United on the water

Just as they embark on a winter's training session on the water, Lewis and Greg prepare to do business...

The twits

Tonight we had a sing-song session between Greg, Mirandsa and myself which was fun (almost) followed by Mip reading me The Twits by Roald Dahl. She commented on the similarities with certain family members, .... you know who you are!!

Chef of the Day

Dinner on the weekend with Lewis on the spoons. He made courgette fitters with rice salad, very tasty and well presented too Tiger...

Gappy, Yappy and Happy!

I turned my back for a few moments and I could hear her screeching in delight. One of her school friends, Sunny had come walking along with his parents, and they were playing football like wild things.

I'll have a few more days like this please, it's been quite pleasant out on my bike this morning and this afternoon on the beach with the kids.

Team tiger

Lewis had asked me if I would take some photos of him and Greg for his Facebook sailing page when we were at the Sailing Club earlier, and sensing she was missing out Miranda made herself available. Now had I asked her to join in she would have run a mile. But that's life ain't it.

The wind has been very strong today despite quite a mild forecast - windguru was predicting 10-12 knots, and I would say it was 25+

The boys had a great sail and me and Popsie built sandcastles and took photos of the boys from the shoreline.

Team talk

Lewis giving Greg some induction on his new rigging on the boat...

Earlier in the day

Lets get ready to rumble

Two photos of the boys as they head down the slipway make a nice montage.

A bit doggy

After discovering that I had posted her photo of me on the blog she said she wanted to do another portrait of me, so this is one of them.

Dance - a short film for Miranda

And this Miranda is what it's all about, day after day...

Calshot

Sunday afternoon romp on the beach at Calshot

Miranda's Muse

Now you sit there Daddy and I'll take a photo of you with the love heart cushion...

Camping chill

This is one I found tucked away in need of a second look. Greg, taken when we were camping in Somerset in the summer, and looking all suntanned and relaxed.

Hand on the Wheel

Lewis helming us out of Cherbourg in the half light. Another in my short series of recently refound gems to brighten a dark patch of winter.

Ray of Light

She's kinda like Alice in Wonderland, which bit I am not sure.

Bournemouth

One from the weekend when we walked from Sandbanks down to Bournemouth with a mini sandstorm blowing us all the way. We stopped for a nice cream tea at the Russell Coates Museum before attempting the return leg, which was slightly a slightly more challenging task. Envigorating, that's for sure...

Nice Greek supper at Romanzo in Westbourne. A proper old fashioned greek gaff, with excellent customer service. Mama's been running the show for some 20 years we read in the reviews, and she was a bit hit with the kids.

Miranda has been reading The Three Musketeers ( a little side project to keep her fencing firmly in practice) and was able to tell me the all the names of the characters, who's interests they represented, and what the outcome of the story was. Not bad considering the story is mainly French detail. I was so chuffed I gave her extra playtime.

Voyeur

The general idea is to cull some of the images within my database, but I am always distracted by finding images that I can use, and why not make use of them! This was Lewis onboard the cat en route to Guernsey, as he observed a sailing boat part way across the channel. Our return by contrast was in very heavy fog, so bad we had to abort the crossing...

Had another email from Gran earlier, she's been trawling the internet again ...

Rock the boat baby

I take so many photos on occasion that I forget to go back and use the resources I have prepared. Here's an example of a picture which has lots of merit, all three of them playing happily together and yet I managed to miss it.

They were in high spirits and we were about to have dinner at the pub in Exford, and they were beating the swing so hard it was shaking itself from the ground. 

Reading

This is what Greg spends a lot of time doing, deep in thought. I may get a sideways look disdainfully, I may not even register in his consciousness!

Just like that

Greg and Miranda practicing some magic tricks before bedtime

Lego Time

A long time ago I used to do a lot of Lego shots, as well as photos of the kids eating dinner... Things that were fairly ready opportunities.

Miranda has been getting into Lego, and so tonight we managed to squeeze in an hour or so of Lego Happy Families, which involves her many imaginary friends.

Then Greg turned up to join in the fun.

Last Sunday when we were at calshot we looked at a very sexy catamaran and made all sorts of suppositions about it,s provenance. Well this week we met the owners and designers of the boat. Luke and Jack have been developing this boat for the past five years and are hoping to break the Round the Island record which Ben Ainsley broke last year at around 2 hrs 10 mins.

Turns out that Tom Phipps has been involved in helping them and they also know Bastian tentij of team hydros who was so nice to my boys when we met at Restronguet in the summer.

Come on team cobalt!

Sitting by the fire

I'm siitting by the fire and I can't be bithered to go and look for a photo from earlier so I am improvising with a gem that I just found on the iPad of Gregory. Been out on my bike earlier with Lewis around the forest, unbelievably wet coming across Beaulieu Heath there was standing water 8 a 12 ins deep all over. It had been a nice ride although the wind was very strong and we were both a bit drained.

Then the heavens opened and the wind built up to fury force. So strong that I was nearly blown off several times. Then just as we got back towards dibden the sun came out again.

The roof is leaking, fence panels are laying on the floor, but who cares?

I am listening to Doctor John and Voodoo Queen, I could use a little magic...