Here's to 2011!

We've been so fortunate over the past twelve months - we've had lots of good travel, great accomplishments, happy days. Here's hoping that the next twelve months bring all of you peace, joy and good memories!

Copenhagen from the Round Tower, 29th December 2010

Merry Christmas!

From our house to yours.

Some intial thoughts on December

Thought #1: It's kind of nice living someplace where it actually snows. My previous post highlighted the first of several snowy days, and it snowed again yesterday briefly and overnight/this morning quite a bit - to the tune of about 3 fluffy inches. Two foxes were running through the garden this morning, and we've had a badger come to visit in the last couple of weeks.

Night shot with no flash = fuzzy badger

A friend recommended peeing around the massive hole said badger has dug under our fence from the neighboring garden - they can be quite destructive, particularly to lawns, and since they're a protected species we can't very well take active measures to get rid of it. Himself took one for the team and duely watered the appropriate area and we haven't seen it since. The foxes, however, have found the same access point very useful. Aaaahhh, English wildlife!

It's all very lovely, particularly since I'm holed up inside and the rest of the family is out playing in the snow. Which brings me to thought #2: I seem to be on track to taking a run at last year's stellar record of two bouts of disease within 10 days over the Christmas holiday. This year's plague is better then last year's in that it's not the flu and I don't have six extra people in the house, but it's still not very fun - I am blogging from the comfort of my bed. Hooray for wireless!

Thought #3: the first few days of the girls' holiday have been nice. We've decorated Christmas trees in situ,

and at home.

We've gone to the dinosaur museum and made mini-mince pies.

And I've discovered that they are big fans of Cheap Trick. Particularly this song.

I'm not sure why D has her tongue out in ever shot - maybe she's chaneling Mr. Jordan? It was some pretty strenuous dancing...

Time for me to finish up and crawl under the covers for a nap. Here's hoping everyones' gifts are purchased/made/otherwise obtained, that the snow is falling softly and the Christmas tunes are on. Enjoy!

The last day of November

It was a good walk to school with Uncle N, and it is still coming down outside. Not enough to stick to the pavement, but enough that driving is a bad idea, and walking is a bit tricky. Boo's two comments were "I love snow! Can we go skiing?" and "Does this mean Father Christmas is coming tomorrow?" I'll enjoy this winter weather enthusiasm while it lasts.

Kleptos in training

This story is a prime example of the fact that, although my children look like little clones, they are so different in personality as to defy description.

On Sunday, Himself and the two girls went to the local Home Depot equivalent to pick up a few items. When they arrived home, it was discovered that the girls had come away with a pile of white rocks that they'd picked up on their way through the store. Somehow, someone (Boo) had decided that Daddy wouldn't notice if they took the rocks, and it wouldn't matter anyway. And Devil went along with it, more or less happily.

Well, they were rapidly and emphatically disabused of that notion once we noticed their loot. And the three of them spent the next hour going back to the store, returning the rocks (they were part of a fireplace display) and finding someone so that the girls could apologize for having stolen the rocks.

Here's where the differences come out. Boo, who I suspect was the ultimate instigator in the whole affair, was completely nonchalant about the whole thing. She put the rocks back, happily apologized and moved on with her day. Not a big deal. Part of me is a bit concerned about her complete lack of concern with the whole thing, but it may not be a bad thing.

Devil, however, was completely unhinged. She lost it at home when we were explaining that yes, taking things that are just lying around is still stealing, and continued in (more or less) hysterics throughout their time in the store. She was so upset she couldn't apologize, or even form coherent sentences. So they came home, and once Dev calmed down we, at the risk of setting her off once again, said that she still had to go back and apologize, but that she could choose when to do it. But until she'd made things right, she was going to lose some privileges (i.e. the daily 30 min of boob tube time).

Last night, I mentioned to her that we were going to go back to the store today, and this afternoon, with only a few obvious jitters, she went in, stood calmly while I explained the whole fiasco to the very understanding and cooperative till attendant, and apologized.

I'm proud of both of them for different reasons. I'm proud of Boo for being able to go back and do what needed to be done without a huge fuss. And I'm proud of Devil for being able to move past being so overwhelmingly embarassed that she'd done something wrong to apologize. And I hope that 1) they'll think twice next time before grabbing the next shiny something that catches their eye, and 2) that Devil will start to speak up for herself a bit more - just because o-so-confident Little Sister says something is ok doesn't mean that she's right. And that it's ok to go against what other people want - it won't make you a bad person, and in this scenario, it makes you 100% right.

What a month it's been

I knew I hadn't posted in quite a while, but I had no idea exactly how long it had been until just now. This is the problem with having a) lots of visitors and b) the girls off from school for a week and a half for the half-term holiday.

Over the course of October, we were visited by a friend from Houston (for the weekend), Mermaid and Koala (two weeks covering the school holiday), my cousin who lives in New York (five days), and IM's cousin who lives in Tokyo (for dinner). It's been a bit nutty, to say the least.

More recently, we've had the stellar week-long chaos that is Halloween/Guy Fawkes Day. Halloween weekend started with a trip to get some pumpkins,

and ended with Ariel and Snow White heading off into the surprisingly warm evening to collect glucose products from the surrounding, unsuspecting neighbors. Halloween hasn't been such a big holiday in the UK, but it seems to be growing, with more and more trick or treating going on. I stayed home with my gimpy ankle and handed out sugar to children, two of whom distinguished themselves by seranading me with We Wish You a Merry Christmas, ending with the line "now give us some candy."

The rest of the week has been spent in trying to limit abuse of my children's Islets of Langerhans and keep them in bed when the fireworks were going off after bedtime. In addition to Guy Fawkes Day on Friday, Diwali was this week, so it seems like there have been random firecrackers/fireworks going off every single night.

We headed to Battersea Park for the council fireworks last night. As last year, they were brilliant. And we made it home 1.5 hrs later with two sacked out children and several compressed vertebrae. Today is sunny and cold, and the leaves have covered the back garden. It's stew weather, wool sweater weather, pumpkin muffin weather, oh-my-gosh-its-getting-dark-early weather. Winter is coming.

Broken

Last Saturday, I broke myself. In a serious way. A couple of good friends and I decided it would be "fun" to do a little urban adventure race called The Rat Race. The idea being to run around the City of London doing bizarre things and earning points. One of them had done it last year and had a great time, so this year she two more of us along with her. Over the course of 3 hours we danced the Macarena in Soho, did karaoke in a bowling alley, climbed on the massive phallic symbols cannons in front of the Imperial War Museum, and ended up running almost 14 miles.

The last time I ran that far was when I was training for my first and only marathon. Which was in 2003. To say that I was a) tired or am still b) sore would be an understatement of the highest order. I did nothing for the two days following, and just went for my first run this morning. As long as I was shuffling along, it was ok (if excruciatingly slow and tired). However, any requests to speed up or go up hills resulted in my hamstrings telling me in no uncertain terms to fuck off. Hmmm...me thinks it might take a while to get them back with the program.

If that little jaunt around the city weren't enough to piss my body off, last night was my first experience with Swim for Tri. This is a swim training program for triathletes (which I think means they mostly ask you to swim freestyle with a bit of backstroke and breaststroke thrown in occasionally, but absolutely no butterfly. Win!) that Himself has been doing since early this year. He's been going to the Sunday sessions at the local Leisure Centre, which meant that I had to choose another location. Then next closest one is in Kensington. No problem, I thought, I can get there on the tube. Sadly, the closest Tube station is a 10+ minute walk and at least one train change away. There and back last night took me an hour each way. Which is nice in the sense that I have some down time, but is not exactly efficient. And it means I'm walking through an unfamiliar neighborhood at ten o'clock at night, which is less then ideal. My other transportation options are riding (ugh - in the winter?) and driving. Will try the car option next week and see if it's more then 20 minutes faster then the Tube. It could be exponentially more irritating however...

Anyway, I swam 3500+ meters, which is my longest swim since Fall 2008. Longest by a long shot - my second longest in the last two years was 2000 meters. Which was last week (I thought it would be a good idea to go a bit longer then my typically 1500 in preparation for this course). Impressive yardage (meterage?), but the longest individual swim in that 3500+ meters was a 200, which I can do in my sleep more or less (my typical warm up when I'm swimming on my own is 400-500 m nonstop). I was in a lane with a couple of other gentleman, one another newbie, and I'm afraid in my super-excited, Hooray-I'm-swimming-for-reals-again! enthusiastic state, I may have beaten them up a little bit. I was like a puppy with a new toy - again! again! again! 15 seconds rest? You got it Coach! I must have been incredibly irritating.

I'm sure my enthusiasm will wane a bit as it goes along, but it was great fun. I felt really good afterwards until I sat on the train for 20 minutes. When I got up to get off at my stop, I moved like I'd been beaten with a baseball bat. Poor Porpoise is not in very good shape, nor is she very young anymore - I've been trying to ignore the fact that I don't bounce back from these athletic endeavors as easily as I used to, but the writing is on the wall. In big flashing neon green letters. And they read "You need to stretch more Dumbass. And maybe get yourself some yoga classes while you're at it. Enjoy your (upcoming) forties!" Sheeit...