Tuesday 24 April 2012

Easter 2012

We went to Salcombe to The Seaside House for the Easter holidays and it were gert lush!


Oh flipping hell. I have written and rewritten this paragraph but I am finding it hard to get my words out.  I thinks it a combination of having written this post in my head a dozen times, the desire to be humorous and having left it quite a long time between posts. So I'll just natter away and see what twoddle falls out of my head and into the computer.



I love Salcombe. It's a funny little town but there is something for everyone there. Water, sailing, beaches, shops, walks...  and arguably the best sweet shop in the South West. Now I'll say this but please don't judge me, the only thing I'm not keen on is the abundance of the "Rah Rah" set during peak season. Now don't get me wrong it's not so much about them, it's more about me. I find them a little intimidating on mass. It is like another world!






 

We spent the first week of the holiday with Granny and Poppa AND with The Chipper Nelly Gang! Yes you read right. They were there at the same time, it was just a stroll through the boat park and up the estuary to see them. It was quite surreal and magical. I loved our time together en famille. My boys adored Fee and Cleggy's boys. They called them 'The Mates' and wanted to be with them as much as possible. Now I could gush shamelessly but I wont because I don't want to appear odd but I will say The Mates have made me feel excited about my boys inevitable growing up. I feared that as they became proper boys rather than little children I would feel a bit disjointed from them. I worried that I wouldn't quite get them. I was always a girls girl and so have no experience with boys. Now, having spent some time with these three wonderful kids, I feel optimistic about the future in a way I hadn't quite before. I loved chatting to these big lads. I loved their magic tricks, loved their crazy dancing, loved how much they ate! They were great fun and wonderful company. That really is no surprise since Fee and Cleggy are just superb creatures themselves. (By the way Fee, today one of my mates who reads your blog said she thinks Clegg is very handsome. Then Big, out of the blue, said in the car on the way to beavers. "Cleggy is Clever Cleggy. Bery Clever Cleggy" Does that make up for the Wubbish Dad thing?)

Here are a few pics. I was Wubbish at taking photo's when we were there. I took my nice camera but it stayed in the bag and I used my mobile, not very often either. Do go over to Fee's to see her post about their holiday as she has some wonderful pictures of South Devon to peruse.


The boys and I made up a silly High Five hand shake with in about half an hour of meeting.
I always got it wrong!

I love this photo. Happy smiley faces.

Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaw!

This is not a typical shot of these two. Geordie Boy is usually blurry because he is so busy and this must be the only time he wasn't grinning from ear to ear and back again. Alfie, despite being a preteen was utterly charming, not to mention cool, and spent very little time on the DS.


Kenzie's awesome card tricks.

One of my favourite memories from the holiday was Geordie Boy hurtling down the hill in our cheap stroller with Cleggy racing after him. He may or may not have been shouting "Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaw" but Fee was definately incapacitated with mirth! Poor Cleggy, every time he said "No" in his Newcastle-ish accent Mr C and I would bellow "Naaaaaaaaaaaaaw" in the style of the teacher from Postman Pat. We thought it was hilarious. I'm sure it wasn't. Sorry chap. 



On Easter Friday my belle souer arrived for the weekend which eased the leaving of The Mates for my boys. We had the usual lovely time all together but the highlight was definately all becoming entranced with the app Draw Free. My Mother in Law was just hilarious, her embellished drawing of pee will go down in family folklore. Along with Uncle Dorv turning fire breather. (Scroll to the end of that very long post)

The second week all the in laws went home and Mr C went back to work. But I wasn't alone as Kmmms and her girls came to stay for a couple of nights.

Kmmms and the sunshine baby





It was so lovely to spend some time together. We chatted, we laughed, drank a little wine in the afternoon in a beer garden, went crabbing, ate ice cream, laughed at Cassette Boy's The Apprentice mash up and did some yarny stuff too. Please do a crochet up date post, Kmmms, so we can see your super Granny Squares.

Kmmms went home on the Wednesday a few hours after Clairey arrived. It was lovely to have that all too brief over lap. It was a bit bonkers in the small cottage with three over excited women, six kids 6 years old and under and one pre toddler, as you can imagine, but memories are made of this.

We took the ferry over to the beach on one of the days. It was a right old palaver. One of my kids kicked off and I was heard shrieking in a PMT style "You better have fun on the beach as you have no idea what an effort it is to get there with this buggy!" Poor kid. 


When we alighted from the boat the rain started falling but it soon cleared and the sky was, again, amazing, the clouds just mesmerizing.








All the children had a fantastic time. Especially Mini Cuckoo who as you can see crawled with speed across the beach and later planted himself in a rock pool before scaling the mountain of rocks to be with his brothers. It was unbelievable, one minute he was at the bottom, the next he was up the top and then he was back down again. We have bred another mountain goat!


Above is a picture of Clairey's blanket. The colours are delish. If you want to see what Kmmms was crocheting then pop over to her blog. Hopefully soon she'll have a moments peace to blog about her lovely granny blanket in the making. I realise I have just repeated myself.


Here's what I was knitting, Alice Caterpillar wrist warmers, the pattern will be in Suzie Johnson's new book which I helped her with by 'modelling' her clever knits. I say modelling but that is a generous description of my efforts. Fortunately Becca Roundhill is a superb photographer and made Suzie's stuff look as amazing on film as they are in real life. These wrist warmers are available to download from Ravelry now too.


And finally I'll leave you with this picture of a boat that tickled me!


xxx


27 comments:

  1. As always brilliant post, you sound like you've had a fab Easter hols with friends and family, your boys look like they were having a ball.....what is it with boys, they are all climbers, but the youngest one always does the most daring moves and generally they do it in the blink of an eye....like when you are doing the right thing picking up after your naughty pup, only to hear a 'mummy look at me' and your three yea r old is half way up the side of a cliff.....

    Big twit to you too....there is a cuckoo joke there somewhere......

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  2. fab post my gorgeous friend (and not just because it features 'the mates' - or that you said my OH was handsome!)
    It was a lovely week - gonna move on before the holiday blues come back....
    fee x

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  3. Great post! Looks like you had a right laugh over Easter. Love the way the family of Mr C are all in their nautical stripes, the sea does that to you!
    Looks like the boys all enjoyed themselves, I find kids are better behaved on the beach. The fresh air keeps them calm or something.
    Cleggy is too handsome, I told you that yesterday. And Fee looks a pretty peach - I think she is the owner of the best smile I've seen in ages.
    Loving the boat name and Faith's joke!
    xxxx

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  4. What a wonderful holiday. It sounds absolutely glorious. I have to admit that at the start of the post I was wondering if I would need to use a translate program: Gert lush and Rah Rah are not commonly heard in Australia, but I think I understood what you meant!

    How is it that you always manage to look glamorous, even at the beach or doing silly things with the kids? So jealous. At the moment I look a little like a slightly crazed beached whale!

    Glad to hear (read?) from you again.

    xXx Helen

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  5. Gorgeous post angel, great to see you had a wonderful Easter break and lovely to see the boys have so much fun x x x

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  6. Looks and sounds like you had a brilliant time!
    I love those sugared almond coloured buildings. :)
    Vivienne x

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  7. Hello you! Lovely post as ever.

    I really, really want to go to the seaside and poke about in rock pools and take a leisurely stroll up that road lined with prettiest coloured houses. It sounds like you all had a great holiday. Do you get that lovely mummy feeling when your children have had loads of fresh air play? Love that you met up with Fee - I can imagine you and her really 'clicking'.

    Great photo of your friend Claire's stripy crochet - did she mind you zooming in on her cleavage though?!!! (I'm only jealous because I have to take a few minute to manipulate my boobs to form any sort of cleavage!)

    Hxx

    PS. Draw Free craze going on here too - despite being married to D for 14 years, I had no idea exactly HOW useless he is at drawing. His kangaroo looked like a tampon! x

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  8. Looks like you had a great holiday. Lovely photos and how brilliant to be able to catch up with all your mates in such nice surroundings.Your boys look like they were enjoying themselves!
    x

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  9. Great holiday photos! The boys look like they had fun on the beach, love those pretty wrist warmers, Claire's blanket of stripey goodness, and that row of pastel houses is now stuck in my head :)

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  10. I was wondering where you were so glad to hear that is all well. Great photo's looks like you had a wonderful time. Its fun with older boys Mr J's boys were 17 yesterday and i still made a birthday cake for them they have a great sense of humour and when there together with mine its a right laugh. Boys i think are far more cuddly than girls to ;-)) Love your project at the moment to. Take care, dee xx

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  11. What a wonderful post. I have loved reading about your adventures. Sounded and looked like you had a wonderful time. Wonderful pictures. X

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  12. Sounds like a wonderful holiday - the photos are gorgeous! Love the name of the boat!!!

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  13. Looks like you had a lovely time!!!! Fliss xxx

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  14. Looks like you had a fab time. How funny that everyone's wearing stripes in the Cuckoo clan! Did you take your sewing art to hang there? Let's have a butchers.

    By Rah Rah do you mean posh? I fort your family was posh, innit. I love those braying types; I find them so entertaining.

    Isn't Fee and her family gorgeous. They are like a TV family to me; all perfect, handsome, smiley, colourful and fun. I will have to think up ways to convince Fee to adopt me. Your boys are lookers too. I DO NOT envy you and Fee as your boys get older and start up with the girls. You'll have sobbing, broken-hearted girls knocking on the door at all hours.

    xxx

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  15. looks like you had a lovely time , lovely pics, Salcombe is lovely went for a day lat year and yes lots of posh folk very yah yah absolutely !xx

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  16. Sounds and looks like you had a fabulous holiday, with so much going on all the time.

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  17. Great post - looks like you had a lovely, happy time and lovely to see such smiley children. Did you finish the pics for the Seaside House? Love to see how they turned out...xx

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  18. Looks like a very busy fun packed holiday! Thank you for sharing it with us!

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  19. Lovely post. Salcombe is a great place.
    Looks like you all have had the most wonderful time.
    Julie xxxxxxxx

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  20. Lovely, lovely pics - looks like a whale of a time was had by all, I particularly like the rock pooling pics!!

    The Chipper Nelly boys look about the same age as my boys, I don't think I will ever stop feeling sad that they are growing up so fast but I definitely still "get" them and you will too with your boys.

    They are fab company and although they think I am a bit of a loon I kinda like that - it's nice to be a loving, demonstrative, silly girly Mummy (my boys still call us Mummy & Daddy which I love, I was not prepared to change my name - Mummy I started out as and Mummy I will stay!!)

    Hugs,

    S x

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  21. What a fantastic time you all have had. Full of fun friends and busy times.

    Love your photo's Salcombe looks really pretty I have never been there might have to convince the other half to have a visit at some point!

    Lol! Love the name of the boat.


    P x

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  22. Love the look on Mr C's face in the pic with Cleggy, priceless, looks like they got on really well too. What a fantastic holiday 'gert lush' as you say, full of fun and friends. Mini is growing like a weed, like your other two beautiful boys. Don't worry I am still close to my boys and they are all grown up now.
    Love to all.
    Sandi xoxo

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  23. What a gorgeous, gorgeous post hon! It looks like you and all the fellas had an absolute blast. What a beautiful part of the world to be in. It's so lovely seeing all these lovely places on the other side of the planet. Now all I need to do is win Lotto and I can visit them myself - that would be the business!!

    Have a fab week hon - see you again soon. PS: I love your gert lush saying!!
    Leah
    xxxx

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  24. Such a heart warming post and your photographs are fab...I love Salcombe and need to go back soon!
    Thanks so much for visiting my blog today...I'm a new follower...not sure how I've missed you,
    Susan x

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  25. Had to say Hi,have loved reading your blog, can't remember how I stumbled upon it now! Lovely post, what brilliant holiday memories you are giving your boys - idyllic. I so agree actually about the rah-rahs taking over a bit. Went to a wedding like that on Saturday. Felt like token working class oik! Anyway, I love your blog, you are brilliant, don't change!

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  26. It looks and sounds like you had such a lovely Easter holiday!
    I think Salcombe's fab! Simon's parents live in Devon (in Exmouth). And your lovely pics have made me want to re-visit. So, next time we visit the in-laws (in July/August), I'm going to request a little day trip! :-)
    Carly
    x

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  27. Great post! By the way, my boys have been lovely growing up - W (14) will still give me a hug if I ask him (and sometimes he asks me if i want one - no grumpy teenager here - yet. That could be famous last words!) and J, at 9, is still as kissy & cuddly and affectionate as ever and will still climb on my lap for a snuggle.
    R x

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I L♡VE your comments. Thank you ever so for taking the time. I do try to get back to everyone but I am rather scatty and I have these 3 big distractions....(and I'm just generally a bit rubbish lately, so please don't feel obliged to leave a note) Sorry about the word verification too, too much spam.