Poodle Puppy Update

The poodle puppies have all ben sold. One of them (Mary) has gone to the moon. Didn't you know that is where Claire said she send Mary but actually she has gone to Scotland and her new house is 3, The Moon.
A lady is flying, if the Icelandic volcano lets her, from Bermuda to collect Hercules. She is going to fly him back on the plane to Bermuda. I think he is going the furthest of all the puppies.
Maybe the Poodle Mummy Heidi will have more cuddly puppies. They grow very big and need long walks.

Allotment

We have got an aplotment, at least I call it that, but Mummy says it is a half allotment plot. I like going there and getting muddy and squelchy. My boots get really heavy with all the mud from the puddles I play in.
When we got our shed I helped Mummy and Daddy put the paving slabs flat by bouncing on them. I did a good job and bounced on every one of the slabs and showed Daddy where they weren't stable.
Grandpa helped Daddy put the shed up on top of the slabs. I went and helped with my measuring tape and showed them where they had missed the nail holes. It took them a long time to do.





I have lots of plans for our aplotment and want to grow sweetcorn, asparagus, beans, carrots and potatoes to start with but Mummy and Daddy seem to have some plans too.












Didn't you know on of my jobs is to hunt for bugs and interesting animals. I thought this was a Mummy frog giving her baby frog a piggyback. Mummy explained that it is a Daddy and a Mummy frog mating nad htat the Mummy will go and put frogspawn in a pond. They were int he way of hte paving slabs and made a horrible squeal when I prodded htem out of the way of the concrete. In the end Mummy put them on the spade and moved them somewhere safe and I watched to make sure they stayed safe. They disappeared when I was not looking. Mummy thought they moved on purpose because they had been squeaking at me.

Mummy and I worked really hard at making plant pots out of toilet and kitchen roll tubes htat she has been saving in bags for ages and ages. Mummy says we can plant them striaght in the ground when the seeds are ready and the roots will grow through the cardboard. Daddy helped me plant beans and peas and sunflowers because the bees need the pollen and to make honey and one of the people at the allotment has got beehives. Didn't you know you cna keep chickens on the allotment and the man next to us has three plots and he has chickens too.
Sometimes we see him collecting eggs and tucking the chickens in for the night. He has cockerals too and they are in a shed at the bottom and we can hear them when we are working on our plot.
Susan has the other bit of our plot and she lets me come onto her patch and look for bugs and things. She doesn't like spiders or frogs and has lots of them.








Grandma and Grandad gave me my rake for Easter and Daddy dug a bed for the carrots nad told me they need raked soil so I used the rake to break up the big bits of soil and he planted lots of seeds.
I have to do lots of work and I am the trudger. I have a pink watering can. My best colour is pink so it is just for me. I used to have to trudge a very long way to the water butt. Mummy makes me wear my waterproof trousers because a lot of water splashed as I carried it. Now there is a nearer water butt that I can reach into and it glugs water back in when I take water out so it is always ready for my watering can.



The best bit so far is the strawberries. They already have flowers on so we will have strawberries for me to pick and eat. I might let Mummy have some because she likes strawberries. I helped Daddy take all the sticky bits off the cardboard from Mummy's pottery delivery and put it on the soil to make it warm and stop me having to do weeding.

I got cold planting the strawberries but I will eat them. We have a cupboard in our shed to keep things in. Mummy is gong to find a biscuit tin to put custard creams in for when we have been working hard at the plot. Last time we had jaffa cakes which are yummy and give me a chocolate smile.

Look at all the flowers full of pollen for the bees to make into honey and for the plant to make into dtrawberries for my tummy.

Poodle Puppies

Mummy took me to visit Henry and his Mummy and they had 8 poodle puppies.
I took this photograph of my Mummy holding the littlest and biggest of the puppies. Hercules is the biggest and Piglet is the littlest.
They were ever so soft and fluffy.








The puppies kept trying to escape so Claire had put chairs round to make it difficult for them to climb.
I didn't hold one but I did stroke them. Mummy and Claire stroked and held lots of them but I was busy playing in the garden with Henry.
After the puppies had had their food we went in from the garden and as soon as you wnet into the kitchen you had to hold your nose because they were so smelly all round the house. It was a good job we had taken some newspapers for the pooey poodle puppies.




The puppies were tiny and cute but their Mummy was nearly as big as me. She came out into the garden to eat the food the puppies had spilled. Sometimes she came under the trampoline whilst Henry and I were bouncing on it. Heidi (the Mummy dog) was not very good at the obstacle course and stayed away from the swing. Heidi is an apricot poodle. I sometimes eat apricots.

Easter

On Palm Sunday I stroked and cuddled the donkey called Lily and I fed her a carrot after church. She came into church but I couldn't see her very well because we were sat on the side. We had some sticks of bamboo from the garden to wave like they did in the bible for Jesus. We were all given palm crosses made of palm leaves like the ones they waved in the Bible. Plam trees don't grow here but they do grow in Jerusalem.


I made these chocolates with Nanna of course because Mummy doesn't make this much chocolate. Nanna cannot eat the chocolates because they make her cough but I can eat them because I like chocolates.
We used Nanna's tempering machine; you put chocolate buttons in on one side and wait and wait and some buttons flash and beep. The chocolate gets melted then you get a load of chocolate to eat afterwards and scoop into a bowl.
To make chocolates get a scoop of melted chocolate and put it into a mould. Shake the mould and scrape the top clean and put it in the fridge. After it has been in the fridge for quite a long time you can eat it which is the best bit.
Nanna made some truffles and I put a scoop of chocolate in my hand and then rolled the lump of truffle in my hand until it was covered with chocolate.
I like licking my hands and the bowl clean at the end.
Nanna made these biscuits and I used melted chocolate to put the eyes on.
She made some nests and I did put the eggs in. They tasted very good indeed.



These are Simnel Cakes that I helped Nanna make. Nanna made the cakes and covered them with marzipan. I like eating marzipan but couldn't have any until I had made the 101 balls.
Actually it was not quite that many. I made 66 balls of marzipan so that each cake could have 11 balls on. Didn't you know that the balls were to be Jesus' disciples but not Judas because he had betrayed Jesus.

Nanna gave me this kit and Mummy helped me stick it together. We used very sticky glue and pegs. The glue stuck to me like the sticky sticky glue in "The Twits"
I was given some finger puppets for Easter nad they now live in my bunny bag.









I called this chick Flower because of all the flowers I stuck on it's tummy. Mummy taught me blanket stitch and I sewed around the edge and Mummy did a few stitches. Then I stuffed it full of stuffing to make it soft and squishy like a cushion. Flower lives in my bed now and I made a rabbit too that is pink (my best colour) and blue. The rabbits nose has fallen off because I was sleeping on it.




At church on Easter Sunday I wore my Easter bonnet with fake paper flowers that Mummy made for me and I gave Grandpa and Nanna flowers that I made for them. Mummy calls them everlasting flowers but I call them fake.
Father Richard led all the children round church making lots of noise for the Easter Parade. There were balloons in chuch and flowers and the Easter garden had Mary and Jesus in it. We walked all round church with blowers and some of the grown ups covered their ears. We made a lot of noise and even some grown ups had blowers and the balloons that whizz all over the place.





Afterwards it was time for the egg rolling and we had to dash out of church to be there in time. When we did it as a family Nanna won. If I had thrown my egg extra hard I might have cracked it in two. Nanna made me a duck egg cakked a Pace Egg that she had boiled in onion skins making it brown and patterened.
I was rolling my egg on the concrete when Nanna, Grandpa and I walked to The Almanack and Grandpa stood on my egg ON PURPOSE (typers note, Grandpa denies the egg squishing was deliberate!) so I took Daddy's egg instead.
This picture is me and my Grandpa in the sun and I am wearing my Rock Chick sunglasses that Auntie Elissa gave me.

At The Almanack I had dipping doughnuts for lunch with custard and Grandpa ate the chocolate sauce that had come with the doughnuts. I like lying with my head upside down.

Knitting

Mummy and I are in a knitting club called Knit and Natter that meets at the Almanack on Thursday mornings. We could not knit before we joined and at first Mummy helped me with my scarf. Now I knit by myself and I can talk and knit at the same time like the other ladies in the group.

Nanna comes too but she calls the group "Crochet and Chat" because she does not knit. I call the group "Knit and Natter, Crochet and Chatter". Mummy has learnt to crochet but is not as fast as Nanna at all. I have a special knitting bag that I take with me and Mummy challenges me to knit a number of rows each time.

Last week there was a power cut at the Almanack and so we had to knit in the dark and I still managed to knit a row.

Mummy makes me toast and puts butter and honey on it. I have an Innocent pouch to drink or a hot milk or a strawberry milkshake. I like the milkshake because it comes with a straw and smarties on top of the cream. If Mummy has a hot chocolate I like to have her marshmallows. Nanna has a hot mint tea and lets me squash the leaves with a spoon. It goes green.

Didn't you know if I put a green smartie in water the smartie goes white and the water changes colour a little. If you put three smarties in water the water tastes funny afterwards and it takes a long time for the colour to come off them all. Didn't you know the smarties don't have to be green to go white because it works with all smarties. If you suck a smartie and don't bite it then it goes white and soft in your mouth. Mummy says the orange ones taste the best and are her favourites but pink is my best colour. If I lick a smartie and then put it on the cream on my milkshake then the colour of the cream changes and the smartie sticks to the cream. I have done these experiments and lots of others. Daddy and I are going to make a battery with coins and make a clock work with a potato or mud. I like doing experiments at home especially messy ones.

Mummy has also learned to knit and she made these hats for Daddy and me. She made Daddy's first and I kept borrowing it so she made one for me. I chose the wool for mine from Nanna's collection and made Mummy knit with 3 different colours of pink.

She made it too small at first so had to take it apart and try again. The next time it was still too small for my ears so she made me the earflaps and the big bobble on top. It is snuggly and I tie it under my chin so it doesn't blow off in the wind.
I am making a pink scarf and when the pink is used up there are other colours. I have new needles now and you can see where I started knitting without help (it has some holes in it) and then where I used my new needles because they helped me make it neaat and Mummy says it has a tight tension and is consistent. When I have finished I will photograph it and wear it.

Ice Skating

Mummy took me ice skating in Solihull but she stayed off the ice as she has not got good balance. One of the home ed Daddies (Andre) took me on the ice and I held Andre's hand round the ice.
This was my first time on real ice and it was a lot more slippy than the plastic ice Daddy took me on in the summer.
I waved at Mummy every time I went past. I cam off to have a bite off banana but wanted to get straight back on.








This is my friend Holly and it was her first time ice skating too. She held my hand and I held the barrier. She wobbled and I fell over lots. We wouldn't let the home ed Daddies help us as we wanted to go round on our own.
Mummy had spare trousers for me but I didn't put them on because I wanted to stay on the ice.
We had to dash off Solihull and I had an in car picnic on the way to my dance class.






Last week Mummy took me iceskating for the second time on the real ice.
This time I did not hold Holly's hand but am skating across the middle with Holly. I am really confident because I am wearing double bladed skates.










I really like ice skating a huge bit. I can now skate forwards and backwards and turn in a circle.



Mummy said I looked like a penguin as I skated round the ice. I enjoyed skating across the middle of the rink. Allison is one of the bigger home ed girls and she skated with me so that the big boys on the ice wouldn't crash into me.



I didn't fall over until the very end of the session. I learnt how to get myself up when I fell and it didn't hurt.
I tried to skate and touch my toes at the same time but it was easier to touch my toes when I was standing still.


My ice skating nonsense song:
Ice skating, ice skating is really fun,
Though it is cold, it is really slippy,
When I've got double blades, I'm really hot.
How fun would it be to skate on your nose.

Snow

I have written a poem about the snow. A couple of weeks ago we had lots of snow and had snowball fights with Debs outside The Almanack and then played in the snow on the green the next morning.

SNOW


Snow, snow, wonderful snow.
'Though it is soft and powdery
you can make snowballs to throw.

I love to shock my Mummy
with a snowball to her tummy.
Daddy is surprised
by a snowball at his thighs.

I love it when it snows
'though it is chilly on my toes
and snowflakes do land on my nose.


I love making angels in the snow.
It helps when I wear waterproof trousers below.

My bottom and legs stay dry,

so I can make angels and not cry.

I do not like snowballs thrown at my face,
nor are my ears an appropriate place.
Snowflakes are pretty, white, wet and cold,
a man took photographs of them in days of old.







Each one is unique
and when it rains the do leak.

The snow goes brown and then thaws
when it warms up out of doors.




When we played in the snow we made this snowman even bigger than me. We took it in turns to get our of breath by shovelling snow into piles. The sun melted my snowman and his head fell off.




Daddy, Debs and Mummy buried me in the snow. I was still snug because I had waterproofs on. Mummy got a wet bottom when she made a snow angel. I made an avalanche on Debs' car when I pushed the snow off the roof and bonnet. My chickens don't like the snow but we put vaseline on their combs to stop them cracking like my lips did.