Luke on stilts

Grandad Dave made these stilts for Luke for Christmas but, unfortunately, the original foot rests were not strong enough to support a growing lad! He has made these more sturdy ones now which Pete fixed on today. Looks like Luke has got the hang of stilt-walking OK.

The Maestro!

I finally figured out how to embed a video in the blog!!

Here is Joe playing one of his favourite pieces - Brahms' Lullaby. Hope it doesn't send you to sleep!

Bristol Weekend - climbing, drinking and exploring

We had a lovely time at the weekend in Bristol with Grannykim (now Professor Grannykim don't you know!) and Grandad, Mike, Freddie and Katie. The four cousins went rock climbing inside an old recycled church and scrambled up and down the walls like the monkeys they are. Saturday night the older boys went out on the lash (well we managed a few pints and some games of pool). On Sunday we had a walk through "Paradise" - up on Blackboy Hill (that's where the photos were taken).

This was also the first tour for Luke's hamster, Ruby. She enjoyed the drive down - most of it spent in her nest - although she did ask me to turn the stereo down (backseat hamsters!)

Pete had an exciting Monday as well as he got to send his first invoice for consultancy work!

Elaine's new place

Elaine moved into her new practice a couple of months ago and has now got a shiny brass plaque to prove it! It is a lovely, very old building next to the church, owned by Clare (the person on the other plaque). Elaine has her own room which she shares with her new associate, Caireen, and the other rooms in the building are slowly filling up with hypnotherapists, acupuncturists and the like. There was an open evening last Friday with champagne and nibbles for everyone involved in setting up the practice - plus the mayor (of course) who cut the ribbon!

'The Game'

Testing,testing! This is Lucas speaking. This is a rather charming piccy of Joey playing 'the game'! This incredible photo was taken by me on my own camera! 'The game is a game (believe it or not) using toy cars, playmobile and other stuff that's fun to play with.

Our newest family member

After trying for a good ten minutes to take a reasonable photo of Ruby, my admiration of wildlife photographers has increased considerably! She is always on the move but occasionally pauses just long enough for a digital camera to be completely useless - press the button, pause, click, "oh she's moved"!

Anyway, this is the best of a bad bunch. We are taking her on tour at the weekend - to Bristol. So Freddie and Katie will get the chance to see her properly. I seem to remember that Grandad Dave likes rodents (unlike cats, dogs, cows - when they are in his garden, etc.) so hopefully she will enjoy her trip.

Healthy living

I have not had a cup of coffee for two days, instead I have been drinking hippy teas (green, and ginger and lemongrass to be precise)! I have also decided that, now I am working from home, I am going to avoid stodgy sandwiches for lunch and make homemade veggie soups instead. I made some with butternut squash, parsnip and red pepper today - I took a photo of it so that I could post it here (a la Mike!) but it came out a bit fuzzy and looked a bit regurgitated. Tastes nice though.

This afternoon we went to the sports centre for an hour and played badminton. It went really well until, towards the end, Luke and Joe got a bit giggly and started kicking the shuttlecock to each other! I did manage to get a pic of the sporty pair. Hope you like it.

It all went a bit pear-shaped this evening though as Luke made a lovely squidgy chocolate cake and we had enormous wedges after tea! Yum.

If you can't beat them...make your own blog!

Help - I've found out how to make a blog! Now I've got to try to be witty and convince people that the life of the Theringtone family is full of excitement.

If I can figure out how to put a picture here I will add Joe's bit of excitement for today - winning one of the competitions he had entered from his favourite comic - Toxic. A huge bag arrived today full of Biker Mice from Mars gear - toys, hat, bag, DVD and T-shirt. He was absolutely thrilled.