Silver Friends

Richard and Iris Rountree had their 25th wedding aniversery yesterday, and we three were invited, which was a great honour and touching. The whole family are good friends and it was great to beable to celebrate that with them. They got two cakes, one witha picture of them on the wedding day, and one taken recently.

Richard and Iris

Rountree Girls

Great afternoon, most of which Charlotte slept through (and missed most of the food). She did wake intime for Jennifer to take her to the swings.
When we got her home, she wanted to sleep more, so she sat on the chair.

Going....

Going...

Gone!!
After that she woke. I carried her into the kitchen for her tea, and in transit she barfed over me. Good job we are going on holiday, and she can barf in somebody elses house (only a joke John, it is only because she was teething, and she was back to normal today).

Last of Dr Who

Did my "Dr Who" assembly this morning and Lizzy, from homework club, gave a wee yelp when I mentioned Dr Who. She is a bit of a fan (of Dr Who, not nesessarily me).
I felt a wee bit let down by Saturdays episode. Don't get me wrong, it had great special effects, the regeneration was ok (it was nice that David Tennants first outing as the Doctor was on his birthday, the same date and year as mine), and it had captain Jack!!
But
The Bad Wolf was a let down. The whole Rose becomming omnipatent was dull and the way the Dr "died" reminded me too much of Peter Davidsons exit. And don't get me started on the amount of pouting Rose did, and the brooding the Dr did. It seemed to be sloppy writing.
I did like the bit in the end titles where it said ...
Dr Who will be back in...
brought me back to the years of the Roger Moore Bond, where it told you what the next Bond movie would be. Ah, memories.

Birthday boy

It has been a long day after a long week. It just so happens that my birthday is on the same day as the Sunday School trip to Exploris, so we all went.
We met a friendly duck

julie learnt about some sea life

while Charlotte got bored and drew

with some help from me

All in all (apart from the long journey and sitting near the Bible Class boyswho kept chattering in a way to drive the most balanced person mad) it was a good day.
Missed the first showing of Dr Who, but am taping it tonight.

Traditional Irsh Presbyterian Wedding we attended on Tuesday. Jo and John

A few too many attractive young ladies at Johns wedding.

Happy couple on there way for photos (before we went to Coca-Cola with some friends)

Cup of tea in Church hall after

Childrens day

Long day on Sunday with the two childrens day services and church picnic. I was playing for both (with Kenneth), so i sometimes looked down when i was playing and found Charlotte with arms raised, looking for a better view. She was there just for the morning service (tecnicly an afternoon service, starting at noon, so she had her sarnies with her). She didn't make a sound and when Julie moved to the front was mostly content to watch what was happening, and copy the actions, only not as good and two steps behind.

Julie enjoying the picnic.

Nerd or what?

Some day i will work with young poeple who enjoy sci-fi, young people that I can talk to about Alan Davis run in Avengers comic, and who will be as excited as I am about the last Two Dr Who episodes; 'Bad Wolf'.
This is a build up of clues all through the series, and augmented by the brilliant BBC site www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/.
Our young people would rather watch naked wrestlening on Men and Moters channel. Wheres the excitment in that?

From Bats to batty

One of our drop-in regulars came in this afternoon with a bat (flying mamal kind, not the kind you use to beat people up, yet are still sold in sports stores in NI, even when there are apsolutly no teams for palying baseball).
He had just finished his math exam (boy, not bat) and saw it flying around the school. Realising that it was the bat equivelent to the death sentence to leave in in a Garvagh school, he took it with him. Some of the others in the drop-in acted as if they never saw a real animal in their lives: "Put it on the table tennis table while we play" and "see if it will go into your arm pit" were sudgested for uses of a wild animal. We pleaded for its release before it got out of hand. It was a kind act, saving the bat.

At Tesco this evening, while reversing out of my space, a mad man wizzed by me to park mostly in two dissabled spaces, and then ambled into the store with his wellys on. What a plank.

Saturday morning going through the papers in the pool (we now buy our weekly Saturday paper in terms of what the free gift is. Guardian won this week; it didn't have a free gift, but judging what gifts the other papers were give away, that was a good thing). 

Flower girls

I bought Julie a bunch of flowers yesterday (no reason, I am just a great husband, and modest too!).
While Julie was arranging them, Charlotte decided to have a go with some of the off cuts, so Julie gave her a couple of flowers. She had a great time arranging them. First she put them in a vase. Then she took them out of a vase. Then she put them in a vase. Then she took them out a vase. It went on for some time, and she had great fun.. Pitty she won't get another chance for a long time.


Being creative

Charlottes flower arranging

Julies flower arranging.

New pool

Julie had a great idea of buying an inflatable paddling pool and putting those toddler balls into it. Great success.
Charlotte loves it, and even wants a dip before breakfast. The top three fav activities are:

1. Sitting in the empty pool and having the balls unloaded onto her.
2. being held up , and her legs used to stir the balls in the pool
3. being laid on her back in the pool, with the balls beneth her, and being rolled around (she really giggles at that).

It is nice just to sit with her in the pool and watch Balamory, with a cup of tea.

Lazing around the pool. 

Back stroke!