Day 2.304: Crash - and burn?

Back in August of last year I posted a video of the three kids banging out a rhythm on pots and pans in the kitchen. Looking at them now it's hard to believe it's not much more than a year ago. Anyway, on Sunday they came up with a new performance, with E5N1 taking a much more active (and mobile) role and the girls assembling some pretty impressive 'drum' kits.

Warning - it is a bit noisy, but worth every bang and crash in its 41 seconds.



It was only when I watched it back that I noticed the apparently untended pot cooking away on the stove. I'm sure it was all under control.

Day 2.303: Fork hats

You know - 'ats for forks. Well, no actually - four cats. I'm sure Ronnie Barker would be proud.

The real reason for posting this today was that I as I drove up the drive this evening, I thought our Halloween cats looked particularly attractive - and I thought we should really take them down soon.

I arrived home just in time to hear Exile #2 get to the end of the second Harry Potter book - only to be thanked by a chorus of requests for number three. I'm sure they are eventually going to get too scary to continue with at this stage, but for now they are lapping it up. Which reminds me of the real nightmare of my recovery from H1N1, but I'm happy to report that today was probably my healthiest day since last Wednesday when it all began. Now, I must get to bed before I undo all my good work by getting over-tired again.

Day 2.302: Cherry pie!

After helping me put up a shelf and then fix something with some duct tape, E5N1 was keen to go outside. I enlisted Exile #3 to supervise him and soon they were all outside involved in something together. Eventually my curiosity got the better of me and I found them working together to harvest the cherries from the tree in the front yard.

I don't think they had any real plan for the cherries at the time. We don't know if they are edible or not, but I was reasonably sure they wouldn't try. Later I found them making a mud pie. 'Cherry pie!' they corrected me - sure enough the pie was filled with the cherries they had harvested.

My cough has been worse today and combined with a hard-to-shake headache. Hopefully it was just a blip in my recovery and not anything worse - I'm ready to be back to full strength now.

Day 2.301: Raking it in

Exile #2 was out for most of the morning at a committee meeting for her MOPS group. Since the sun was shining, albeit rather coolly, I decided it was time to do another shift of leaf raking which has been somewhat delayed this year by ill-health and ill-weather. Not that we (mainly Exile #2) haven't already had a good number of leaves collected by the town leaf collectors already.

Anyway, I didn't get it all done, but by the time I was finished there was a good mound of leaves along the whole length of our front yard - including a pretty good pile at each side of the driveway. I had just taken my shoes off when we heard the collection truck approaching with its industrial vacuum cleaner/shredder (aka. the Noo-Noo) I couldn't let my efforts go unrecorded, so I rushed out to take a picture or two of the piles. Then took the opportunity to film the removal of the leaves and finally took a picture as they were leaving. They do a pretty thorough job.



This afternoon, we were at a 2nd birthday party at a neighbour's house which was really nice. The weather stayed kind, and the fairly large group of kids spent a good deal of the afternoon playing outside.

Day 2.300: Story time

I took this picture during story time yesterday evening. The girls are reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and E5N1 is sitting on my knee pressing whatever buttons he can reach and drawing on anything that doesn't move. Such are our evenings.

At lunchtime today our little group of engineers went to lunch at Latham '76 Diner, which is effectively a US-theme restaurant. The '76 is for 1776 when the USA declared its independence from British rule. These days taxation without representation is a thing of the past - except for us foreigners living on US soil that is. The menu contains a feel-good sentence or two about each president from George Washington to George W Bush who is listed as 'incumbent'. In fact, someone pointed out that the facing insert-page contains a small panel labelled 'Our New President' with a little story about Barack Obama's high-security Blackberry smart phone. The menu is extensive as is the way with this kind of diner. The decor is in keeping with the theme and the food is pretty good. Not my favourite place, but a local experience to cherish for an old colonial like me.