To the park

Beth loves the park, still! I blame myself, by the time she came along I had put in 20 years of parenting. Don't get me wrong she was very much wanted but on the playground front I was burnt out, so she missed out a bit when she was younger.

But it's not too bad doing the park scene with a child this age, apart from a very short session of pushing a swing and the obligatory continual looking at the clever things she is doing (which never quite work when I am watching) I am more or less allowed to entertain myself.

Here I am well wrapped up and reading Eat That Frog a book that tells you how to stop procrastinating and achieve your goal. I can always hope!

I also get a little bit of exercise on our trusty tandem, which can't be bad.

And the views from Beth's favourite play park are stunning.

And on the way home we indulged in some leaf play for photographic purposes.



I can't remember what I bribed Beth with but I definately had to bribe her. She very scathingly accused me of treating her like a toddler although claiming that she would not have wanted to do this at any time in her life. I had fun though.

A much better examples of this can be seen here on

flickr

Asbestos in the floor

We have been having a lovely mild and prolonged autumn but we had the first severe frost of the season in Loughborough today so I was very glad that I didn't have to be anywhere early. I wasn't too happy though that it was because the older two were ill and still in bed so didn't need a lift to school.

My eldest daughter Jo and her husband Nick are in Australia on an extended honeymoon and the day they were due to go the ceiling of their kitchen collapsed under the weight of boiling hot water spurting from a joint in a pipe above. This meant they had to delay leaving and also that I have been popping in every now and then to let various tradesmen in to deal with the damage. Today it was the turn of the asbestos tile removers as tiles under tiles under the ruined laminate had been found to contain asbestos. They were quick and efficient but could not remove three of the tiles as the kitchen had not been removed as it should have been.

However, when they had gone I discovered that these tiles were underneath the washing machine and could easily have been removed if they had just moved that. Maybe they had their reasons for not doing so but I can't think what they could have been. They had come all the way from Essex to Nottingham for this job and were being put up in a hotel as they had another job the next day. They were rather bemused by this as they thought it likely that people from Nottingham were working in Essex as we spoke. So much for saving the planet. As they explained it was the disposal of the tiles that was problematic will they have to come again for three tiles? This is something I should probably try and find out. But as they found it very surprising that I could have a child old enough to own their own house they can of course do no wrong.

It was absolutely freezing in Jo's house and I was very glad to get into the car, turn the heating up full blast, and head for home. However the waning light on the way home forced me to stop and try and capture the beauty of the scenery. It is a lovely drive from Nottingham to Loughborough and I have often wished I had my camera with me when making the journey and luckily this time I did, and only two young children as passengers so I could do as I wished. Older kids and husbands are often not too keen to humor my wish to interrupt journeys to take pictures.

I absolutely love the way the light was hitting the trunks of this hedge.

We had a friend of Beth's with us and they had a sleepover that night. I had to take this picture as I was so amused by the way Beth's friend was managing to sleep soundly with her knees in the air while Beth hogged the bed.