Things that make you go ahhh...

As you know I am not a big fan of mud. Or sleet. Or cold rain (although warm, tropical rain is quite exciting and fun to play in).

SO

In an attempt not to be such a party-pooper-blah-bringer here are a few photos taken recently of things that have been really cool:

Fantastic Sunrise... and I was even up early enough to see it AND conscious enough to photograph it!

Pip was ever so proud of the lego pyramid he built...

Static Fantastic! - Spike had fantastic SPIKEY hair from playing under a parachute

Have you ever seen such an excited face? We were tossing pancakes and The Dude couldn't wait for us to say GO!

And we had great excitement in the garden this afternoon when 'our' sparrowhawk and 'our' crows decided to vye for dominance in the garden. Get lost, this is my garden! No, it's mine and I'll teach you to be so insolent!

The blackbirds and other smaller birds were not pleased with any of it and flapped and squawked frantically from bush to bush trying to hide as none of them fancied becoming the sparrowhawk's dinner!

Look at her all puffed up against the miserable sleet. I almost hoped she'd catch something. She must be hungry. It will soon be mating and nesting season so she needs to build herself up.
Anyone down there? Dinner, perhaps?

Waiting

So far February hasn't been living up to much... the tail end of winter. The toenails, as we used to call the last little bit of beer left in the bottle that had gone all warm and nasty when I was a wild (?) University student...

So we are at the toenails of winter... waiting for it to shed the mud and muck and emerge from its gungy old chrysalis into the glory of spring.

And like the last weeks of pregnancy it is the longest, most boring time. There are hints of what is yet to come (the Braxton Hicks contractions?). We have snowdrops. We have a few, brave crocus buds (which haven't opened because we haven't had any actual sunshine). We have daffodil leaf buds. We have some tiny, fuzzy pussy-willow buds. We have a few catkins braving the weather.

But most of all what we have is mud. And rain. With the odd interjection of sleet. Which does nobody any good at all. Honestly.

Anyone feel like joining me in a round of 'why are we waiting'?

In the meantime we have been enjoying our half-term break by lounging in our pyjamas, having friends to play, participating in the Armchair Winter Olympics (where we are headed for a gold medal!) and generally lounging about. Interspersed with bouts of racing around outside... the boys were playing Family Olympics outside the other day... obstacle courses and silly rules. Burned off a lot of energy which helped everyone's sanity levels!

Still... looking forward to life a month from now. At least the days are getting significantly longer! Every mud puddle has a silver lining!