Busy times again - so not much time to write the blog. Sylvia is starting to think about beginning school in January. We have looked at some uniforms (all grey basically) and she gets to go up to the big school for lunch in a week or so.

We had a nice weekend. We went to Kew Gardens on Saturday (see pic above), when Sylvia revived one of her favourite games - statues (see post below). Then we went to a cafe and had tea, including Sylvia scoffing in ecstatic silence a strawberry cream sponge cake about the size of her head.

On Sunday, we met Cara and went to Richmond, which is a town so posh you think you might have to pay to get in. We had a lovely stroll along the river and lunch on a boat-cafe.

Squelchy mud

The weather in London is still weirdly warm and sunny for mid-October but we still thought we'd go for a walk in the woods today. We got the wellies on as Sylvia loves squelching through the mud - and there was some great mire to splodge into (see the video.

Sylvia also likes pretending to be a statue (see photo). I then pretend to buy the statue, pick it up and take in home. Once I've put it down in my "garden", I admire it for a bit, only for it to come to life and run off. Then, repeat until Daddy's patience wears thin.

We had lunch in the common, with mint choc chip ice cream for Sylvia and made Mr Men fairy cakes. A lovely day!

Long time, no posts

Well it's been an age - sorry about that. Once we all got back from our holidays it was head down into nursery, ballet classes and work.

Sylvia's been having a great time. She's making masks at nursery for a carnival on Friday, which is part of Black History Week. She's also been back at ballet with the brilliant Miss Kate. And there's been a few sugar-fuelled birthday parties.

Today was a bit more troublesome as she had her jabs - one in the arm and one in the leg. But the nurse said she was the "bravest little girl ever" (she doesn't say that to all the kids of course!).

This video is Sylvia's version of Irish dancing, learned purely from a single viewing of Riverdance.



Hopefully, not so long till the next time!

boating on the blackwater

Whilst at Abigail's, we took a boat trip up the Blackwater river from Youghal, with captain Tony and Pharaoh the boat dog. Sylvia was a bit sceptical about taking the wheel - surely Tony knew what he was doing - but magnanimously agreed to do so. She was also very interested in the bilge pump, though less so in the old castles, monasteries and grand house we could see on the banks. The best game was doing tug-of-war with mummy then falling back onto a big pile of soft lifejackets when mummy let go.

Lovely Lismore

Whilst with Abigail, we popped up to Lismore Castle, and just got in before closing time. There's a lovely formal garden, and also some fruit and veg. Sylvia loves looking at those, and sneaked the odd tomato and berry. She's also getting quite smart about knowing her plants (mummy's girl) - "That's a nice geranium". And she knows some of ones which smell nice if you rub your fingers on the leaves (like sage).

She smells all the flowers and says "aaaah". I can't always smell any fragrance, so I guess she either has a much better sense of smell or a good imagination.

The video below is of the run, catch and fall over game she loves.

goat island beach

This is Goat Island beach which is a 5-min walk from Abigail and John's house. It's beautiful, better than the pics show really. Quite sheltered, rocks arches, soft sand and cold, cold sea. We came here several times and spent the time building large sandcastles, which Sylvia then became the princess of! Also splashing in the sea, with Sylvia in her groovy new wetsuit, and flying red plane kite. It was just great.

princess of the castle

We stopped at Cahir castle on the way from Galway to west Waterford, where Abigail and John live. The castle is great, very old and very well restored with lots of windy little stone staircases, turrets, towers and battlements for Sylvia to explore. We went on a guided tour with the theme "the defences of Cahir castle". Which meant a run through of all the gruesome ways the inhabitants of the castle had for dispatching attackers, including boiling oil and hidden arrow slits. Ciara devised her own "star" defence as well (see pic below).

There was a well too, which was down a lot of very dark and dank steps, and Sylvia was very brave. She didn't want to leave at the end, saying "can't we do some more exploring?"

climbing at Coole

While in Galway we went down the road to the Coole estate, former home of the literary Lady Gregory, now very nice woods for walking in. We walked through the seven woods in WB Yeats's poem.

Sylvia also learned what limestone is (that's my girl) and climbed every boulder in sight (Rab would be impressed!).

cousin ally

Sorry for the lack of posts. We were all in Ireland on holiday, so I'll slap up a few posts about what we did, with some pics.

First of all we were royally hosted by Rosaleen and Jerry in Galway, and Sylvia got to know Ally a bit more. Along with Julia and some other local children, there was lots of little company for Sylvia. The crowning glory was a big party for all the kids, at which godmother Jackie starred by providing deluxe arts and crafts entertainment. And I missed it all as I was surfing at Fanore.

festival frolics

Sylvia went to the Fruitstock festival on Saturday, which is a music festival in Regent's Park thrown by Innocent, the smoothie company. She had a lot of fun listening to a steel band, some alt-country, punk classics in a bossa nova style (Nouvelle Vague) and some bangin toons from Norman Jay. But it was mummy and daddy's bedtime before Arrested Development made it to the stage.

She also bounced on a bouncy castle and played with lots of toys in the kiddy section. And bought a bit of sponge cake studded with jelly sweeties (best cake ever). Ciara ate whelks (yuk) and I had a veggie burger (yuk).

art class

It's been a busy weekend of parklife - Kew gardens yesterday and Battersea Park today. But Sylvia found time for some art. Top left is her being a princess visiting the man in the moon. Top right is Aunty Cara waving. Bottom left is Cara's boyfriend Tom doing "this" (waves arms like a surf dude). Bottom right is Daddy doing a handstand.

Sylvia is off trampolining tomorrow morning. Gotta go . . . .

Fiona's christening

Sylvia and I just spent a long weekend in Berlin at her cousin Fiona's christening. It was really nice: beautiful church, friendly minister, sunny weather and great party in the shadow of churchyard tree after.

I'll write more about the trip later, but here's a couple of photo's for now (and there's lots more here).

First walk

Here's a blast from the past. It's two videos I took of Sylvia in April 2003 just when she had just learned to walk - these were the first real walks she did. It's in Hyde Park in London and I think the slope helped her roll along. (Technical note: I had to rotate the videos - I took them sideways! - and the aspect ratio has ended up a little odd).

Ballet show

Sylvia's ballet class had an end-of-term "show" on Weds, which was more of an open lesson than a performance, but none the worse for that, as these little vids hopefully show. (By the way, there's no sound in case you were wondering - need a better camera for that!)

biker girl

Sylvia has a new, and very pink, bike. You'll see from the pics it has shiny tassels and a carry seat for dollys. It also has stabilisers which some people have said would be more use to me, given my recent run-ins with tarmac.

Anyway Sylvia really likes it, has got the hang of steering and the brakes (most of the time). So we've spent all day on Clapham Common today, cycling and playing football. The weather was warm but not hot - all in all a perfect day. Sylvia's highlight was probably her ice cream, as ever, and her favourite is currently mint choc chip.



There are more pictures of the bike and general park larking about here.

Backyard ballet

These videos are from wednesday night when sylvia was (sort of) showing me what she had been doing at ballet class that afternoon. She was a bit reluctant, so I'm not sure she was trying too hard, but still fun. Her class show is next week.

Rowing a bike

Here's a few pics from Sylvia's trip to Edinburgh, and a kind of farm/activity centre. Sylvia was very taken by the bikes that you row. There's more pics here.

Pinnywinkle

Sorry for the lack of posts - busy time at work. Anyway, time to catch up a little now.
Sylvia is off to see Aunty Teresa and Nonna in Scotland tomorrow, which she is quite excited about. She's had a busy week with nursery, ballet and playing with her new bike (pic to come).

She had a bit of a moment yesterday, when she refused to go to nursery, saying she wanted "to stay at home and watch TV all day". With the World Cup on, I can sympathise with that. All is well again now though. But she has worked out that if she shows enthusiasm for watching a match with me, then she gets to stay up late.

One other funny thing, I got a poster with the newspaper of seashells - she pointed to the periwinkle and said it's a "pinnywinkle", which is an even better name I think.

England One

We all went to Andy's house on Sunday for a barbecue and to watch the England vs Ecuador match. There's lots of photo's here.

Andy has two girls, and Johnny who was also there has a girl and a boy, with all of them between two and six, so they had fun, especially dressing up. Watching England scrape a win was not fun.

Here's a couple of little videos too (there's no sound btw). The first is Sylvia going down a slide in Andy's garden, with Andy's Rosa centre stage and Johnny's Lara doing a cameo at the end. The other is Sylvia eating pasta with sauce - something she only does with other kids.

Paddling pool

Clapham common has a really nice paddling pool, so me and sylvia went over their on Sunday. It was pretty hot and sunny when we left but had clouded over a bit by the time we arrived. It didn't start all that well as this video shows (click the arrow to play):


But she was soon up again and running around, and even fitting in the odd ballet move to the splashing: