a happy accident earlier today when i was walking out of the maternity hospital in which i work and i noticed in the corridor a heavily pregnant woman leaning on the wall. She was gently and quietly rocking backwards and forwards while her partner, next to her was on the phone to what was clearly their young son at home. “are you going to go to bed like a good boy now?’ I heard him say. Made me smile a warm, hearty smile and remember my own babies being born.

This little girl of mine was the only one out of five who was late..properly late….and i found it so hard to cope with…we had been expecting her before christmas but she had other plans. She knew what she wanted and when she would show up. A little bit what she is like now really! 😉

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