Badly drawn man

It's been a grey and uneventful day, by and large. Although I did have a nice quiet bike ride this morning, the weather has been rather bland and wet in places.

Lewis got a Haynes manual for the Passatt from the library this morning and told me he was planning doing stuff with the car - not sure I want to encourage him on this one, however keen I may be on seeing him build the engine of the future.

I found an interesting prototype of future energy generation whilst I was down at Calshot this morning - some kids are building a mobile turbine which floats in the sea. Must see if I can put Lewis in touch....

Biscuit barrel

Another close up shot of the cutting edge within the Brown Clan household. Greg having been caught with his fingers in the cookie jar.... Does he look guilty?

And if you see a shark...

.....hide!

Miranda reading her books, and this one is always a favourite.

Summer's here

Self portrait whilst eating dinner in the garden, if only I'd managed to get Lewis serenading me with the guitar, it would have been the picture of perfection!

I'm listening to Charlie Haden and Pat Metheny playing 'Beneath a Misouri Sky' instead - a fantastic piece of music. Dismayed tonight to hear about the death of Esbjorn Svensson, who has died aged 44 - one of the most inventive pianists of our time.

Big Shot!

Here's a picture of one of the extended clan; Francis Burke - my nephew, and cousin to our kids. Here brandishing his new cricket bat, which we trust he's going to put to good use over the summer!

Late starter...

After a late night Greg can snooze well into morning. After a few years of being plagued by the dawn rises we now able to outsleep them on occasion!

Yesterday's canoeing session at dusk followed by late dinner meant Greg was exhausted, and even I had a nap this afternoon...

Tonight we watched the QE2 going ut for one of it's last voyages, before she heads for Dubai. What an elegant boat she was by contrast to the modern day 'container ship' cruise liners.

Another busy day, Greg stayed up with Lewis to have dinner with us as we'd been kayaking, and didn't get back until late. He even ate salad with his tortilla espanole, so not sure if he was feeling alright...

There was no one left on the beach but us tonight, as we watched three cruise liners going out to sea - The Queen Mary 2, Independence of the Seas and Sea Princess. The wind was very strong, and the wave were breaking over the deck. Greg as always was hooting away in excitement, but he started to get a bit cold before too long!

Action Man

I only just managed to get down to the playing field in time to see Greg in the dying minutes of the game, but he was there, giving it his all!

Unfortunately they lost 3-0 but he came back beaming from ear to ear, and told me all about the exciting thing that had happened during the course of the day.

Captain Pugwash

Even though I often miss Greg going to bed these days, you can be sure that he'll appear at the top of the stairs to see me when I get in. That cheeky little face smirking from behind the covers as soon as I get up the stairs to give him a cuddle.

"Have guess what I've been doing today.....?"

Sad news...

We had some very sad news earlier about Barry and Janis's dog Bentley. He's a lovely creature that we've had lots of fun with over the years, ...the number of times we've just stood there throwing the ball for him. But now he's gone.

So tonight we're thinking of all the magic that you miss when someone you love crosses to the other side.

Bye Bye Bentley....

When we're out on the water I usually have a close eye on Lewis to see where he has disappeared off to, but you can be sure that now he has his freedom he likes to assert his independence. Particularly when I have Mippy or Greg in the boat with me it's even easier to forget to tack his moves, but in a busy sea it's perfectly possible to turn around and be unable to spot him

I can't believe that he's gone from being in the front of my boat to out on his own in a frew few weeks really. So here he is, looking like he's been doing it for most of his life already.

Even Sunnier Sunday

Today has been so hot that when we sat down for our picnic at lunchtime and slapped on the suntan cream, you could actually feel your skin roast...!

We've had another 'full on' day with a bike ride down to the Marina this morning, followed by lunch and a whole afternoon on the water at Calshot in the kayaks.

We had fun exploring all the leads in the saltgrass, bird watching and getting stuck in the mud. We also found a superb isand with an extraordinary covering of perfectly formed shells. This was fantastic to see, contrasting with the shell beach by our house which is trampled by people who walk over it.

Highlight of our lunch was the chargrilled aubergine with houmous, which Greg refused to eat last night. It was delicious matey, and I'm delighted you turned your nose up!

Sunny Saturday

We've had a cracking day again today, the wether as good as last weekend. I had a jolly good bike ride out over the forest towards Beaulieau and Brockenhurst, before heading over to Rhinefield and Bolderwood. I came back through Millyford Bridge and Swan Green, with a little detour into Denny Wood.

This afternoon Greg, Miranda and I took Domino the Donkey out for a walk which he seemed to enjoy, so we must do that a bit more often. He's been a bit grumpy and stubborn of late so we've not been making the effort so much recently.

Tonight we had a barbeque, so were all cream crackered now. TFB....

Big girl's bed

Miranda's enormously pleased to be in the big bed. She's been climbing out of the cot and settling herself in it a few times, so it seemed right to try her all night...

She was so excited telling me all sorts of stories at bedtime, about her day and where she'd been - it was hard at first not to mistake her for Greg, who normally likes to tell me what he's been up to.

When Lewis was going upstairs to bed we checked on Miranda, and she was fast asleep on the floor!

Stage 1

Lewis has his Stage 1 music exam tomorrow so he's been practicing his tunes, although he'd rather just make up his own music.

I must try to get some photos of Greg playing Lewis' other guitar as he's been getting some music lessons from Lewis of late....

Drawing Car-azy!

When I got in this evening there was a lovely picture waiting for me from Lewis. A picture of a classic Lancia Fulvia in rally mode, to go with the convoy of Ford Escorts that we saw on our way down to Weymouth on the weekend. Like the Mexicos and RS2000s with fabulous wide wheels, the Fulvia ticks all the right boxes.

I was thinking that I might colour in his drawing and load it on the blog, but it won't be tonight...

This picture from a few nights ago when I caught him drawing a 'Bernard-Manning-Mobile' - the epitome of bad taste and political incorrectness ... a rude Rolls Royce!

Sad to hear tonight that Bo Didley has died, about a year after suffering from a stroke. Lewis cheered me up with a few renditions of Roadrunner tonight, as a tribute...

Submerged

And today it's a great pity that we didn't have an underwater camera as we've been paddling around Fleet Lagoon, and it would have been great to record some of the sealife. We've seen oyster as big as the palm of your hand, and little shell bound creatures with crab like bodies visible outside from the shell scurrying along! Wormy things, fishy things and loads of beautiful seaweeds. We've seen all manner of bird life too including terns diving into the water for fish and cormorants sunning themselves on the pontoon...

Lewis and Greg have both been out in their new boat, and even Miranda's been on the water too. The Sparc has a very lively character and I was a bit worried that Lewis would be defeated by it's twitchiness compared to my boat which is more of a sea kayak than a white water boat. By the end of the day he's pretty much got the boat under control, and it's going where he wants.

Greg needs a fair bit more paddling me around first before he's fit to go on his own, but there's no faulting his determination. Today I've had him on his own with a long bit of string tied on for safety. And I've also had Mippy having a go at paddling me around today too! So look out Greg...

Man overboard

I'm going to need to get an underwater camera to record our aquatic adventures, as there's a limit to the number of drawings of our car I'm going to post!

The tide was up fairly early today so we were on the beach bright and breezy, as it was a glorious morning. Today we've been doing capsizing routines and Lewis has been getting used to the new boat. It was an almost perfect morning, by contrast to last Saturday.

We've also had a nice bike ride out onto the forest this afternoon, all polished off with a barbeque in the garden. Action packed or what?

Portrait of the artist

An ever rarer portrait tonight, because no one else seems to take up the challenge of photographing me.... I can't think why not, I'm such an agreeable subject.

Anyhow image copyright for the third night on the trot lies with Mr Dorrien Honky!

The Fly

A very 'Martin Parr' view of our breakfast table, which shows me weakly dispensing Honey Loops, albeit over Weetabix!

I don't have too many images of me, let alone me doing some chores, ...so as CJH would say - it makes a nice change!

The clan

Not often you get one of the whole clan, but this arrived in the email earlier today from Dorrien. It was raining then and it's raining now, which is quite unusual for us in the sunny South.

Behind us is the Sunderland Hanger at Calshot where the flying boats were based, and Calshot Castle... a stone's throw from the beach, and our current favourite kayaking location.

My musical recommendation for the day.....

Lawnmower Woman

Taken on the weekend at Steve and Estella's house where we went for a barbeque, this is my longtime photo chum Alan being put through his paces by Miranda, as she raced her lawnmower towards the finish line!

Riding on the crest

The weather's been pretty foul again today, and when we awoke this morning, there was a fair bit of appetite for kayaking.... Only problem was the rain lashing down outside and (having checked on the internet) the severe weather warning....

I managed to persuade the boys to do some drawing instead, so we have this delightful interpretation of the THULE catalogue by Gregory to keep us entertained.

We did on reflection have a nice bike ride his afternoon around the village, and up to Applemore and back via the new £300k Hythe and Holbury cycleway (hard to believe they could spend quite so much money on resurfacing a section of pavement, and still take 6 months to not to finish the work... but there we go)

The paddling will have to wait. One day, soon....!

Salty

Just rubbed my eyes and remembered that I'd not loaded anything for the blog. I have got a nice picture that Lewis gave me earlier so I may load this later...we'll see. Today has been interesting in a few ways. The year starting afresh, and the weather improving we thought it was time to get a second kayak, so this afternoon we headed for Calshot to trial our new found freedom.

I thought it looked a little ominous when we arrived and despite a glorious sunny afternon, there were about 50 surfers all sitting on the beach, with barely one on the water... there was surf even on the lagoon!

Anyhow the kids were rearing to go, and we had a new boat to launch. I pushed Lewis off in his new Perception Sparc, and before I could get into my boat the look on his face said it all.... He was terrified, the water spinning him arround and driving him onto the rocks....

I put him in our boat and took the Sparc myself, but by this time he'd lost all confidence. The waves were bad but the wind was driving spray over him and it was near imposible to make a line out from where we were launched, and the North Easterly winds, quite unforgiving.

I took the kayaks futher out into the lee of the bay and we started again but after Lewis watched me capsize, he finally gave way and said he was beaten.

So our maiden voyage will have to wait for another day, and wait it will. We now also have a great book detailing sea voyages around the South West Cost by Mark Rainsley called "South West Sea Kayaking" - it's fantastic, and has just been published - buy it now before it's too late.

I'm really proud of the boys who have saved up £200 towards their Kayak - Thanks to everyone who contributed birthday and Christmas money towards their canoe fund, it's heped them to be really focussed on getting soemething they wanted.

So what's news then Greg?

I've been to football practice, but we lost Dad. But if we'd had that other boy from last week, we would have won!

What was the score Greg? .....Three nil...

Greg was a little deflated tonight, but he has indefatigable spirit.... "It doesn't matter if you don't win", he told me, "so long as you have fun."

That's my boy!

Din dins

Moments before tucking in, the crew assemble for a grubshot. Eating is one thing we don't have too much hassle getting our kids to do.

Something of a contrast to the mother and two children I sat next to in Knightsbridge earlier in the day. Both kids had an expensive plateful of food which they barely picked at the wrappings of, mother busy talking on mobile phone watched them without a single word of encouragement. They left not even mentioning the waste....

My blondy

One of the joys of having a computer used to be regular receipt of spam. I have pretty much conquered this in recent times, but of late I have been receiving one generic message referring to Blondy, and of course I get quite excited about a message concerning Miranda!!

Against the blue sky she's enough to brighten you dreariest days....

In the back of the net!

When the boys have a kick around it doesn't take long for it to turn to goal scoring, rather than civilised passing back and fore. Why kids prefer booting the ball, and then having to scrabble underneath cars and chase after the ball to retrieve it, I shall never know!

Miranda is just starting to show a bit of interest in football now, but beacause she's been so slow to catch on, the boys haven't really got a great deal of time for her when they are playing. Maybe it's because she keeps abandoning her baby and pushchair on the pitch....!

Siblings

As it's just come over by email from my sister, here's another one of the four of us from last weekend.

This weekend we've been paddling in the Kayak down at Calshot, and now we're a little sunkissed and exhausted into the bargain. We also had our first barbeque lunch of the year, as it was fab when we got back from the beach.

Boxster

Gregory is to Lewis, what push bikes are to Porsche...

My matching pair of portraits of the boys from this week, are both great representations of their unique charm. Lewis can't help being serious, whereas Greg can't even manage a straight face when he's trying to bluff you in a card trick.

Today Greg wanted to give Lewis some money that he'd found, because he thought he deserved to buy himself a new toy. I had a right old time, trying to convince him to put the money in the canoe fund instead, but common sense prevailed...!

Footballer Fabio

Greg's been to football practice tonight and although his team lost, came home exhausted and exhilarated. Although this one was not taken tonight, he's by far the easiest to capture in a portrait. It does help if are handsome obviously, but attitude is all!

Tomorrow I'll put up the 'contrasting' Lewis portrait which makes these two Jeckyll and Hyde characters.

What a difference a day makes

The day began with darkness and rain, and for most of the day it's been miserable, so I thought I'd load a picture from last night when it could not have been more different...

Lewis likes standing on his stage, and the sounds of music played outdoors also appeals to me. The garden is looking great at the moment... well actually it's still raining and it's gone dark - so I'm talking tosh really!

If you liked the link last night to the 'other' Brown Clan photo, then you should also look at the photo that started it all, way back; ...also on my brother Chris' blog

Three little piggies

It's been a great day here today, and I managed to get some photos taken of the kids in the garden before it was bathtime. Lewis even managed to take some of me eating my first 'al fresco' supper of the year, but sadly they were all blurred! He's usually quite good at this sort of thing but tonight's effort was not his finest moment.

I've been trying lately to get a few more images with all three in, but arranged images never do it for me. However if you are interested in he Brown Clan then you really must see one of the finest picture of 'us kids' on my brother's blog tonight

Funky stuff 2

Juliet trying to remember if she could still do all those John Travolta dancefloor moves, whilst the rest of us attempt to keep our composure!

(Old bird) strutting her funky stuff

Just got back from a long weekend "up N'oth" celebrating my sister Juliet's 50th birthday.... Pleased to report that the old bird can still work herself around the dance floor, and yes I could still remember a few of the tunes....

This is Miranda, who not old danced the night away, (and made an old man very happy) but was still up at 2AM when we all went to bed

I'm less keen to report that she was also up at 6.30 the following morning ready to start all over again....

Read to your bunny often

Sad to read in the paper today that 6% of all kids still leave primary school unable to read or write. That's more than one in every twenty, takes some believing really.

It's all so easy really, just show them the way to go, and before you know it you can't stop their thirst for knowledge.

"Did you know Dad....."

Down on the Beach...

This image is completely out of synch, but I found this last week searching for a landscape picture of the same location - Kilve in Somerset.

I don't think we had Miranda at this point, but in any case it is Lewis and Greg, being escorted across the rocks by Gran and Grandan during a weekend break we had organised in the Quantocks. The black and white conversion really creates the focus in the image - which could easily become one of my favourites.

Princess Fifipants

This is one of Miranda's incentives for producing "type 2" results on the lavatory - her Fifi stamp chart, which she loves updating.

God only knows who Fifi is, but bedtime is unimaginable for Miranda unless Fifi is tucked in alongside Noddy (and one or two thers) right beside her...

There was three in the bed

I had to get home early tonight as Caroline had a school governer's meeting, and for a change I had time to take a few photos while it was still light. Lewis had been in the bath, but when he heard the little ones squarking he came looking for the source of the mischief....

How does my hair look?

Even on Bank Holiday Monday, we are saved the worst of the tourist invasions - that's one of the great things about our slice of the Forest. Calshot this morning was spectacular, and the beach was deserted, save for a few bedraggled locals walking their grandchildren, and us! The light is nearly always fantastic, and this morning was no exception. To be fair it was raining when we left home, but those few miles makes all the difference.

This afternoon we had a stroll at Ran's Wood, which was equally deserted and packed with life. We watched some baby deer for a while and listened to the cuckoo singing away. The kids played in a timber teepee for ages, never happier than when grubbing around, making believe.

Run that by me one more time

The lingering smell of vomit in the air after a few days of unsettled stomachs in the household. Tonight it's been Greg's turn again to be sick again, although everyone's had a go - more or less. It's been slightly odd in that they appear completely normal until it all goes badly wrong, so you suspect that it's just drama - but then the drama unfolds!

Otherwise it's been a nice day here with great weather, so it being Sunday we have been out on our bikes and up and down the Beaulieu River in the Kayak. There was a strong Easterly wind and the waves were breaking over the deck. Lewis is now very confident with the boat on his own, and he disappears at every opportunity up the creek, with his paddle. I watched him today deliberately getting stuck, pushing it as far as he could just to test the limits....

I'd rather be...

Thanks to Alan Bowman for this photo of me blazing the trail... it's how I see myself in my mind's eye. Foot loose and fancy free, hammering into the sunset - and is this such an unreal aspiration?

Daddy can I tell you a story?

At bedtime Greg was not ready to sleep, and after telling me about things at school, he sensed I was ready to make a move downstairs, and asked me if he could tell me a story.

So he told me all about Mr Squirrel who used his acrobatic tricks to get some food for his family.... It was a lovely story, and I'm looking forward to the next chapter....

Sit still Dolly

Dolly patiently putting up with Miranda as she arranges the whole clan into the high chair. It'll be time for lunch next....

Me too, me too.....

Well here I am again and have included a sample of mippys art work, not being a girl to be left out of anything. You can see the influence of school already as as soon as she was finished she brought it to me and asked me to put her name on the back. Been down to walk Domino and say hello to the pesky baby goats, Miranda is getting better with their bouncy ways despite Daisy having a nibble of Lewis' abundant hair - is she dropping a hint its time for the scissors. Jon will probably be back tomorrow with fantastic pictures of his trip to Exmoor, I might have to start my own blog!

While the cats away...................

The old mans away having a shin-dig with his photo pals so I thought I might have a go at this blog stuff. As per usual he makes out it's difficult, but if I can look after three children cook dinner and manage to pour myself a glass of wine, blogging is child's play.
I chose this picture of Mippy as it just about sums her up today.... "Yes Madam. What is your next wish???"
If I make it through tomorrow I may attempt it again.

That's all folks............

Fifi Pants

This one means more to us than anyone else I guess, as it's Mippy pulling her spare pants out of the emergency bag. Those with Fifi printed on the front always get a warm welcome from Madamoiselle!

She looks particularly mad in this picture with her baseball hat on....

Sit still!

Now if I asked them to look at the camera and say cheese they'd know I was joking, and misbehave wildly I should imagine!

However I found this one in Gran's photos that she sent me, so I thought it should go up on the blog. Caroline is not frowning or sneering, so I guess that confirms it must be personal....!

Studious

The boys are back to school today after the Easter break, so I bet they will be exhausted! I gave Lewis some english grammar exercises to do as I was heading off this morning, and you should have seen his face - work, what's that?

Brotherly love...

Lewis and Greg can be fiercely competitive, to the point when it becomes rather irritating. But with Miranda he has endless patience in looking after her, and making sure she's happy. This was as he explained how dangerous it would be to go too close to the edge, and maybe fall over...

Just take a look at Mippy's expression - determination or what?