102/365 Roland & Suzanne's Wedding

My brother Roland married Suzanne today at The Boathouse, Sutton Park. They posed for the cake cutting shot, then started to cut the cake and were laughing because the knife got stuck! I have had to make a quick choice for the blog as I am so tired!

I took almost 300 photos and we are all exhausted, Mark and the kids are already in bed and more than likely already asleep as I type, but I had to blog ;0)

There will be an album on my Picasa gallery soon, but now I must get to bed, its been a long but lovely day - the partying is still going on!! Congratulations Rol & Suzanne!

101/365 Lasso practice

Our Canadian friends R & C gave Oliver a real lasso, as well as some other cowboy things, when they visited a couple of years ago.

Today he was trying to lasso the washing line.

Jodie enjoyed tying him up!

100/365 DandyLion (Common Dandelion, taraxacum officinale)

This "DandyLion" and his pals had better watch out, we'll be doing more in the garden now spring seems to have sprung, so their days are numbered. Weather permitting of course.

You'll note the rain drops - at a recent talk at the photography club, Barry Payling said we shouldn't let a bit of rain stop us from being out and about with our cameras. So I went down the garden in the rain. ;0) This is another shot from today, a flower bud (?) on a small tree/large shrub gifted to me via freecycle but I don't know what it is... apart from being beautiful. The leaves look like hornbeam, but I can't find a similar picture online to identify it. Anyone recognise it?

99/365 Oliver

Oliver seems to be more willing to have his picture taken recently. Today he was mainly chilling out at home recovering from yesterday's water fights, which tired him out! We did go and buy him a large water gun (can't really call it a water pistol, it would not look out of place in Star Wars if it were metallic tones rather than bright orange plastic!) And Jodie had to have one as well of course.

98/365 Toll House in Spring

In 33/365 this tree was dusted with snow. I just had to stop on the way past it today to get this shot of it before the blossom is fully open. As I said back then, its one of my favourite trees. Today though, I took some more detailed shots of the Toll House itself. The folk who live there have 2 huge dogs with deep gruff barks to match! I think they might be great danes.

The downstairs window used to be a bay window but a vehicle crashed into it in the 1960s, you can see the brickwork is different where it has been repaired.

97/365 Busted!

Caught red-handed, using his finger to get the very last remnants of hot chocolate out the bottom of the mug! So, those of you with older children... how old are they when they can drink hot chocolate without getting it all over their face?? Kids... ;0)

96/365 A footprint on my heart

Today would have been my first daughter's 8th birthday. This is one of her footprints, she was stillborn. I have a big box crammed with cards, a remembrance book, video footage of a very kind midwife taking hand & footprints, big pink bows from the armfuls of flowers we received, a blanket she was wrapped in, a little outfit she was dressed in, a lock of her hair, photos of her, photos of the flowers, the hebrew prayer our Jewish midwife read out at the funeral, some words Mark & I each wrote which were read for us at the funeral because we could not speak... We had hundreds of cards and emails, I printed all the emails out, some folk went on to send cards or emails on the anniversary for a few years after. We called her Kim Annie Violet, the middle names were my paternal grandmother's names, I never knew her.

As a way of letting people know that I was 'ok', my email sig for some time after read "The body is well, the mind is managing, and the love of Mark & Oliver, and of Kim's healing gift are keeping the heart from breaking." (The 'healing gift ' part is a long story and has to do with recovering from a traumatic experience in a rather unique way: www.homebirth.org.uk/nickykim.htm & www.homebirth.org.uk/nickyjodie.htm)

A special friend who suffered a similar loss more recently just gave me a special box for Kim's keepsakes. So the box I made isn't crammed any more.

95/365 Déjà vu? Non!

Déjà vu is a French phrase meaning "already seen", and it refers to the experience of feeling sure that one has witnessed or experienced a new situation previously. Today we were getting everything ready for Jodie's postponed birthday party as she had been poorly leading up to her birthday last month. So despite attempting to bake (I take better pictures than I bake cakes!) I went and bought a larger version of the cake you saw in 82/365, decorated it with a unicorn again and swapped the candles for these I bought for the occasion. Are they winged unicorns, or horned pegasus? Most depictions of pegasus do not have horns, I'll go for winged unicorns. Either way, we have 8 little darlings coming tomorrow for a party! Can't wait ;0)