Duplication of work

Haven't looked at the blog for a week, so I only saw the school photos now (after being bored and scanning them in myself).

So here they are a bit bigger so you can save them and go and have the photo developers print you a nice photo...

The group photos were taken last year.

Painting

I bought some water soluble oil paints last weekend. I've been looking at them for a while now and wondering if they'd be any good.  I didn't buy expensive ones, a right cheap set by Reeves with very small tubes.  Amazingly, though, you don't need a lot of paint to get quite nice results - they are very easy to use, can be watered down (like using acrylics), but they have the consistency of oil paint and the colours remain true as they are drying. I'm quite taken with this type of paint! I did this one at the beginning of this week and I think I will leave it alone now.  I wasn't going for a realsim look, so if I do anymore fiddling with the foreground, I'm going to get stuck trying to make it look like a photo and it will lose its 'soul' - so anyway, it just randomly developed by itself, no plan at all.

Recent school photos

As promised, here are scans of the recent school photos we got for Ewan and Faye, sorry our scanner is retarded and a major pain in the butt.  The pdf images are large but I have to convert them to Jpeg to save to this ere blog, so sorry that they are not very big to view.  I also can't find the large portrait version of Faye's picture (where she's sitting with her arms in front, like Ewan's below).   Anyway, I'm sure Hayzel will bring a set of these originals with us in February for Granny.

Click on images to see slightly larger view

Daniel and the Red Shoes

Seriously, what a cutesy pie he is!

Winter on its way.

It's starting to get colder now that we are half way through November.   This week has been on the chilly side, with rain that has occasionally gone to sleet.  It's rather icey taking and collecting the kids at the moment but we all wrap up like roly-poly sausages and most of the time it's not too bad.    

Ewan is going to be a sheep in his school Christmas play - which is on the 3rd December.  I managed to borrow a costume from one of the other mum's and it fits him fine.  Hayzel has organised a day off, so it will be nice for her to see him and they have organised a proper stage for the concert in the small hall at the school, so I'm sure it will be very cute.   Ewan's been practising songs and most days comes home singing another one he learnt.   He can now write his first name quite easily and he is recognising quite a few letters and words. 

Faye is going to be an Angel in her Christmas play, not sure when hers is.   She has now been to Brownies twice - she goes on Wednesday evenings from quarter to six until quarter past 7.   It's dark when we go to Brownies, I walk with her and Ewan down the road to the Congregational Church, which is on the main road going through Long Stratton  - the Brownie and Guiding hall is behind this Church.  It's about four blocks (South African wise) to the Brownies, so not far at all but of course when you have a four year old who wants to look at the Moon and the stars, it can take up to fifteen minutes!   It's going to be fun once the snow gets here, which I don't think is going to be very long.  It will be so cool if we have a white Christmas!

The Cherry Lane garden centre at Pulham Market, down the road from us, have put up lights outside the centre, there is a huge Christmas tree that you can see from the road.  Hayzel and I will go there with the kids maybe on Saturday evening and take some photos.

Not much else to report, Ewan has a bit of a cough and Faye also has a slight bout of tonsilitis - par for the course when kids are at school, there's always someone in the class who's coughing all over the place. There's no point going to the doctors though, because they don't do over-medication here!  I've still got my sore throat - I've been on anti-hystamines now for two weeks, plus nasal spray, it doesn't seem to be doing much as far as I can see.  Anyway the doc said that it would take 6 weeks to clear up, so I suppose I should just be patient.

We received both kids school photos this week - they are awesome. I will scan them tomorrow and put the pictures up here on the blog.  

A little video for Granny, Grandpa and Oma ...

Thank you for the lovely long letter, Granny - Faye will be writing you all a letter and Christmas card soon. I would like to get everything posted to South Africa before the beginning of December.  

Owls, the Llanfair Singers and Laila

My Auntie Jean sent me a cd today of the Carol music that she had recorded with the Llanfair Singers at the Church of St. Cuthbert in Clungunford, Shropshire a few months ago.  The site of this church dates back to Saxon times and the current building is over 600 years old.    

Jean was not very well on the day of the recording, she had a terrible sore throat and chest cold and you can hear it in her voice.  This doesn't detract, though, from the work that she did and in fact just adds to the charm.   The cd is really lovely and well recorded, some of the Carols - like Jingle Bells and Ding, Dong, Merrily on High, as well as Have yourself a Merry little Christmas are recorded in the traditional version but there are other Carols on the cd that are done in an entirely different style and some are really beautiful - so of course, I had a little weep because I know my mum would have loved to hear it ... well maybe she did through me, hey? The Llanfair Singers are going to be singing in St. Paul's Cathedral. London in 2015, which is no mean achievement!  

I've only extracted a piece from the song that Jean sang solo on - 'The Lord at first had Adam made'

I took most of the pictures from the cd liner notes and also grabbed some off ye Olde Interweb.  In most of these pictures, Jean is at the front. 

Jean also sent a lovely Owl mobile for Ewan and an enamel and gold Owl necklace for Faye ...  the little video I did is too big for Blogger to handle, so here's the YouTube linkie

Lucky kids, hey?

Hayzel and Kevin took the kids out this morning to get stuff for Laila, so that Hayzel could give her a bit of a 'groom' - i .e. bath, blow dry, hair trim, bum shave, hair tied up all pwitty.  Of course, Faye had to get her a pretty pink ballerina tutu with a velvet/glittery bodice. So now Laila is the belle of the ball ... and she knows it.

Happy birthday, Toni!

Hope you have a lovely day today, Toni and get spoiled rotten!   Lots of love from all of us here at Spider's Web
xxx

It's 'Children in Need' day today, where the schools try and raise money for this worthy cause.  So Ewan's school had a 'come to school in your pj's' day and Faye's school had a 'come to school in a spotty Pudsy type outfit'  Pudsy Bear is the CiN mascot.  I didn't get around to taking a photo of Faye this morning but here's the Spidey ...

All kitted out in fleecy Spidey PJ's and matching socks

Ewan's teacher, Miss Stanley-Jones, wore a multi-coloured polka dot Onesy with polka dot slippers, Ewan nearly wet himself with glee when he saw her!  

All the places are now getting geared up for Christmas, I believe the Chapelfield Mall have already had their 'switching on' ceremony and Norwich itself does this on the 21st November - don't know if we'll make it because it's on a Thursday (X-box night) :(  I understand from all the mum's at Ewan's school that it's quite an event. 

There are Christmas Fayres and Fetes on all the time - in some cases more than two on the same day!  Ewan's class can stay behind on the 3rd December for an hour to make things for their Fayre, which is on the 7th December and I've been told by one of the mum's that this is a lovely little Fayre with many nice things to buy at good prices.  So we'll see about that.

The 3rd December, 0930am, is when Ewan does his Christmas concert and luckily Hayzel has managed to get the day off, so that will be so cool her being able to see it!   Ewan has to get dressed up as a sheep, he wanted to be a pirate but 'Miss Stanley Jones said we can't be poiretts Nana'. 

Many of the houses around our area are starting to get decorations up in time for Christmas and this year I'm going to try and take some photos of the more spectacular houses in our area.   

Happy Birthday!

Double whammy ...

Happy Birthday David and Allyson.   We hope you have a lovely day and that your gifts arrive on time! :)
We will miss you both like crazy and looking forward to chatting to you tonight on Skype.   Have a really great day with lots of lovely birthday surprises.

Loads and Loads of Love from all of us here at Spider's Web but especially from your Mum.

More trees, fungus and little birdies

Faye had a day off school today - it's parent's evening tonight.   Ewan's was last night and by all accounts he's doing really well.  His teacher, Miss Stanley-Jones (who only looks about 20 and is the cutest thing on two short legs), says he's a very kind little boy, who's always helping other children.  He's doing well with his reading and writing development, has an active imagination and often involves other kiddies in his games.  He's a 'cheeky' and by that she meant that he'll go to the fruit table, take a bite out of an apple and put it back bite side down, so no-one can see he's had a go at it!  ... har har. All in all a glowing report! 

The weather was reasonable today, although the bright sunshine was hiding away behind misty tendrils of clouds. Anyway, it was good enough for Faye and I, so we packed up some crisps and cold drink, welly boots, warm clothes and headed off for Tyrrels Wood again.    Here are some of the photos  (as always click on the image to get the larger view):

He sat so patient whilst I focused the shot on him, then flittered away - what a lovely little Robin.

Faye told me to take a shot of her next to the big mushrooms, 'so that people can see the size of them Nana'.

Old base of a fallen tree, looks like a birds' wing, I thought.

Bark texture (which I need for my next art project)

Faye is becoming a dab hand at spotting all sorts of different types of fungi!

She's using the binoculars that Uncle Les gave her!

More orange fungus/spores that we had to stop and take a picture of

Spot the face on the side of this tree!

We again saw four squirrels and I came 'this close' to getting a photo of one, until a pair of Spaniels came crashing through the undergrowth, followed by the master.  Squirrels hot-footed it up the tree, super fast.

More spookiness

Ewan was almost bouncing off the wall by the time his daddy came home from work.  He tried on a different outfit every ten minutes throughout the day and was almost losing his mind wondering what he could wear for Halloween.  

The kids had a great time - considering nobody in our family knew where we were supposed to go to Trick or Treat and that we live in a small village (not an enclosed security guarded complex), so it can be dodgy.   We think the kiddies did quite well with their sweetie collecting.  One chap said that Ewan's costume was brilliant (or words to that effect).  I didn't go with, as somebody had to stay at home and man the sweets in case we also had Trick or Treaters come around (well, we only had three groups of kiddies come) - we didn't want our house to get 'egged' which is quite a big thing over here!!   

Princess and Pumpkin dog

Scary Ghost slash ET

And off they go

Later, with their swag.