How embarrassing……..

I was totally ashamed to realise that it had been more than 2 months since the last post – what lazy lumps we are clearly turning into!!?

OK, here is where I will attempt to fill you in on what has been happening Chez Winchurst since we last managed an update…….

Life was relatively quiet for early December (unless you were Daddy who was running himself ragged at work with too much to do and not enough time to do it!!) but then we hit the week before Xmas – we were all due to move (somewhat foolishly) on the 20th December……..Grandma and Hompy arrived in Eastleigh on the Tuesday (18th) to be on hand to be chief Tiddler minders and the Packing people arrived on time on the Wednesday. They were all finished by lunchtime and things seemed to be running very smoothly……and then the phone rang! It came to light that our house wouldn’t be ready for us to move into on the Thursday and the Builders wondered if we could call the removals people and ask them to move us in on the Friday instead???!!!! As you might imagine, I was slightly horrified – I very politely told the lady at the other end of the phone that this wouldn’t be possible as a. my Baby had chicken pox b. my entire house was packed into boxes and c. the removals people were, as far as I knew, fully booked for Friday!!!!! A few frantic phonecalls and an extremely obliging removals firm later, it was arranged that our things would be collected on the Thursday as planned, stored overnight and delivered on the friday whilst Isabel would go back with Grandma and stay overnight and Mummy, Daddy and Molly would stay in a hotel (courtesy of Wimpey homes!) before heading to the new house to supervise the delivery of our belongings!
Because the removals people were somewhat stretched on the Friday, our things didn’t actaully arrive at the new house until almost 2.30pm so by the time the chaps had left we spent 20 minutes packing a suitcase and we locked up and headed off for our Xmas trip!!!!

We had a lovely Xmas and New Year split between Devon and Upton and somehow managed to forget about the small country’s worth of boxes that was waiting for us at home!!!

The day after we arrived home, Daddy went off to work – and Isabel came down with the Chicken Pox!!!! So the New Year saw us doing our best to unpack everything and stop Isabel from scratching too much!!!
Since then, life has been samey – lots of unpacking and attempting to find a light at the end of the tunnel of boxes!!! Isabel has started at her new pre-school and absolutely loves it and Mummy is enjoying having a little bit of down time with just Molly a couple of times a week!

We are preparing to head to New Zealand at the (very) end of next month so that we can be at Paul and Rachel’s wedding and, most importantly, so that Isabel can perform her bridesmaidly duties – Mummy is beginning to have the nightmares that involve Isabel running round the church screaming with her skirt up by her ears, or whipping her nappy off mid service or even just refusing to take part at all……..rest assured we will let you know if any of those turn out to be premonitions instead of nightmares!!!!

For those that are thinking we have fallen off the face of the Earth…….

Yes, I realise that I have been very slack of late in the Updating of the goings on Chez Winchurst – I’d like to have a really good excuse, but I don’t (other than being totally rubbish!!!) so you’ll have to accept my apologies instead!!!

Life has been quite busy, one way or another, over the last month and a half – quite a lot of it was taken up with following England’s very surprising performance in that minor event that some of you may know as the Rugby World Cup……..as you can imagine, we took rather a lot of pleasure in rubbing in the misfortunes of the All Blacks to our friends on the other side of the world {Note from Dan: But not as much pleasure as we got from us beating the Aussies!! ;-)} (though they may not be our friends anymore – I’d probably better check on that one!!!!) as we continued to be amazed that our Boys had made it through another stage! Uncle Ken came to see us the weekend of the semi finals – this was due to be the last time we saw him before he upped sticks and headed to the Land of Oz but whilst celebrating the fact that England had once again made it to the World Cup Final, he and Dan realised that they were in fact each other’s lucky charms and that England had never lost a game that they watched together! Therefore, it was decided that they would continue this run of good luck and would watch the Final together the following week (regardless of the fact that Uncle Ken still had an awful lot of packing to do………..he might even have still needed to start it at that point!??) – sadly, as we all know, it wasn’t to be but it kept us out of trouble for a few weeks!!! (Even if I couldn’t watch it as the tension made me feel sick!!)

After that, us Girlies made a day trip to London in order to catch up with our Canadian relatives whom, we realised, we hadn’t seen for about 9 years and who had therefore never seen Isabel and Molly other than in photographic form!

The following weekend saw us catching up with the lovely Mr Dibens who we had last seen at the Girls christening – his was just a flying visit so we hope that we will be able to see him again soon……and that this time he might bring Mrs Dibens with him!! (though we aren’t sure if we are worthy of being in the presence of a world champion – Hurray for Mrs Dibens!!!)

At the beginning of November, Dan I went out without the Girls for the 1st time since Molly was born – a trip to see the Stereophonics in concert was the order of the day (with the lovely Matt and Shelley) {Note from Dan: that should be “Matt and the lovely Shelley” shouldn’t it?! ;-)} and made me realise that I must be getting very old………although I really enjoyed it, I spent an awful lot of time thinking that it was very loud and wondering if they could turn it down a bit!!! Clearly, it is the beginning of the downward spiral…….

Last weekend we headed to Devon to stay at Hotel Winchurst and celebrated Dan’s Birthday, all be it the day after his actual birthday!!! (though we did have cake and presents that evening and then a pub meal the next day!) We had a lovely time doing not a lot – which was also good in view of the fact that both Girls developed a stomach bug that saw us changing nappies for England!!! It was slightly scary, however, to think that the next time we are there it will be Christmas – where does the time go??!

In case you didn’t know, we have also bought a new house (well, are in the process of buying!) and are due to be moving the week before Christmas – we are very much looking forward to getting all the things we are missing at the minute………I am far too excited about having a garden in which to put a washing line for my own good and don’t even get me started on having room for the tumble dryer!!!!

A Happy Band of Travellers…….

Life has been such that we haven’t been at home much over the last month. We had our weeks’ holiday in Devon which was lovely – a static caravan on the outskirts of Dawlish was our home for the week and provided a good base for us to explore the southern part of Devon that none of us was very familiar with! We spent the week visiting places that we thought Isabel would enjoy although, with her truly embracing the challenge of being 2, pretty much anything we did was wrong! This combined with lots of walking made for a nice break – though I did feel that I might need another holiday to recover from this one!

Once we were back Daddy was off on his travels, first to Brussels overnight and then to Stoke (not quite as glamorous!!!) for the best part of the week! Mummy decided that the prospect of being on her own without any adult conversation for the week was one that she didn’t relish so thankfully, Grandpa Peepoo came on the Tuesday morning and gathered us Girls (and our mountain of “stuff” – vital essentials only of course!!!) and whisked us back to Hotel Radcliffe where Daddy came and joined us after work on Friday!

Coming home was a bit strange, given we’d been away for most of the past 2 weeks though we didn’t have to wait too long before we were off again – the next weekend we reinstated our Nomadic status and headed for London so that Daddy could go crawling round the pubs (not literally thank goodness!) with the soon to be Australia bound Uncle Ken and us Girls could have a lovely time at Aunty Catherine’s! Saturday saw us descend on Borough Market (with Aunty Nanna and (eventually) Grandpa Peepoo in tow) in the morning before heading back to Herne Hill to have a delicious BBQ at Dave and Valerie’s house – their flat backs onto an enormous garden so Isabel was in her element and happily ran round into the early evening until we very cruelly dragged her home for a splash! (though she definitely needed it by that point!) Sunday we had a leisurely lunch and long awaited catch-up with Mummy’s friend Rachel before we headed to Waterloo to meet Daddy and get on the train back to normality!

More photos

Kate has added a new gallery of photos. They are just a selection of the more recent photos Kate has taken, including some of Isabel wearing the previously mentioned swimming costume. We hope you enjoy them. As always, click the photo below to go straight to the gallery.

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Birthdays, trips away and a Chicken named Delia!

Last weekend, we FINALLY made it to Grandpa Peepoos house – you may remember that our last attempt to do this ended with us sleeping in the car (which really isn’t easy when you have 2 small people in tow!) then abandoning all hope of ever getting and arriving back home roughly 13 hours after we had left!!!

Saturday was Mummy’s birthday and she is still waiting for the Wisdom that apparently comes with age to kick in!!! We had a lovely day – in the morning, Mummy had a Dress consultation with one of her Brides-to-be so present opening was delayed until after lunch! The rest of the day was spent lounging in the garden drinking Pimms and then feasting on the luscious BBQ food that Grandpa Peepoo had whipped up……..the weekend was made especially nice due to the fact that not only was Aunty Jecca there, but Aunty Catherine came up from London for the weekend so fun and frolics was bound to ensue! Sunday saw more lounging in the garden, visits to see Daisy, Doris and Delia (the newest members of the Radcliffe household – they are Chickens in case you were wondering…….) to see if they had produced any eggs and a wander into Upton to have a nose at the Water Festival that was taking place over the weekend! On Monday, mummy had another Dress consultation (this time with a different Bride-to-be) so Isabel and Daddy went off in the car to do a bit of Geocaching whilst Molly had a snooze (it’s a hard life!!!) – sadly, their searches proved fruitless (that’s not strictly true, they did stop to eat a few wild Blackberries on the way!) but Daddy hopes to go back next time and see if we can find what we were looking for! All in all, a most productive and enjoyable weekend!

This week has proved to be pretty quiet – having mastered the fine art of sitting up and eating solid food over the weekend, Molly has spent most of the week developing a very unorthodox yet highly effective crawling technique!!! If she sees something she wants and you put it out of her reach she goes straight after it!!! A good example was her urge to get Isabels sparkly Peppa Pig stickers this morning – after removing them from her (though not very far) several times, Isabel was getting cross………Mummy made the point that she’d have to put them somewhere that Molly couldn’t reach them if she didn’t want her to have them – with that, she thought for a moment and then hurriedly stuffed them up the leg of her jeans that were on the floor…….a cunning plan if ever I saw one!!! We are expecting Molly to be truly mobile any time now – this adds the whole logistical nightmare that is stairgates into our everyday existence…….we were fortunate that when we moved here, Isabel had pretty much mastered the stairs so we didn’t need them but they will soon become a necessity!!!

We are now gearing up to go on our holidays – lots of washing and packing to be done which Isabel is bound to help with………Mummy bought her a new swimming costume on Wednesday which, once we got home, she was encouraged to try on for size – she liked it so much, and was so proud of it that she refused to take it off for the rest of the day…….lucky then that we had been and done the jobs we needed to as people may have looked at her a bit funny!!!! She is, needless to say, very excited about the impending trip and I’m sure she will talk about it and what we got up to for many weeks to come!

Injections, stickers and Wailing Banshees……

We had a lovely time the weekend before last in Devon – it was nice to get away for a few days………a change of scenery is always a welcome thing, and Isabel is always happy when she has a garden to play in and furry creatures to chase!

Last weekend we had a quiet time at home – the weather was a bit hot for Mummy’s liking, so a gentle stroll to Costa Coffee, a drool in the window of Ernest Jones (for Mummy anyway!) and the home to watch the rugby was a much as could be mustered! We had the usual upset from Isabel whilst Daddy (justifiably) shouted at the Referee during the Rugby – lots of “Isabel too scary!” meant that we had to try and explain that Daddy wasn’t cross with her and that the ref. was just rubbish but I’m not sure she was convinced! Sunday was much the same, though we swapped rugby for Cricket and Golf and generally attempted to recharge our batteries in time for Monday!

This week, Molly has been busy exercising her vocal chords and working on her crawling – she spends her days alternating between screeching, blowing raspberries and “Da da da”ing (and sometimes combines the 3!) whilst also getting up on her hands and knees and rocking backwards and forwards…….this afternoon, she got into the all fours pose and proceeded to pull herself forward a couple of inches – this was great until Mummy frightened the what-names out of her by clapping and yelling “Clever Moo-moo!” which caused her to fall flat on her face! She is still an expert at navigating her way round the room on her back and, like her sister, is developing a selection of Yoga poses – whilst Isabels preferred pose was the “Downward Dog” Molly favours the “Crab” which is very impressive……particularly given that Mummy and Daddy couldn’t do it, even if you paid them!

Isabel has got wind of the fact that we are (hopefully, provided it doesn’t rain too much!) going to Grandpa Peepoos house for the Bank Holiday weekend though that is apparently not soon enough – she has got up everyday this week and announced “Daddy home soon! Big snuggles, go Peepoos house in car!” (the fact that Daddy is either still in bed at this point or has just left for work seems to be a little lost on her!)……I’m opting for the tactic of telling her we aren’t going today but we are going “soon” – by the time we do go, I fear she may have got bored of waiting and will no longer want to go!?? She’s also taken to telling Molly “No Molly! Not yours! Leave alone!” or “Molly! Stop screaming!” – I wonder where on earth she might have heard that before??!! The only trauma to have occurred in the world of Isabel just recently is that she had to have an injection at the end of last week – she was quite happy until she realised that SHE was having the jab and not Molly, and this was only when she looked down and saw there was a needle in her leg! Luckily, she was instantly placated by stickers – and was even allowed to keep the whole sheet which is virtually unheard of!! (The nurse must have been feeling generous – either that or they had an excess of “I’ve just been Vaccinated!” stickers………I was a bit concerned that they might have been intended for the local vets, but Isabel didn’t seem to mind!)

Getting Bigger is very hard work!

After the excitement of our attempted trip to Grandpa Peepoos house the weekend before last, things have been a lot quieter in the life of us Winchursts – something we are very thankful for!

Yesterday I discovered that Molly’s teeth have FINALLY decided to put in an appearance, with the sharp edges of the front 2 at the bottom beginning to poke through – we are hopeful that this will mean that some of the excess grumpiness will begin to subside……..and that the torrential downpour down her chin will also start to dry up a bit! (Molly in dry clothes – imagine that??!)
This morning she has been busy putting the world to rights by shouting “da da da da da” almost consistently and VERY loudly – according to Isabel “Molly is a noisy Baba!”……I couldn’t agree more! (though I was excited at the same time as this was the 1st time she had said it – shame it was “da” not “ma” and that she had to say it quite so much………)

Isabel has continued to entertain us with her creative play – this morning, she put her plastic movie camera over her shoulder and declared that she was “Off to work Mummy! See you later! Kiss please!”……..her choice of work related equipment would suggest that she is succumbing to the influence of both Aunty Jecca and Uncle Ken – and perhaps a bit of Mummy if she continues to want to go out in her heels and oh so fashionable bag?! Mummy has also been having a job to persuade her of the joys of tidying up – this morning, I put a large pile of toys away and went to the kitchen…..when I came back she said “Look Mummy – toys back!” and sure enough, the pile was back in its original position! After failing miserably to explain to her that the toys were much better off IN the box, I opted to incarcerate her in the highchair in the hope that the toys may at least stay put away for more than 30 seconds!

This weekend, we are heading to Devon for an en mass gathering of the Winchurst Clan – it will be a long weekend as Dan has managed to wangle both the Friday and the Monday as days off!! All we have to hope now is that the weather continues to be nice! Fingers crossed……..

New gallery

For those that haven’t already spotted it, Kate has added a new gallery of photos. There is no particular event or occasion behind them – they are just a selection of the more recent photos Kate has taken. We hope you enjoy them. As always, click the photo below to go straight to the gallery.

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A somewhat Dark and Watery Adventure!

We were glad to get home yesterday after finding ourselves on an unexpected adventure whilst being stuck in amongst all the flooding chaos that has hit UK – we were attempting to get to Hotel Radcliffe for the weekend as Uncle Ted and Jenny were making a visit to the UK and we had been hoping to see them. What should have been an hour and ¾ in the car ended up being 7 hours of driving for Daddy and not even getting close!

We’d been listening pretty closely to the local radio for traffic updates as we had been going at almost no miles an hour for a very long time and we were pretty confidant that once we were past the point in the road we were on that was flooded, we should be ok! We were partly right – once past the mini lake that was creeping across the road, we picked up speed and sailed through…….until we came to join the motorway and found a rather enormous queue of stationary traffic! Thinking quickly, we reprogrammed “Turn Lest!” (as Isabel calls it, the rest of us think of it as the Sat Nav!) to take us to Pee-poos house avoiding the Motorway – very cunning idea till we found that the roads we wanted to go down were shut and Police vehicles towing boats were coming past us whilst we were in yet more stationary traffic! Had we had a good old fashioned paper map, we might have stood a chance of navigating a route through but we were totally reliant on the Sat Nav and nobody tells them when roads are shut! (or under 6 feet of water!)

By this point it was after midnight and we were, not surprisingly, very tired! We tried a Travellodge on the off chance they had a room available – they probably would have had a million other people not had the same idea! Once we had found a very obliging pub who let Mummy in to wash bottles and top up with water to make formula (and where we were later to discover that Mummy had left her purse and involved us ringing just about every pub in the local area until we figured out which one it was!), we ended up sleeping in the car from 1.30am to 4.30am (Isabel on the back seat and Molly stretched out on Mummy!) then tried to have another go at reaching our destination – at this point it was 5am and when we found ourselves on a roundabout we recognised we decided to call it quits and headed home! It ought to also be pointed out that poor Grandpa Pee-poo was also stuck in all the mayhem – he had been to our house on Friday to pick up 2 of our armchairs as a space making exercise and had left at 5pm………it was 8am the next day before he made it home, and we are very sorry that he had to go through such horribleness!

Upton-upon-Severn (or perhaps that is “under-Severn”?!) is now cut off completely by the river bursting it’s banks and the water board is thinking of disconnecting mains water as it might have been contaminated whilst the army is apparently bringing in food by boat – needless to say, Grandpa Pee-poo is now very glad that he had stocked the fridge and freezer in preparation for a family invasion that never happened……he now has plenty of food for him and Granny Rosie as Granny Pies has stayed on with her friends in Leyland (she had originally been due back on Saturday!) and Aunty Nanna never made it from London!

Here’s hoping the water levels drop soon!

Molly has her half Birthday!

Even though I am finding it hard to believe, Molly is exactly 6 months old today! She marked the occasion by going to bed at 10.30pm and not waking up until 5.30 this morning – by my count, that’s 7 hours in a row and pretty good by anyone’s standards!?

She is now thoroughly bored with this baby lark and would very much like to be able to follow her sister on the great adventure up the stairs, but that isn’t going to happen for some time yet – we have just about sorted out the sitting up unaided (though someone still needs to be in grabbing distance!) and she can get to anything she wants by rolling……..you can almost see her figuring out in her mind which way she needs to go in order to get there!

She has cheered up considerably in recent weeks – she’s a lot more relaxed with people and not so reliant on having Mummy on hand…….having said that, we do occasionally have moments when only Mummy will do and she will scream her head off until she gets what she wants!

Though there is ridiculous amounts of dribbling and chewing going on, we still have no physical evidence of any teeth – given how much she enjoys chewing on my fingers, I am slightly relieved by this fact but it would be nice for some to actually break through so we can past the grumpiness and on with some serious teeth nashing!

We don’t think it will be too much longer before she figures out about crawling – and then we will really be in trouble!

[Note: to celebrate her half birthday Mummy took some photos of Molly and has posted them in a gallery. To access it, click here.]

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