“Every life is a different life”

As Luke waved goodbye to his friend Richard on leaving school on Friday, he said: “You know Mum, every life is a different life.” “What makes you say that?” “Richard is going to do different things from me now that we’re leaving school.”

Well, Luke’s life is very different from many young childrens’ – as he spends his time doing things like trekking up a mountain to reach the snow for a bit of a sledging session. As was the case on Saturday:

Happy Birthday Sarah!

My dear friend Sarah celebrated the big 4-oh on Thursday. A group of us went for afternoon tea at one of the local posh hotels (I never realised quite how many of them there are…).

And on Saturday Martin and I cooked her a slap-up meal here…Emily eating clams was a classic – she put the entire clam into her mouth, sucked the clam off and elegantly spat out the shell. Amazing!

Matthew brought the cake – in the shape of a green house (she was given a real one of those by her husband). Couldn’t quite fit everything into the photo…

And here’s little Emily trying on a wet suit (among other things in three bags of hand-me-downs she had just received). She looked like a mini-Miss-Marple in the brown tweed outfit on the right!

Here are some more pics from the last couple of weeks. Luke and I going for a muddy walk last weekend…

And a walk around Yew Tree Tarn on Sunday…

We got out the old fondue set recently for the first time in a long time…very nice, takes me back to the 70s!

And here’s the Main Man, digging up our allotment. Which concludes this post.

Thursday in the office…

We needed to have a bit of a talk about what to prioritise in terms of work for the next quarter or so, my co-director and I. Plus he needed to geo-code a local walk for an app he’s building for Lakeland Walker magazine. And so it was that today’s afternoon meeting was held as we ascended Helm Crag in the sunshine…

(That’s Martin on the right)

And this is how far some daffs have come in Grasmere on January 12!

First week of the new year

Wishing everyone a very happy 2012, and hope to see you all at some point!

We had a brilliant New Year’s Eve with Luke’s friend Josh and his parents Kate and Mark. However we had to cancel the fireworks, which we had planned for 5 pm, and instead just had some sparklers on the village green in the pouring rain….to make up for this we decided to invite some of Luke’s friends and their parents for a fireworks party on the evening of Jan 2. I made fish fingers for the kids and parsnip and ginger soup, with Martin’s home made bread, for the grown-ups. Good evening!

We’ve been on a few walks…Luke particularly loved this one on the side of Thirlmere, where he was the intrepid explorer clearing the way for me and Martin. Afterwards he even said; “Thanks, guys, for taking me on this walk, I loved it.”

On Friday, we celebrated Uncle Alastair’s (Jacob’s Godfather) 40th. Martin and I cooked starter and main course, and then it was time for Matthew’s cake…

…which was an anatomically correct representation of a human brain, made from correctly coloured sponge cake – pinkish (though Luke pointed out: “I think my brain is purple”). The cake even had the anatomical terms written all around; temporal lobe, and so on…

The boys did brilliantly; and absolutely scoffed the food (cured duck breast with melon, pickled cucumber and soya dressing and seabass cooked in salt with potatoes, green beans, asparagus and samphire and an olive oil, lemon and herb dressing (though they skipped the latter)).

This morning we found my old calligraphy pens and played around with them. This is Luke’s first attempt:

Martin has now gone off to take Josh back to University (Cardiff), and will be back tomorrow. It’s been great hanging out with Josh over the holidays – and we’ll miss him while he’s gone! Not least Luke.