Days 279 – 285 of Project 365

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279 - 285 of 365

279. Sunset Splash (Having taken my niece and nephew on their first conker hunting session of the season, the three of us then went down to Barry Island for a chippy tea. We of course had to paddle in the sea, although The Boy had difficulty understanding it would be too cold to take our shoes off at this time of year. He ended up splashing around in his boots instead. And when I say splashing in his boots, I do mean in; there was three inches of water in each boot.)

280. Eye-Eye (Magnifying glasses are such fun!)

281. Construction (The Boy was having a great time tonight constructing an aeroplace. He very rarely constructs anything without guidance or a picture to work from, so I was pleased to see him having a go.)

282. Greedy Guts (A quick after school trip to the local nature reserve to feed the swans, they are very greedy and reach up to grab the scraps from the boardwalk.)

283. Concentrating Mummy! (We revisited the nature reserve to film The Boy tree-climbing for a National Trust project that I'm collaborating on, and were very happy to find a new, perfect tree with low sweeping branches and thick boughs.)

284. Homework (Those who follow me on Instagram will know of my ongoing concerns about when The Boy's school was going to introduce homework, as he has been able to read since May, and I am eager to give him the opportunity to develop his interest. Tonight we had his first homework; a worksheet which he had to practise his 'S' formation on. We decided that was a little boring so got out the shaving foam in the bath!)

285. Wait For Me! (Where Fiery Cousin goes, The Boy must follow! A wonderful afternoon at Dyffryn Gardens, the local National Trust site.)

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Days 258 – 264 of Project 365

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258-264 of 365

258. Water (The Boy has only just started being able to cope with water on his face in the bath or shower, today he asked if he could lay back in it and found it hilarious. I just hope this isn't the start of his constant ear infections and glue ear in Winter!)

259. Pennies (The Boy asked if he could count money when he came in from school, so we got down the large Whisky jar and he sorted 1p, 2p and 5p coins into piles before counting the pennies into piles of ten.)

260. Mirror (I set up an invitation to play for The Boy when he came home from school, which he found really therapeutic. The mirror on the table gave a wonderful light for playing in, really illuminating his face. He only once noticed himself in it, and the delight on his face was brilliant.)

261. Sparko (It's Wednesday. That means a sleeping Boy photo. I can never have enough of these so it's ok by me!)

262. Splash (An after-school trip to the local nature reserve to feed the swans, and splash in puddles in new wellies. Only the wellies were too big and then soon fell off when The Boy tried kicking water from the puddle!)

263. A Drop In The Ocean (Rather than go to the MADs in London, I chose to stay at home with my family, for various reasons. I didn't want to sit at home and while away the evening on twitter, so we went for a chippy dinner down the beach before nan babysat The Boy, and I went out to the cinema with my husband. This photo of my thoughtful little boy was taken on the steps down to the beach with the rapidly rising tide approaching. The awards are just one night and a minor moment, when compared with the rest of our lives and The Boy's happiness.)

264. Bare (I've felt groggy all day, like the morning after but without the night before. I didn't sleep well because I was beating myself having not won the MADs again, which I now realise is completely ridiculous; it's just a lump of glass! However, after hanging around all morning for a new class-mate's birthday party, we then went to practise bike-riding in the park. As we cycled around, we found an enormous horse chestnut tree ladened with conkers, which were dropping from it rapidly. When I say the conkers were dropping, I don't mean the cases with conkers in; I actually mean the conkers. There was a squirrel sat at the top, having a feast in the canopy as he ripped open the cases and threw them down, stripped the conkers and dropped the remnants too. Luckily The Boy still had his cycle helmet on as he had a few drop on his head!)

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Days 216-222 of Project 365

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216-222 of 365

10th August 2013 (Saturday)

216. Swing Low (The zip wire at Coombe Mill is one of the big draws for children, and I can't begin to tell you how many times he's been on it this week. Sunday was an incredibly rainy day, and I'm so glad that we brought his red all-in-one waterproof, it was very much needed on the feed run and for outdoor play. This was also the last photo taken on my much-loved Canon EOS 300D before it died; one of the mirrors inside broke and every photo was black from a third of the way down. Having just been presented with a brand new 55-250mm lens by Mr. TBaM as an early birthday present, and so I could photograph the wonderful location we were staying in, I was left with little choice but to order a new one and await Tuesday morning's delivery eagerly.)

217. Sodden (I rarely include photos of Mr. TBaM but I want to illustrate exactly how wet it was: we had to peel our clothes off after the feed run and wring them out; The Boy even cried because he was so wet and fed up. Luckily, by mid afternoon the skies brightened and we were able to indulge in a stroll around the farm.)

218. Hero ("Ah, there you are Guy!" was one of the most heard phrases of the week. The Boy adores Guy, one of the Coombe Mill triplets, and was keen to chatter to him about anything he could. We found him in the goat enclosure and he spent a great twenty minutes with us, accompanying us up to see the deer before continuing his game of 'Manhunt' with his friends while The Boy looked on wistfully! Oh and my new camera came: this was taken with it and my new lens.)

219. Farmer The Boy (Need I say anymore? He adores driving the tractor with Farmer Nick!)

220. Wrong Way (We ventured off site today to visit Lappa Valley Steam Railway. I will confess that I wasn't overly impressed with it for the price, but The Boy's eyes lit up when he saw the crazy golf course. Looking at the sky, it's hard to believe the monsoon that plagued us on Monday!)

221. Country Kids Go Rafting (Earlier in the week, we had made stick rafts and Fiona was very taken with the idea of having a competition at the end of the week for organic rafts. It was great seeing people gathering their sticks together on the Thursday and walking along the main path, there was a vast array of designs waiting on the patio tables outside the lodges. It warmed my heart to think that a simple activity I'd done on Tuesday with The Boy, sparked such comradery and good-natured competition. Even Fiona's children made rafts, and families waded down the river watching their rafts from the wooden bridge to the stone bridge.)

222. Birthday (36 today! Driving 5 hours back from Coombe Mill was not the best way to spend my birthday; a) because I had to leave Coombe Mill, and b) because my numpty of a husband forgot to look up directions until after we'd driven past the right road, and then sent me off on country A or B roads, which were little more than lanes, for 40 miles. 40 miles which took 90 minutes. I was pretty cross! Nonetheless, we finally made it to my parents' house for my family birthday tea! )

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Days 209-215 of Project 365

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209-215 of 365

3rd August 2013 (Saturday) for web

209. This Is New (We went to Oxwich Bay with my brother and his family for the day. The Boy's aunty is an outdoor adventure instructor working in a variety of fields and she has been trained in 'beach school' education, so was keen to share her knowledge. We had an amazing day finding anemones, urchins, cockles, and crabs!)

210. Perspective (Off to Parc Play, one of our favourite places to go and far better than soft play! Wooden forts, zip wires, slides, sand pits, pirate ships; all outdoors or under cover. We were meeting up with a friend and her little boy who is a year older than The Boy. We haven't seen them in some time and it was interesting to see how The Boy, who was left behind physically last year, was capable of doing things that his friend couldn't. Well he could by the time we'd finished with him!)

211. Friendship (We visited Yeo Valley HQ in the Mendips today with a bunch of other bloggers to see how they are working with the Woodland Trust. It was great to meet up with Jenny and Burton again, and The Boy and he got straight up to mischief with a tempting pipe.)

212. Workspace (We've borrowed a tuff-spot and stand from the nursery at work for the Summer, definitely The Boy's new work space!)

213. David Bellamy (On Tuesday we did a leaf hunt at Yeo Valley and The Boy has been fascinated with finding different leaves ever since; he spotted the silver birch in our garden and ran to get the sheet to identify it.)

214. Focus (Today my special treat to myself arrived: a fixed focus 50mm lens for my dSLR. I have been quite sceptical about it, not really understanding what the difference would be between my 18-55mm and this. Now I get it! The depth of field is far more pronounced with this lens, as you can see from the photo above which was taken in our local nature reserve. We nipped down there to feed the swans and have lunch with my mum. I actually love this lens, and I adore this photo; it's going up on the wall.)

215. Heaven (And we're finally here! I wanted to leave home at 9am to travel down to Coombe Mill but a late night and sleepy heads this morning meant we left late. It took 3.5hrs to do the 2hrs down to Trago Mills, where we had good fun on the rides, steam train and shopping, and then a further 1.5 hours to get here. It then took thirty minutes to wait for our fish and chips before we could actually arrive at Coombe Mill. But oh my, it's all worth it!)

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TheBoyandMe's 365 Linky

Days 202-208 of Project 365

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202-208 of 265

202. Fave Food (Massively contrived! MASSIVELY! However, The Boy decided to climb a tree at Westonbirt Arboretum so that he didn't become The Gruffalo's fave food!)

203. Grey (This colourful photo was taken to try and lift my grey mood after a rubbish INSET day where I ran around doing things for everyone else and achieved nothing for myself. Additionally, the end-of-year tiredness kicked in and I was exhausted and very melancholy.)

204. I Drew This! (Welcome to the family TBaM! I am so proud of him for this, I think it's brilliant.)

205. D Is For… (Danger! He does this funny little hopping up from behind thing onto the swing, only he planted his feet on the seat and stood up instead! Eeeek!)

206. Ground (We met an old friend up at the clifftop park with her one year old son. She was late and so while we waited The Boy had a swinging conversation with the ten year old boy next to him. The Boy won, which I was quite proud of, and cast some beautiful shadows on the ground as he was swinging.)

207. The Everyday (The temperature of the day started off quite mild, but after a phone from nursery at 8.30 to ask me to bring him in earlier than I normally do as they were going for a walk that morning, I ended up hot and bothered, rushing around. I got hom at 10.15 and then managed to settle down to have some breakfast and do some school work. Once I'd picked him up from nursery, we popped into Parc Play for an hour or so during which time the temperature soared to 28°C. We came home, borrowed a pump from a friend and blew up his new paddling pool. This sunshine photo is the everyday at the moment.)

208. Black + White (It's pouring down today, which is fine because the garden really needs it, but the world is a little bit grey and monochrome today. We also need a break from all the amazing outdoor play we've had; sometimes you just need a 'chill out and do nothing' day. Definitely a day for some work on pre-writing skills.)

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Days 195-201 of Project 365

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195-201 of 365

195. Edible (On the way down to Burton's birthday party, we stopped off at Tyntesfield National Trust site to wander around. Unfortunately it was the hottest day of the year and so we did little more than sit under a tree and have a very edible picnic.)

196. Outside The Window (Such a boring photo to everyone else… this window has been broken for a month, and during this hot weather it has been a nightmare as it is perfectly positioned to catch and direct an amazing breeze through the downstairs rooms. We couldn't find our guarantee so bit the bullet and phoned up the double glazing company, expecting to need a new window: £15 for a new handle was all the damage! And outside the window is my son's play-haven.)

197. Bottle (We met up with friends of ours at our local nature reserve. Despite having lived in Cardiff for twenty years until university, she'd never actually been there and so we were happy to show them how to feed the swans, where the squirrels can be found, the best trees for climbing and the wonderful play park. My friend adored it, and both of the children loved it when I produced some clay from my bag ready for a very special craft activity! I was amazed to see The Boy climb all the way up this tree, completely unaided; he's got a lot of bottle nowadays when it comes to tree climbing!)

198. Inspirational (A fairly contrived photo of the prompt, but this boy of mine is inspirational to me to try my hardest to provide stimulating play opportunities and be the best mummy I can.)

199. Number (I know it's Summer and therefore we should be used to the fact that it should be hot, but I've never seen it this hot in The Boy's bedroom at night; a ridiculous number. No rain in weeks, and it's so sticky and muggy that we do actually need a thunderstorm.)

200. Building (Last day of term! When I finally arrived home from work, we settled down with coloured pencils, building his 'to-do' list for the Summer.)

201. Hot (As it was the town's annual carnival, we went down to see what was going on down the beach. The answer was not very much indeed, apart from a downhill derby, so we ended up 'plopping' pebbles into the sea to cool us down as we were hot and bothered. After we treated ourselves to pizza, chips, onion rings, doughnuts and candy floss, and needed winching back up the hill!)

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Days 181-187 of Project 365

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181-187 of 365

181. Mr. Bloom (We'd discovered some cheap sunflowers in Aldi (99p each) and as our sunflower seedlings were destroyed accidentally by daddy a week ago, we bought these to replace what should have been. The Boy has taken over watering them until I get the time to plant them!)

182. Happiness Is… (This is the start of me using the FatMumSlim PhotoADay Instagram prompts for my 365 photos. I took a cracking profile photo of The Boy which you can see on my Instagram feed, but I chose this photo as these two, and my garden in the Summer, are what makes me happy.)

183. Shoes (A very busy day with gymnastics, feeding the swans at the nature reserve, shopping and then we popped into Parc Play in Cardiff for 45 minutes run around. We'd bought a season pass on Sunday; £40 until November and at £5 a visit otherwise, I decided we'd definitely come more than eight times over the Summer.)

184. Cold (A really rubbish day in work where I did nothing more than babysit classes all day. A rosé spritzer was definitely needed!)

185. Red, White or Blue (We'd seen Mister Maker doing this activity the other day, and decided to have a go. Really good fun and minimal mess.)

186. Love (I love all of the things in this picture (and some that aren't!): my son, pizza and chips from the local takeaway, Pimm's, my husband (especially for getting the pizza) and a setting sun over my green haven.)

187. Fave Smell (Contrived? No! My favourite smell is the beach in Summer: scorching hot sand, crashing waves, ketchup-laden chips, salty air.)

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Days 167-172 of Project 365

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167-173 of 365

167. Drip! (We spent the day at Legoland Windsor as guests of the MAD Blog Awards for their family fun day. Late on the Saturday night, reviewing the purchases and outgoings over the previous week, we had actually realised that we weren't able to pay for the petrol to get there! Luckily a sponsored post opportunity came in on the Sunday morning and we were able to peg it up to Windsor before you could shout, 'I'm a MAD blogger!' I'm so pleased we did, because we had a brilliant time, and The Boy thoroughly enjoyed the Duplo Valley waterpark.)

168. Horsey, horsey (We spent a very quiet day playing in the house and garden to recover from the weekend's events. The Boy adores his new hobby horse we're reviewing from Great Little Trading Co.)

169. Squidge! (The one thing that The Boy asked for on his birthday list was the PlayDoh bakery playset which he'd seen in countless shops and on television. Mum bought it for him and he was over the moon, and spent most of the morning making cakes and icing them.)

170. Joy! (This is my favourite photo of the week, and possibly of this year's project. On Wednesday we took The Boy to his new school for an induction session. He adored the facilities and wanted to get stuck in to everything. Afterwards, the three of us walked home hand-in-hand and decided to go to Barry Island. It was a glorious afternoon with temperatures at 27°C at 4pm! We anchored the kite to the parasol, played frisbee, football, built sandcastles and ate chips on the sand. It felt slightly bittersweet to go from the introduction to the school – which will put a stop to these spontaneous afternoons – to being so carefree, but the sunshine soon wiped that feeling away.)

171. I will fit! (Packing for Britmums Live! and The Boy was trying to squash the important things into his rucksack, like him!)

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172. Contortionist (Today was the first day of the Britmums Live! blogging conference. I took a lot of photos of yummy food and various bit and pieces, but thats not what my 365 is about. Instead I've chosen a photo of my shattered boy who went to the Maritime Museum with daddy and spent a restless night in his Premier Inn bed.)

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173. Famous? (Another full on day of blogging advice in excellent sessions, and also brand schmoozing in The Hub. Coca-Cola have a stand here offering personalised labels; this makes me chuckle!)

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Days 153-159 of Project 365

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153-159 of 365

153. Peek-a-boo! (This is my favourite photo of the week. We went to Abbotsbury Swannery on the way home from holiday and The Boy was fascinated by the cygnets, some of which had hatched the day before. I could have included a photo of a cute and fluffy cygnet, instead it's this one of The Boy climbing in a tunnel of trees which I adore.)

154. Alien (I set up an invitation to play for him with playdough, feathers, googly eyes, pipe cleaners, matchsticks and lolly sticks and he created this fab alien.)

155. Spiderman! (We dropped my niece's present over for her birthday and The Boy was desperate to play in their 170 foot garden which has this fabulous spider's web climbing net.)

156. Mr. Bloom (Today we planted our seeds for the Britmums challenge: Kids Grow Wild with MoneySupermarket. The Boy hasn't quite got the concept of watering in moderation.)

157. Waterbaby? (I wish he was a waterbaby; his constant ear infections from November to March every year mean that he rarely goes swimming apart from in the Summer. This past Winter he had glue ear in both ears, with 5% reduction in hearing in his right ear and slightly more in his left. We were told by the doctor not to allow water into his ears and so he hasn't been since last September. Today we decided to give it a go, bought him some new armbands and a noodle-thing, and he absolutely loved it. He even managed to use both to try out backstroke legs, and was so confident in the water he went down the infants slide backwards. Think we'll be going weekly from now on.)

158. Fortress (After work, we decided to pop to Barry Island for some sandcastle building and I ended up building The Boy a small defense wall with a pit to sit in. I think we may have put the defenses on the wrong side though looking at the stormy skies behind?)

159. Squint (We popped over to Nana and Grandad's this afternoon, in between shopping and The Boy has great fun with his cousin and the playdough. Not exciting, just every day life!.)

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Days 132-138 of Project 365

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132-138 of 265

132. Stick it! (After such a beautifully sunny day on Saturday, Sunday saw the doldrums return to the skies over south Wales. The Boy managed a few hours garden play in the morning, then in the afternoon we did some Post-it note art.)

133. End of the day! (A very trying day today. As my car was still poorly with a mahoosive oil leak, I wasn't able to drive to the other side of Cardiff as I wanted to, so we went with my mum. It was a hot and bothersome day, and ultimately boring for The Boy. Mid-afternoon I had a row with the garage who hadn't even started my car, and my dad had to go and help them find the problem. Daddy's girl? Me? Never! The afternoon ended up with a ridiculously elongated dinner time (of well over an hour) and a late bedtime, and a row! Essentially this was all because he was overtired and bored, and it wasn't the best day in my parenting 'career'.)

134. Wet (The garage phoned me at 4.20 to tell me my car was ready and they shut at 5pm. It takes 30 minutes to walk across town to there, it was pouring with rain and The Boy had only just woken up from a nap. Time to test the excellence of the Kiddy raincover. He stayed dry, my Regatta raincoat and jeans were saturated. I made it in time and recovered my car, minus £230 in my bank account.)

135. Sly Fox! (This is a game he's learnt in nursery, a little like Grandma's footsteps or What's The Time, Mr. Wolf.)

136. Sculpture! (I finish work at around 4pm on Thursdays so we've developed a habit of nipping down the beach with my mum for an ice-cream. Today we did a treasure hunt as well for an activity I'm blogging on the 21st May for the '100 Days of Play' activity link-up I'm taking part in.)

137. Rebel! (Just out of shot is a sign saying 'No cycling'. Well I'm sorry but he's 3 and not about to mow someone down so I ignored it. We love this park in Cardiff and took my mum with us, who hasn't been in years, possibly decades. A few drops of rain fell and the park emptied, which I found very sad. We're hardcore and stayed on to see the black clouds off.)

138. Ding Dong ("Mummy, why don't bluebells ding?" The Boy's paternal grandparents came down for a visit today to take us out for lunch, so we took them to Dyffryn Gardens to walk off the pizza and garlic bread after. They were as enchanted as we are with it, and The Boy got to examine some bluebells up close.)

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