It is official Edward Bear can climb! Today he managed to climb up, unaided, on to the pouffe which is in front of the tv. Once up, he made a dash for the freeview box and the tv! Coming down looked liked it wasn’t going to be quite so graceful so Dad was on hand to help him down – much to the Bear’s disgust!
This has rounded off a week of firsts for our little ‘fellows’. He had his MMR and final meningitis vaccinations on Tuesday 21st – no more ‘jabbing’ him until he is about 4 years old! Hooray! I hear him shout! This time he had two trophy plasters, one on each leg, to commemorate his ordeal.
The nurse was a staggering 40 minutes behind so we were waiting in the surgery for over 3/4 hour trying to keep the bear entertained! I wouldn’t mind so much but we had to wait over half an hour for the same nurse last time! So either she is as good at time keeping as us or there isn’t enough time being made between appointments to treat the kids. Judging by the comments in the waiting room from other parents and the highly apologetic introduction we got from the nurse some people seem to be getting a little cross. Which is a shame because the last thing a small child needs at this traumatic time is a cross parent and an anxious nurse. Surely just spreading out the appointments a little more would bring peace and harmony back to the surgery. “rant over”
Edward also experienced his first ‘bailing machine’ this week. I wasn’t there myself as Sarah had taken him to her mums for the afternoon (with the other kids). In the field these tractor things were gathering up the grass and then a big bailing machine came along and sucked up the grass and spewed out bails – he thought this was fab!
Jack and Ellie (J&E) has a brilliant time at PGL (Parents Get Lost) in Lincolnshire. It is just over an hour away – t’up norf. They arrived Saturday afternoon and came home Tuesday afternoon. J & E both made new friends and they are keeping in touch with them via email! They stayed in ‘dorms’ of 3 people which were made up of another brother / sister combo and one other ‘on their owny’.
They both did the same activities which included high rope adventures amongst the tree tops and abseiling, there were other things but I forget just now!
To finish the week off Sarah and J&E have gone to London with Yee for the last of their scheduled proms concerts. I write this whilst they are away. I am in fact listening to the very same concert live on BBC 4 (listening as I am in the kitchen and can’t see the tv!). It sounds like a great concert with one highlight being Prokofiev’s 5th. Before the concert they visited the Angel Islington tube station to ‘ride’ on the largest escalator in Western Europe (more statistics!).
So there we are – bank holiday tomorrow, the village church is holding their annual fund-raiser fete. We bought a book of raffle tickets a few weeks ago when they came knocking on the door – and donated some bottles of beer for the tombola (left over from the Christmas stash!) this week! Whether or not we go depends on the weather really and the parking! Only joking about the parking!

but it’s much too frail, the best kind of swing is a Tigger’s tail!”
Well that’s what Roo sings when he’s playing with Tigger and they discover that Tigger’s can’t climb trees, but it also makes Edward laugh when he’s on the swing in the park.
He’s much better now and is back to his normal self. We went to play on the swings for half an hour yesterday morning and took some snaps – I’m just thankful (and so should you be) that the shots don’t capture sound otherwise you too could hear me warbling the aforementioned lyrics!


Edward also has a new friend – his name is Edwid and was made especially for his birthday by Tamsin and Tabitha. He has a pink and white checked heart inside and is also microchipped so that if he gets lost and returned to the ‘Lost Department’ of the Bear Workshop they can send him back home; such a lovely idea.

There’s lots of other incidental stuff to ‘tell’ – like getting soaked in London, Jack’s first time at the Hard Rock Cafe, running through South Kensington for the last train home, queueing for hours outside Waterstones to collect our copies of Harry Potter. But it will have to wait as I currently have PURPLE hair dye on my hair that needs to come off now and me and Edward are off to my mum’s for the rest of the day to play with Madaline, Josh (aka Gok) and Paula (Simon is staying here to make the most of the peace and quiet ;-))

Edward Bear is poorly, he has been suffering for the last couple of days with a cough, runny nose and what must be a really sore throat. Although he isn’t himself at the moment he still manages to raise a smile when I pull a funny face for him, but then I feel guilty as the giggle sets off a coughing fit.

We took our cub to see the doctor today and after a thorough check up she decided he had a chest and ear infection so prescribed the antibiotics, amoxicillin. I wouldn’t say he likes it but it goes down a lot easier than the Tixylix! It smells of banana – which is nice as he loves banana – I only hope it doesn’t put him off the real thing!

Sarah has just put him bed but we both expect another disturbed night like yesterday where I think Sarah managed a whole 3 hours! I have to say I only fared slightly better!

Other than that there are a few other things to catch up on but I’ll save those until tomorrow – as I’m off to read HP and the deathly hallows – only another 400 pages to go! Sarah, Jack and Lynn have finished it already! So Ellie and I are playing catch up.

Emma bought Edward this GREAT t-shirt for his birthday – we think he looks very cool in it and Edward likes to fiddle with the three buttons that are on the side of the skull, anything with buttons or tags on is always a winner with him.

Most of you will recognise the next set of images – I chose them as, for me, they are the defining shots of each of his 12 months (give or take a week here and there…well you’ve got to be allowed a bit of artistic licence now and again!)

I’m intending to write more later with a garden update – late because it’s currently dry AND sunny and I’m off out to try and catch up with all the jobs that we haven’t been able to do because of the endless rain!

Sarah x

Edward you are one today (3rd July, that’s the 3rd of July, Aunty K). We hope you had a lovely day – you seemed to enjoy most of it, well not the jabs you had at the doctors today! You had 15 birthday cards today and a few telephone calls from people wishing you a happy birthday.

We opened your cards and had cake when we got back from the doctors and in the afternoon we went to Northampton to get a few special bits for you. Some lovely clothes, cuthbert the pull along caterpillar and a few bath time toys amongst others!

We can’t believe that you are one year old already. The last year has flown by. You are such a happy bear, even today having had an injection and having six teeth coming through you still spent most of the day smiling and laughing – you have really brightened up our lives this last year.

Edward happy birthday and we love you xxxxx

It very quickly became apparent that there were more than two teeth on the move!

A week ago Friday (15 June) I went to Gardeners’ World Live (GWL) at the NEC in Birmingham with my mum for the day and whilst I was there Simon discovered a top tooth in Edward’s mouth! Now teeth usually come through in a distinct order – bottom-front two, then the top-front two, followed by the two either side of the bottom ones and then the same on the top. Well upon closer inspection of Edward’s mouth you could see the top four teeth AND the next two bottom teeth all pushing through at the same time! And there we were, not so long ago, wondering if he’d still be 100% gummy on his 1st birthday.

Jack and Ellie went back with my mum to hers when she dropped me home after GWL so on Saturday we decided to go out and about and explore somewhere. Both being fans of Gardeners’ World past and present, we felt it was about time to go and visit the home and GW gardens of the late, great Geoff Hamilton – Barnsdale Gardens in Rutland.

Rutland is only 30 miles up the road and across the border into Leicestershire and we opted to go the pretty route rather than across and up the A1. The villages are quaint, the roads twisty-turny (great for bikes!) and the countryside glorious – even in the thunderstorm that crashed and banged around us half way there.

The gardens…what can I say about the gardens…they are just GLORIOUS. To have gardens on that scale would be our idea of heaven. The scent of roses and rainbows of colour bombard the senses and every corner turned reveals previously hidden wonders. The Versailles Borders and the Cottage Garden are among our favourites.

We got a little wet but going when the weather forecast was so dire did prove to have its advantages in as much as most other people stayed away, so I think we saw one person very briefly in the whole time of our wanderings round – it was like having the whole place to ourselves; it is just wonderful.

Before Edward arrived we bought a sling for him to go in so that it would leave our arms and hands free if he wanted to be held. We decided against the bog-standard slings (well what else did you expect!?) and went for a ‘Freedom Ring Sling’. Basically it’s just a l-o-n-g piece of material that has a pair of hefty silver rings sewn onto one end; you thread the material though the rings and ‘sling’ it over your shoulder and across your front like a sash, create a ‘pouch’ and put the baby in it. Sounds easy huh……it’s only taken us the best part of a year to actually get it right LOL!

However, it meant that Edward could be carried around some of Barnsdale when he got fed up with being in the pushchair, and that our arms didn’t feel like lead with carrying him. It’s not easy shooting the borders with one hand whilst trying to stop Edward pushing the buttons with the other, so I handed the Canon over to Simon and he played photographer for some of the day which means there is a rare shot of me with Edward!

Blue Hostas…

Simon pondering in the Cottage Garden…

Metal Rose…

Part of the Versailles Borders…

Simon and Edward sheltering from the rain…

Honeysuckle…(Simon shot this one)

Me and Edward…(another ‘Shot by Simon’)

That Sunday we had been conscripted to help out at the Old Village Fete – me and mum (she’s the new Parish Council Chairman btw) were running the cake stand Jack and Ellie played with their friends from Old and harassed Tony and Luigi (a work colleague) for money for drinks and burgers and the like. Simon and Edward dashed off to the computer fair in Kettering and were back in Old in time for the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight fly-past that had been booked for the afternoon.

The BBMF is a Lancaster Bomber, a Hurricane and a Spitfire and seeing them fly over incredibly low and loud is one of the best sights and sounds. These are the planes that we saw at Duxford when we went to the Battle of Britain Memorial Day (I’ll post some pictures of that when I’ve got round to processing all of them) on the day MIL and David arrived en route to the Arsenal game from Scotland.

That was last weekend, this weekend just gone was a much more sedate affair. Saturday….we did not much! I played Lego Star Wars on the XBox (it’s a great game), played with The Cub and cleaned the carpets with our new carpet cleaner – it’s one of the most satisfying things! The colour of the water is disgusting which makes it all the MORE satisfying and the carpets looked brighter and smelt much nicer. Ok so they won’t stay clean for long but doing it once a month should keep on top of things and Edward won’t end up with quite such grubby knees!

Sunday…a trip to Ikea in Milton Keynes (the Ikea you all saw just up the road is a warehouse and not a store) to get Edward a toy box for all his toys and a heavy-duty rug to put outside that he can sit and crawl around on. Well, the toy box was out of stock but we did get him a great rug, I think he’s gonna have to fight the dogs for a space on it LOL.

Whilst we did all that the kids were with Mum and Tony again – this weekend was the Festival of Speed at Goodwood so they were all up at 5am on Saturday to make good time down to Chichester. Jack and Ellie got up close and personal with Jenson Button, Lewis Hamilton’s test driver and went into the MacLaren VIP bit. I think that really did it for them as they were hob-nobbing with the MacLaren peeps and could touch the car whilst ‘the commoners’ had to stay behind the ropes and just drool – “it’s handy having contacts in the trade,” Jack said.

The wasp man came out today so we are wasp free again and now it’s just fingers crossed for nice weather on Saturday!

Sarah x

All that crawling was exhausting, so this afternoon Edward put his feet up…

AND even if you only have two teeth, it’s still important to floss…

Night night Daddy, see you tomorrow xx

At 11 months, 1 week and 2 days old Edward has finally mastered the art of crawling FORWARDS!

He’s been able to navigate his way around by rolling, by doing a strange backward-caterpillar crawl and turning in ever-increasing circles on his bottom – but now, ladies and gentleman, we now have FORWARD LOCOMOTION.

Join him now, on one of his first epic journeys…

Sarah x

Here are some snaps that Sarah took today! Things are growing nicely, a few roses buds have burst into bloom, the fuchsias are nearly there and the apples are setting!

It’s Fireman Edward!