We’re Have I Been All This Time…

Longest break I’ve taken in a while…somehow, at the end of a week at the keyboard, it is kinda hard to make time to pop in here. Silly me. Weekends have taken on a new measure of quality family life now that our time all together is really limited to breakfast and dinner/bath/stories/bed. We ALL […]

Chariots 2011

Two weeks ago the doctor joined a host of mainly white-clad runners in the inaugural St Andrews Chariots Race. Based on the moving opening scenes of that memorable 80’s saga, Chariots of Fire, the race was a charity event for Sue Ryder Care. It was our first big community event and we loved the sense […]

Making Ourselves at Home

The weekend has finally arrived. It is time for a new look here at ‘Not Working’… As I mentioned earlier in the week, on Monday I enter the potentially crazy world of workinginsideandoutsidethehome. I am shying away from saying I am going back to work, since it is abundantly clear to me…and most people who […]

Eggs!

Our girls survived the night and a really frosty, sleety morning. We are making constant modifications to their world and ours to accomodate them and we hope that poor little Naynaynay Number Four will last the distance, she is looking very much the bottom of the newly established pecking order. But the big news this […]

Our Girls

Today we brought our rescued ex-battery hens home from the farm on which they spent the first few intensive-laying months of their lives. We found them through the wonderful work of the British Hen Welfare Trust. These are their first few moments being settled into their new house Akira assembled for them a couple of […]

Two Years

Our wee guy is two today. Two lovely long years of learning (in a very ad hoc manner at times) how to be parents…and watching him go from being a bit rubbish and gurgly and endearing and sometimes a little terrifyingly needy and so so cuddly and incredible to really quite entertaining and capable and […]

Tomandclaire

On the weekend we had our friends Tom and Claire, who live in Manchester, come and stay. The December weather was an initial deterrent to their pre-Christmas visit plans, so it was wonderful that they could finally join us. Though of course we would love them to be able to pop in every weekend! However, […]

It’s beginning to look a lot like…

Our driveway – like many others in these parts – has turned into an ice rink, and so the treacherous journey to the road is perhaps the worst part of any outing at the moment. This did slow our efforts to bring Christmas to the house this year…we set out and abandoned the tree-purchasing venture […]

Winter Comes a Little Early

As predicted on Wednesday, it did take all week for real snow to fall. Friday night we had a proper dusting, though it took until Sunday – after nearly 12 hours of blizzardy conditions – for our lawn to be completely covered, that grass is getting long! Although we had some great snowfalls last winter […]

Beach Learnin’

They say every day is a school day…and so it used to be for me…now I am seeing more and more that it certainly is for our wee guy. Each day he seems to delight in a new idea, a new word, a new turn of phrase (today – ‘that’s more like it’) or a […]