The type of things that only a Grandad can teach you.
The Gallery: Travel
So the lovely Tara has set us the following challenge this week:
This week it's time to access your happy memories once again about places you've been, things you've seen, experiences you've had.
This week's theme is: Travel.
Which quite frankly after the emotional outpouring about my grandparents last week is a relief.
Now the obvious one for me, is our road-trip around America from six years ago, but I did that one for the Unofficial Gallery several weeks ago. Therefore I'm going to choose a few photos from our first trip away with The Boy.
He was born on Friday 12th June 2009 three hours before my entire family attended my great-aunt's funeral in Dorset, hence none of them being able to visit immediately. I was devastated that I couldn't go to Aunty Nell's funeral because I was so very fond of her, and due to not being allowed to travel in the last month or so I hadn't seen her before she died either. However, contractions had other plans for me that day!
In the September my mum arranged for us all to spend the weekend back down where she used to live and to scatter her ashes. This is not the type of thing my family normally does; someone dies then that's it, they get cremated and their ashes scattered in the garden of rememberance. I firmly believe that my mum arranged this for me. In the end, because none of the others knew what to do (through lack of experience) I ended up taking the bag and scattering Aunty Nell's ashes into the bay at West Bay, where she used to go to mark her school books. I stood there by myself, watching her ashes swishing in the sea, hanging around and not wanting to leave the party. There was my moment of parting, there was the goodbye that I had missed.
When I turned around, the others had joined me from a distance.
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Pop over to The Gallery and check out the other entries using this linky:
Little Legacy: Matilda Duck
Penny over at Alexander Residence has come with a lovely idea for a linky:
Little legacy is a remembrance project, a positive and creative place, to celebrate small things handed down by predecessors. I am going to post one every Thursday. If you want to join in at any point, either as a project or a one off, there's a linky below and more information here.
I wanted to take part because I instantly thought of Matilda. Unfortunately I can't show you a photograph of her as she if carefully wrapped up in a box in the attic. I shall have to describe her.
Matilda is a small, intricate, metal duck sat in a metal nest. The whole thing is about the size of an egg, with Matilda hinged on one side so that she lifts up and small objects can be places inside. For several decades she resided behind the sliding glass door in my Nan's cabinet, awaiting the arrival of her owner's four grandchildren of differing ages to squeal with delight over what she had laid. Magically, she laid different things; a few bronze coins, a jellybaby, a Fox's Glacier Mint, a creme eg. The possibilities of Matilda's magic was endless.
When my nan died, mum put her little trinkets out on the table and asked the four of us to choose things to remember her by. I eyed the contents and my shoulders sank to see the lack of Matilda. Mum noticed this and, after my brothers and sister had gone home, she gave me Matilda with the message that she had been saving it for me as she knew how much it meant to me.
Just writing this has filled my senses with the memory of my nan.
The Adventures of ….
And so it seems that when Uncle Heritage heard the tales of Desert Fun and Summer Splash, he felt left out. Begging Grandpa and Grandma SIGG to let him travel from their Swiss home to the unfamiliar territory of Wales, he was welcomed into the family to play alongside The Boy's bottle and his mummy's bottle. His destiny was to belong to the daddy of the family. The daddy was very happy because he had secretly been feeling very left out! Desert Fun and Summer Splash were also happy because they had missed their favourite uncle very much!
(P.S. I've got another SIGG competition running over here)
Saturday 18th June 2011 – 'Teamwork' (169/365)
We didn't manage to see all of my family last weekend for The Boy's 2nd birthday, so we invited my brother and sister over with their family today for coffee and cake. I walked into the dining room to check why they were all quiet and this is what I saw; two five year olds, an eight year old and a two year old all colouring together. One of my favourite pictures of the family.
The Gallery: Daddy
With the impending celebration of all things daddy this weekend, Tara has set us a challenge of giving some big Gallery love to the men in our families:
Your children's dad, your dad, father in laws, grandpas . . .
Now on this blog, Mr. andMe doesn't tend to get much of a look-in. He gets occasionally referred to as hubby and 'daddy' but generally doesn't get talked about. Thing is this man is the rock in my life and he probably doesn't realise how much he is needed and loved in our family. He is the calm to my storm and is an amazing husband. I am in awe of how much patience he has with The Boy, such a patient teacher and friend to him.
When The Boy was born, he needed to go onto oxygen straight away. He had a little rest on my chest for the minimal amount of time, but then straight over to be assessed and sorted out. I could see hubby was torn, but I told him straight away that he needed to go to him. Our tiny little bundle that was whimpering and so very unhappy. This was the first photo taken where we were really allowed physical contact, and fittingly it is of my two boys.
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Now pop over and check out the other link-ups using this little widget below:
May Day
Swimming yesterday seems to have completely wiped us out and today was a little of a non-starter.
We did however decided to 'pop' down to Margam Park to see what they had to offer for a family day out (even though it was only an hour or so). It was a pleasant walk around the grounds and we checked out the Fairytale Land area that they have, but it was a little lacking in entertainment for a toddler and probably somewhere that we won't be going to regularly. However, I did take some nice photos which I thought I'd share.
Listography: Top 5 Bucket List
Oh that Kate is a twisted one. This week she has offered us a choice of topics, however both are to do with funerals!
This week's Listography theme is '5 Things I Hope People Say About Me At My Funeral'.
Oh my word, what are you supposed to do with that? For someone who lacks self-esteem and as I can't imagine more than seven people at my funeral, I'm going to go with her other option:
If you don't like that one you can write your Top 5 Bucket List , i.e. – things to do before you kick the bucket.
Now that one is much better.
- Cruise on the River Nile: Think Agatha Christie but without the murder! I am desperate to do this, visit Abu Simbel, Giza and Luxor.
- Enjoy retirement: Personally, I'd like this to start tomorrow but there's the debts, mortgage and pay into the pension fund in order to have the financial security to enjoy retirement.
- Win the lottery: Now that would enable the other two things to happen!
- Eat in a really expensive, exclusive restaurant: And not have the chef complain about having to cook a vegetarian meal. Not Gordon Ramsey's restaurant then!
- Have laughed every day of my long life with my beautiful family.
Short and, hopefully, sweet.
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Now pop over to Kate's blog to check out the other entries. You can use that widget over there <—
The Next Generation
I'm killing two birds with one stone here, I hope no-one minds?
On Friday, Tara set her theme for The Gallery:
Mother Love. Interpret it any way you choose; You as a mum, your mum, someone who you look on as a mother. Let's not restrict appreciating mothers to one day; let's make a whole week of it!
I'll admit to being a little stumped for an idea: I'd already written a post about being a mum, I was intending to do a photograph of The Boy with whatever he gave me for Mothers' Day on the day, and I have a rule of no photos of me on my blog for various reasons. Eeek! What's a mummy to do?
Then on Sunday, I was tagged in a lovely meme by Alli from Mum2Four. She had posted a photograph (for Silent Sunday) of her daughter holding a photograph of her and her mum. Alli asked me, along with a few others to do the same for her first ever meme. Bingo! There's my Gallery entry as well!
So, without further ado, here is The Boy:
If you've got a second, can you pop over and have a look at Alli's beautiful post too please?
My Mothers' Day
"Go and give that to Mummy".
How many other mummies across the land were woken up by that whispered instruction today? I smiled to myself, turned over and stretched my arms out ready. In trotted The Boy quizzically looking at the card in both hands. I prised the card from his reluctant hands ("pwees, tar") with the bribe of my phone to play with and he then proceeded to rip open the envelope once I'd rescued my card.
I was presented with a beautiful bouquet of flowers by The Boy (and hubby because little'un couldn't see where he was going) the flowers of which he chose himself yesterday in the florists. All I can say is that The Boy has good taste and must have inherited my Bampi's horticultural talents.
I also had some scrummy Baileys chocolates (which is good because the bottle is empty) and a book of 'Mothers' Wit' (I hope he's not implying I need pointers!).
After a blustery picnic (which we bought in Tesco, I'm not making one on my day) overlooking Swansea Bay and a play in the park there, we went to Plantasia, which is a mini-rainforest type attraction. It was just the right size for The Boy and us to cover in an hour; it was informative without shoving it in your face, not crowded and fun. He loved watching the fish and catching the raindrops falling from the waterfall. He also tried to give the parakeets some water because he thought they might be thirsty!
In the evening, we had Mothers' Day: The Sequel for my own mum as she and dad came around for dinner. I gave her the canvas that I had made by Alyson at Lucy's Locket which she adored.
All in all a very satisfying day for me. Thank you hubby and The Boy.
