Jules gets by post-surgery

With a little help from the grabber...

The new arrival

So on Saturday morning Sofia and I went to the Mayhew Animal Home to pick up our new cat, who Sofia had chosen the Saturday before.

She is pure black and about a year old. Spent most of the weekend hiding behind the couch and the TV but is now much more confident - jumping onto the table even, while we were having dinner. 

Her previous name was Meer but Sofia has called her Emerald, on account of her striking green eyes. 

A busy Easter in Barcelona

We had a brilliant time in Barcelona this Easter, hitting the aquarium, the zoo and the beach, as well as Parc Guell (where we didn't get to see the mosaic lizard, much to Sofia's disappointment). Many of the attractions we visited just by bowling in when we first came to Barcelona in (ahem) 1999 are now the sort of thing you buy a timed ticket for online in advance, or queue around the block. Or perhaps that was just because it was Easter. 

Anyway, this holiday marked Will's transformation into a brave food warrior, which we are all very pleased about. He tried pimentos de padron and chorizo and salt and pepper baby squid, just to name a few of the delicacies on offer.

Lots more photos on flickr.  

Hamster love

A few more pics from Italy

A few pics from Rome

Happy Christmas!

Fabulous wedding ... very little sleep for the under-8s

So here are Fia and Will in their glad rags all ready for the wedding on Saturday. By a stroke of pure luck, they matched the bride perfectly and snatched a last-minute role in the wedding ceremony, as flower scatterers.

From Sofia's point of view, this was a dream come true. Here she is with her flower basket.

Then there was the actual scattering, some of which involved sprinting to keep in front of the bride and groom!

And here are 3 generations of Heath men. 

And finally all of us enjoying the company and the brilliant Irish sunshine.

The Victoria plum tree delivers

Sports Day

So we had Sports Day - triumph and disaster in one day and let me just say we did not treat them just the same as per Rudyard Kipling's well-meaning advice.

To start the day, here is Will winning the 50m sprint. There are some other competitors but as you can see it didn't exactly come down to the wire. 

Then we had Fia in her sprint, where she finished a close 3rd as evidenced by this picture. Somehow the organisers neglected to give her her shiny '3rd' sticker, which I would have been in there complaining about vociferously if I'd realised at the time, as it was her only placing all day. I thought better of showing the teachers the photographic evidence, in the end...

Will went on to win his egg and spoon race, sack race and the team event bean bag shuffle - in fact, he was in four events and came away with 4 1sts, which was starting to look a bit like showing off. To Fia's credit, she was just pleased and proud of her brother - no sign of jealousy at all.

Unfortunately, Fia had a nasty fall in the sack race and the day went from bad to worse for her. There were tears and lots of them and we'd just recovered from that when she dropped her egg in the egg and spoon and it all began again. 

In other news, we are trying without success to catch the rat we saw on the patio last week. It has fancy imported American peanut butter in its trap but it doesn't seem to be tempted by it. As yet. 

Most decorated boy at Sports Day...

Full report to follow. 

Happy 18 months birthday Dotto

Three visits from the tooth fairy this week

And sometimes like this...

An ordinary Sunday at our house looks like this

Sofia's exhibition

Today we all convened at the Royal College of Art so we could see (and buy - all for a good cause!) Sofia's painting of the Great Barrier Reef in the Cancer Research Young Art Exhibition. 

700 pictures were selected for the exhibition from about 7500 entries and you got your name in the programme so she was rightly very proud. 

Then we caught a Routemaster bus in the rain and then the tube back to Mr Fish for dinner. 

In other excitement, Dotto escaped onWednesday  night and was rounded up by Sofia as he tried to scale her shoe basket! Safely back in the cage now, probably plotting his next mission...

Happy 7th birthday Sofia

Our darling girl turned 7 this Wednesday and was showered liberally with gifts - thank you family!

 Here we have a rerun of Willy's football cake, which seems to be flavour of the month. (Really they just like the players - which are sour patch kids.) 

Almost forgot: Dotto turned 1!

December round up

This year we had our first Christmas tree in our house. It was also a month of many awards: Willy's ju jitsu grey belt, Sofia's level 5 gymnastics and a school certificate each for 'Exemplary behaviour' (yes, really, that's our William) and 'Tremendous effort and improvement'. We were particularly thrilled for Sofia who had desperately wanted a certificate and was sure she was never going to get one.

This month we are also faced with concrete evidence that the sleeping arrangements are getting out of control.

 Still at least it shows that the house is nice and warm. 

Last weekend we went to Bath and had a great time, buying Christmas decorations at the market and visiting the Roman Baths which everyone enjoyed. The dedicated kids audioguides are a great idea. 

We also went to see 'Frozen' (too much singing for everyone except Sofia) and had a first bash at ice skating. Willy came off the ice cold and wet and saying he was never ice skating again, but we went at Ally Pally again this morning (better prepared in waterproof trousers this time) and he got on much better. Sofia of course is convinced she is an expert as she can get around without help. 

The loft is kind of finished and yet not finished - needs annoying things doing like siliconing around the bath and fixing the insane inner layout of the wardrobes and then of course decorating, which we have to look forward to in January. 

Happy Christmas everyone! We will be at home with our rotisseried poulet de Bresse and a buche de noel from Uncle Paul. 

Progress on the loft!