Fireman Sam

As I have mentioned, the boys are not so keen on diggers any longer. Now it's fire engines and firemen. This interest is equally obsessive and extends to most of our day-to-day routine. When we eat, it's "do firemen eat fish, mum?" "Oh, yes, they've got to eat fish... makes them big and strong." When Gregor goes to the loo I have to pretend he's Fireman Sam. Same with getting dressed, undressed, doing teeth, shoes on and off and so on.....

Alastair watches, soaking it all up and amused by the charades and rigmarole that we go through. Of course it stretches my patience regularly, but if it helps to avoid protestation, I try to play along.

Just as well there's a fireman in the family - cousin Antony/Ant/AJ, who kindly gave up his time last week to be worshipped and adored for ever by our two.

Here they are being introduced to buttons, knobs, dials, screens, etc. No levers, unfortunately.

Gregor getting kitted out in AJ's uniform.

He liked this drawer best - with all the cutting tools and clippers and saws for getting people out of crashed cars. Charming.

Alastair, on the other hand, was mostly interested in closing the doors of all the fire appliances.

Then outside to douse the flames.

And a short ride back to the station, siren blaring and lights flashing.

What a shame for us that AJ and his family are emigrating to Thunder Bay, Canada next year.

The Tassells come to stay

Last weekend the Tassells of Kelvedon came up for an overnight stay. Sarah came bearing great gifts - some of Alex's clothes that are now too big for him (he's 2, our boys are 3.5!) and a huge fish kettle she procured for me from Ebay. More on that another time. The weather was kind once again so we managed to show them a bit more of Lowestoft.

As ever, there had to be a space for ice-creams. This is Sparrow's Nest, below the lighthouse. Attentive readers will note that Isabelle and I visited here when the bluebells were out in the spring. It has a lovely park with plenty of grass for picnics and footballs, a kids climbing and play area, the maritime museum and a restaurant.

In the evening we had a barbeque, and apart from the fact that Matt and Sarah's neighbour rang to tell them their burglar alarm was going off, but they didn't think it was burglars (a hedgehog through the cat flap, we reckon), everything was great. Sarah and I even managed a midnight walk along the beach.

The next day, following a great brunch, we hit the beach for some fun and games.

This is Claremont pier in the background, though it must be deemed unsafe since nobody is ever on it. The arcade's at the front, which you can't see, is as far as most people go, though we are yet to venture there.

Cricket. Our first time.


Misha and Alastair playing hiding from the wind games, one of Adi's favourites.

Martin and Lida

Also the other day, Martin and Lida came to visit us. They are old friends from Prague, now living in Bonn. Comfortably avoiding the bank holiday madness, they arrived in germanically good time and we cracked open the wine. The boys were treated to some lovely Playmobil then set about industriously trying to put all the bits together with M&L's help. Alastair was very aware that they had a set each and that Gregor didn't take his as well. In the end, he picked up his horsebox and jeep and sat and played with them in another room. Turn-taking and sharing is something that we thought may come naturally. Not. However, I am not complaining since Martin and Lida remember well the early days with the boys, and for that they will always be permanently part of those first weeks and months. It was their camera we borrowed for the first photos and, as we got a bit braver, Martin would put each hospital visit on a CD rom for us. Lida's mother made sure I got a good supply of fresh, free range eggs from her chickens and we felt looked after by them all.

How things have changed. Here is Martin not lifting a fingernail on the Meare at Thorpeness.

The weather was wonderful for their visit so, instead of just hanging out on the beach at Lowestoft, we went to Thorpeness and Aldeburgh, a little further down the coast from Southwold and Walberswick.
Apart from being the setting for treasured childhood memories (my grandma lived there, relations congregated, parents relaxed, rules were few and simple, kids roamed wild, free and unchaperoned), it's a beautifully strange and eccentric oldy-worldy sort of place. It was built as a model village by a Scottish entrepreneur who had inherited thousands of acres of, what was a century ago, bogs and fens, sand dunes and heathland. The great G. Stuart Ogilvie set about creating his model village by the sea which had, indeed, still has: a country club, a pub, a green, a pond with dovecotes, a golf course, almshouses, rows of uniquely beautiful mock-Tudor and medieval houses and, as its centrepiece, the Meare - a sea of shallow interlinking lakes and waterways with little islands to land on based on the theme of Peter Pan.

Here we were heading out in search of crocodiles. Martin still looks a bit too comfortable there, supervising operations while Lida does the hard graft.


Alastair of Lowestoft leading his men to safety through the jungle.


At the Thorpeness windmill. Opposite, but not photographed, stands the wonderful House in the Clouds - a former water tower five flights up with a house on top. It's a mad landmark for miles around. Equally dominating the coastal landscape is the Sizewell B nuclear power station - a large white dome connected to enormous pylons carrying the electricity away and into the grid.

In Aldeburgh we sampled fish and chips on the pebbly beach. That evening, while Misha and Buzz prepared the barbeque and the boys were safely in the land of nod, we went and had a swim in the sea and enjoyed a decadent glass of wine afterwards, looking out.

Martin's grandmother lives in Worthing, which was where they were heading next, via Ely, Wicken Fen and Cambridge. We said our goodbyes and, presuming they didn't veer off the road into a bog, we trust they left with a favourable impression of the East Anglian landscape and pace of life.

Crabbing at Walberswick

I am rather behind with the blog, I am afraid. So, for argument's sake, the other day Allie came on a return visit and we all went to Walberswick to try crabbing for the first time. Walberswick is a beautiful, once important and thrivingly rich, village on the Suffolk coast, just the other side of the river Blyth from Southwold. Apparently, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, the Scottish architect, artist and (chair) designer lived there in the early 1900s. Anyway, we didn't spend time wandering around this time; we headed straight for the action.

Armed with the bait of our choice - two thick slices of Coop gammon for 1.79 - we bought a net and our crabbing line from a shack there and Misha did the honours.

Actually, he turned out to be quite adept at, not only hooking on the bait neatly (to a clip, not a hook), but also the whole fishing/waiting/patience thing.

Unlike moi, as you can see from my expression. For the record, I caught nothing. However, Walberswick hosts the annual British, or perhaps even World, crabbing championship, so I have something to work towards....

Allie, on the other hand, proved a real expert at crabbing. Alastair was happy to wave the net in the water and liked it when he saw the crabs up close, pincers and all.

Like this one. A great catch by Allie, who also quickly moved up to claim the spot where some neighbouring crabbers had been (and just thrown their crabs back!)

And here's Gregor doing just that. I suppose woe betide anyone who doesn't adhere to these basic practices. Recently, there was uproar in the angling community (the most popular sport in Britain?!) after reports that East Europeans were fishing in lakes and, horror of horrors, taking carp home and eating it!