friday, may 24

 

 

 

 

...to fetch pails of water

 

 

 

May 24.  Bermuda Day.  Or I think it might be called something else now. Anyway, it's the day (supposedly) when Bermudians finally enter the water after the long (ha!) winter hiatus.  And we did.  Of course, Papa went in the pool, not the ocean.  But we made it in.  It was one of those great early days of summer:  You still welcome the heat and relentless sun, sand between your toes when you get home is a mark of a good day, and you remember that ordering cocktails on the beach can really wreck your budget.  Sure the day is dotted with the odd whining or crying but overall, the day felt like these photographs - playful, giddy, and happy with a halo of sunshine.

"the doggie carpet"

 

 

 

 

Ardleigh, in her leaving the nest to fly West mode, kindly furnished us with (what the kids call) the 'doggie carpet'.  Fittingly, this new carpet has a new fan in the real doggie.

Diggin' It!

 

The soil was pretty packed and rocky.  Above is Charlie imitating Daddy who used a hammer and a spade to dig suitable holes.  Charlie loves his hammer.  Charlie actually love banging anything against anything.

Schuyler making a hole, one teaspoon at a time.

choosing our flowers

 

 

When you move into a new house, you are full of good intentions and vigour:  You will get this house whipped into shape and transform this house into a home in no time.  Everything will get unpacked.  We'll put everything on the walls.  We'll put the furniture in place.  But a home is a place of flux.  It takes some time to figure out how that transformation from bare rental house into loving home will work.  And, invariably, there is some stuff that just doesn't fit right in the new house.  At least, not right away.  So we have three boxes still unpacked from when we moved in nine months ago.  We have an agenda to avoid letting that unpacking job slip past a year.  But part of making a house your own is decorating.  The garnish that makes the meal feel right.  There's a lot of good planting already in place at the house but a couple of areas in the driveway and around the porch are barren flower beds where, several decades ago, someone probably had something beautiful but now it is just rocky, parched soil dotted with weeds and the occasional decent plant struggling for survival.  So Liz wisely decided we didn't have to live staring at these ugly troughs of nothingness.  We could bring them back to live.  So off to Aberfeldy we tromped where the kids ran free and didn't quite listen to our futile demands like "there's a large truck backing up!" while we chose some flowers.   Then we all pitched in a brought the little deserts to life with assorted colours and plants as you'll see in our next chapter: Chapter 2: Diggin' in the Dirt.

laundry

 

 

 

There are times when your kids surprise and impress you.  Today, of some unidentified volition, Schuyler said "Mummy is doing a lot of work.  Can I help her?"   At first, I thought this was some ruse.  But no.  It turned out to be a genuine offer.  So, yes, I said.  Help get the laundry.   And darned if that girl didn't fetch the dirty clothes baskets and bring them to the laundry room.  Nice job, Schuyler! 

scoping the garden

 

 

 

 

 

playing cat

 

 

A favourite game for the kids is pretending to be kittens, cats, some feline.  Without warning, they will plop down on all fours and start mewing, rolling around, and generally being (mostly) very cute.  Above Charlie is feeding his kitty a bon bon.

somersfield spring fair

This photo really doesn't capture the scale of this thing... it was mountainous!  But even Charlie gamely scaled the inflatable Everest and slid and bounced down.  Actually, I think this was Charlie's dream - loads of climbing and jumping!

 

 

 

 

 

 

This thing was pretty amazing too - if you were 5 years old, this thing would be unthinkably cool.  It is basically a gigantic bouncy castle maze/obstacle course.  The only thing stopping this from being incessant fun for the cubs were the herds of "big kids" (maybe 11 or 12 yr olds) who thundered through the maze.  Then again, it'd be pretty darn cool for an 11 or 12 year old too! 

 

 

 

They had a "train" ride.  The inverted commas are pretty intentional.  This "train" was a real Bermuda small town deal - basically a converted golf cart attached to some steel death traps driving by an indifferent man who may or may not have hit the sauce early that day.  But that was kind of charming and old school Bermuda like when we were growing up here before Bermuda had four acres of bouncy castle per fair.  And the kids seemed to really dig it. 

This event was popular with the cubs:  Snow Cones!

 

Daddy failing to demonstrate how to land a Frisbee on the world's largest bull's eye.

Playing plinko!

This was fun.  Loads of game, rides, and slides.  Daddy even got to shoot a bow and arrow into plastic bottles.   The kids were shy about it though.  I'm not sure what it was.  Outside of bouncy castles, they seemed to find the games intimidating and/or the interaction with the booth people.  Not sure if it was the lack of knowledge about the games and how to play or simple shyness or what.  They had a great time but this shyness kind of held them back from an amazing time!

Side Note:  We have a toy phone that when you dial it, it has prerecorded questions.  Charlie is playing with it beside me and it said "What are you bringing for show and tell today?" and Charlie thought for a second and said "A cupcake!"