Three Months

Not sure how I managed to go exactly three months without posting here, but I regret now that I did. I was looking back over the blog the other day and I was sad that there'll be no record to look back on in October, November and December 2009. Oh well. Must try harder!

It's been an eventful time. We went back to St Bees again in October, and Jon went on two more mediumship courses. Emily grew up overnight into a young lady who'll be ten in ten days time - ten going on fifteen, that is; we've had teenage moods in all their glory, but we've also had the most wonderful company you could ask for. Strange, this growing up lark. Emily had her ears pierced recently and is contemplating dying her hair. She's suffering from a type of alopecia areata which is making her eyebrows and eyelashes fall out and her hair is slightly thinning at the temples, bless her, which is affecting her self-confidence and self-esteem quite a lot, and she's also being bothered by early spots. We're focusing a lot on celebrating differences right now. Emily has a interest in all things goth related, but I think she's a bit taken aback that Mum and Dad are more than happy for her to die her hair, experiment with heavy make up and learn about all things "dark", lol - what's she supposed to rebel against?? First photo of pierced ears below :-)

All five cats are happy and healthy, although Cassie-cat is showing her age and looking increasingly frail. She still loves to go out though and is very affectionate. Looking at this picture reminds me that we need to redecorate Emily's bedroom next year. I did say, having done our bedroom and Emily's "blue room" this year that I would never, ever, ever again redecorate anything....but my resolve is weak, so Emily's bedroom, our office and our sitting room next year it is then!

In early January we will be welcoming the pitter patter of two tiny new feet. No, not that kind. Our menagerie will be joined by a baby Congo African Grey Parrot :-)) We have a huge cage and toys waiting and assorted play stands etc as the parrot (tentatively named Lulu, at this stage, but we'll have to see) will spend much of the day out of his/her cage and keeping us company around the house. We need to go right up to North Northumberland to collect him/her but we're so excited! I say him/her because apparently the only way of reliably sexing a parrot is via DNA testing, which we're not having done.

Over the last three months I've worked very hard at Best of the Web, in addition to my normal writing commitments - the new UK & Ireland Directory has finally launched, which I'm very pleased and proud to have been around for. Jon has also been working very hard at his end and we have some very definite career/business plans for the New Year to look forward to. Emily's education has been.... "interesting", especially with the hormone swings factored in. But we're doing OK and we'll be doing even better in the New Year since we've had time recently to discuss together what we're doing and why, and how we want to proceed home-ed wise. One thing that has been going on a huge amount is cooking - Emily now cooks a full meal for us at least once a week and regularly disappears downstairs where she throws together a cake or cookies - without recipe - in minutes. She has a real knack for this kind of thing. Yum, yum!

Other than that brief round up it seems pointless to try catching up on everything I've missed posting, so I'll just pop in some photos from recent months.

Halloween tree and our glorious collection of home grown pumpkins, plus Severus looking like a truly Halloween cat:



Emily experimenting with the knex set and learning about levers by building and working with a set of scales. She also built a grand piano. As you do.



Beautiful kibbies sharing a basket:

In terms of more recent life, last Saturday was the annual Christmas party at Emily's karate club, which she loved. Jon was Father Christmas for the third year running.... even one of the grown ups wanted to sit on his knee, rofl!



We've spent some time recently out in the garden in the dark with lots of hot chocolate and the Christmas lights.



On Sunday, Emily passed a karate grading with flying colours and moved up to purple belt. She's moving into the adult class from January onwards, so she's very excited about that. Yesterday we went to the cinema with Hazel and Romy to see Inkheart; very entertaining, but I gather very different to the book, especially in the ending - perhaps they're not planning to film Inkspell and Inkdeath. We also braved Tesco which was ridiculously busy; we wanted a frozen turkey, but they'd removed all the frozen ones and replaced them with fresh turkeys - for up to £50 a throw. Yes, ladies and gents, that's fifty pounds for a turkey. OK. Refused to pay that and went away without one. Jon later found on in the Co-op for a fifth of the price. What happens to people at Christmas time? It's insane. Today, Emily's made Kirsch truffles as a gift for someone and has also made marzipan biscuits for Christmas day and used quilling to make three beautiful Christmas cards for Nana, Gramps and Grandad.

And that's that, news wise. Christmas Eve tomorrow :-)) Wishing everyone a very Merry and Peaceful Christmas with family and loved ones.