Or so they say! Here are just a few…
Madaline – fast asleep when she came to stay

The light around Lowick church changes almost by the hour it seems – here are a few differing light shots, the last one was taken this morning as the sun came up.

Northamptonshire has a maze of villages of varying sizes that are all separate from each other – our nearest ‘big’ village is Thrapston (think of a cross between Steyning and Storrington) and is separated from Islip (smaller village but not as small as Lowick) by the River Nene. To get to Thrapston you have to drive across the Nine Arch Bridge (complete with overnight mooring facilities for narrow boats) but you have to wait your turn, it’s only wide enough for one way traffic…

Home sweet home…

The only ‘snow’ that’s stuck around for longer than 5 mintues…

Jack with short hair (make the most of it, he’s already looking fuzzy!)

And for the grand finale – The Bear Cub (taken on Monday).

Sarah x

I have been trying to decide on the best way to catch up with our goings on. The trouble being that the more I procrastinate the bigger the gap and thus the bigger the problem of catching up!

So I’ll carry on from today and throw in bits that have happened these past few weeks in more detail as we go in the coming posts.

In the meantime here’s a list of the main things!

We changed our minds and decided not to send the kids back to school.

Sarah had the worst ever toothache caused by an infection under one of her back teeth.

Mum and David came to visit – hooray!

Edward just keeps getting cuter and cuter and his poo is getting more and more solid (weaning)!

I started a new course – Web Wizard – the follow on to the Web Entrepreneur course I completed last year.

So that was a brief run through I have probably missed out loads of stuff but we’ll add it later.
Over breakfast this morning Ellie was asking about Amsterdam, where it was etc so that gave us our learning topic today! The EU. So the first task was for the kids to find out what countries make up the European Union, there are 27! When they had done that we talked about the order that they joined in and found out that it is the EU’s 50th birthday this year. Their next tasks were to find out the main language, population and flag for each member state. Then tomorrow they can draw a map of Europe and put the flags in the right places!

Jack, Ellie and I went for a stroll in the park with the dogs. I think that when it gets warmer quite a few learning activities will take place there. I can see them sitting on the grass with a sketchbook drawing the big house!

Today I decided to restart my Comptia A+ course. The professional body has just released the 2006 course objectives – I had been studying the 2003 objectives – so we had a choice, either carry on or start again with the new materials – so I opted to start again. The course materials are similar but have been updated to reflect the new technologies so it shouldn’t take long to catch up.

Jack has decided to grow his hair long so we’ll wait and see on that one! Ellie is being all grown up and very helpful and Jack has become a real bookworm, he can’t put them down! His latest preferred author is Mark Robson .

Right I think that will do for today – I’m off to test the new mattress!

A day of good intentions that were partly achieved! One goal, which was achieved was to make sure that the kids ate early enough to be able to have an early night without going to bed on a full tummy as they are visiting a potential school tomorrow morning.
Chilli con carne was the dish of the day! It was cooked in the morning and with only the rice left to cook the kids were eating by 5.30pm and in bed by 8pm – unlike their younger brother, who insisted on staying up with his Mum and Dad, we eventually got to eat just after 9pm. Edward settled down to sleep at about 9.45 having had a couple of ounces of formula for a snack!

It was a big day for Edward – he found his feet and then spent every opportunity on his back curled up in a little ball playing with his feet whilst giggling hysterically. He’s so cute! He also continued to practice his rolling abilities – from tummy on to his back!

Noo planted up the last of the buckets with bulbs, which will then be sunk into the front garden. The front path has a border either side it.  It is currently covered with pebbles – or at least that is what we thought. Noo discovered that it wasn’t a covering of stones, it was literally filled with stones. So that put the kibosh on planting up the borders with bulbs etc. That is until she had a brainwave – she decided to put the bulbs in buckets and ‘plant’ the buckets! So in a few months we should have a fab show of spring bulbs.

On the wireless network front I have made a little progress. Because our cottage has 2-3 foot thick walls a reliable wireless network signal was just a forlorn hope – the Linksys range expander hasn’t been a huge success yet but I am hoping I might have more luck with it boosting the signal upstairs so that both Jack & Elise can access the net in their rooms. The signal downstairs has been improved by changing the wireless channel to 11 and broadcasting only ‘g’ instead of a mixed b/g.

Tomorrow is going to be a big day for Edward – he will be 6 months old and will meet his cousin, Madeline, she is 1 years old and lives in Newcastle but is down with her Mum, Paula for a few days!