Christmas Day

After all the effort to write the notes to Santa, give him and Rudolf some food and build the whole thing up a bit, I made a slight error the following morning. I gave Gregor a different present, ie not the one on the note. We had a couple of minutes of destroyed boy who thought Santa had forgotten him......

But, the situation was quickly salvaged and that fire engine miraculously appeared.
As did Alastair's craved for tractor, which Misha soon set about getting into action.

Then more delight as Sportacus flew in on his airship.

And set about converting Robbie Rotten.

And after that initial flurry we took a leisurely drive to sister Gill's in Ipswich for a wonderful meal and games and get together. No photos of her, unfortunately, but the similarity of body language between other sisters and their children struck me.

Natasha and Pauline.

Sue and Nick.

Christmas Eve

Since Czech Christmas is actually on the 24th, it wasn't difficult to decide what to eat - kureci rizky a bramborovy salat (chicken escalope in breadcrumbs and potato salad). That's not necessarily the most traditional Czech food (normally it's carp), but not everyone eats that..... Gregor was keen to help so I let him loose with the meat tenderiser.

...and we renamed kureci rizek as "bang bang chicken".

And tucked in with great appetite and me a slight nostalgic melancholy for such simple dishes that work so well. After our Czech food (clean forgot about the tatarka though), we moved to the British tradition of hanging the stockings on the mantlepiece.

We left our little notes out for Santa and ate some of his biscuits in the process.

Just to be sure that Santa knew there were some requests (Gregor, a fire engine, Alastair, a tractor) and grub, the boys were yelling up the chimney for him not to forget us.

Alastair surprised us by copying Gregor instantly and bellowing "Anda" just as loudly!

Train to Norwich

We thought it high time the boys went on a train. So last Sunday we bought four tickets and took them to Norwich, home of Colman's mustard, 40 minutes away. The weather was really foggy and you could barely make out the platforms at the various stations en route.


This didn't stop the boys from enjoying themselves though. They exploded into peels of giggles every time there was a station announcement over the system.

We all arrived starving hungry so found a nice cafe to have a second breakfast before braving the crowds. We were thinking of going ice-skating but it was so cold that we didn't think we'd enjoy it as much as we could. Besides, it wasn't something Alastair could try just yet so we gave it a miss. Instead, we window shopped and browsed and bought a few presents. Here are the boys delighting in a monkey on a trapeze in a shoe shop window in the Royal Arcade.

And here are the Belousovs in Waterstones, patiently waiting for me who lost herself on first floor for about half an hour.

The journey home was uneventful, but as soon as we got out of the station the fog enveloped us.

The walk back home by the beach.

Duxford, Cambridgeshire

Our friends Barbara and John, last seen on this blog in Bishop's Stortford, have recently moved to a lovely village a few miles south of Cambridge. While it's not that far from us as the crow flies, the roads are pretty rubbish - single lane for at least half the journey. So I took the boys our for a bike ride before setting off.

The village B&J have moved to is Duxford, home of the Imperial War museum. And as Wikipedia states, 'Duxford was first mentioned in the will of Theodred, Bishop of London, in AD 952, by the name of Dukesworthe, and later in the Doomsday Book of 1086, where the village status is listed as having 100 souls, 3 mills and 4 manors. The first part of the name was spelled variously as Doches, Dodes Dux, and other variations after a Saxon called Ducc. The ending of the name, meaning enclosure, first occurred as wrthe or worth. The transformation from ‘worth’ to ‘ford’ can be understood if ‘w’ and ‘th’ were pronounced as ‘v’ and ‘d’ respectively. The ending ‘…ford’ occurs as early as 1397.' So there you have it.

The house is lovely, though I am not doing any justice to it since I only took a couple of pics. It's spacious, great little nooks and crannies and surprise rooms and cupboards and a garden that they can't wait to get stuck into. As Barbara said, she's got great plans. We had a slap-up meal, as usual, and they are always great company. Here is Barbara getting our unruly boys into order, by letting them help open the Christmas cards.

For anyone thinking that life is always a bed of roses and our boys are always wonderful, then do read between the lines. The face below is not uncommon!

Here is John trying to restrain a less than angelic Gregor while still managing to give Alastair a cuddle.

pre-Christmas break

In early December I went to London for a girlie night out with a couple of friends, left Misha at home with Alastair, and Gregor in the capable hands of Charlotte and Nick for the night.

Here's Gregor with Charlotte the following morning, having eaten ham sandwiches, fish and chips, raw onion and crisps, had a bath, watched Shrek and visited a chilli farm. All in under 24 hours!

Meanwhile, we were taking things at a slightly slower pace. Here are Chris and Paula outside the stage door of the performance that Paula was directing that night at Goldsmith's College. In short it was an installation where her husband and another performer were both naked and were moving around a podium while words were projected onto their bodies. Paula was my first housemate in Leicester and we were great friends, then sort of lost touch for a few years when she went to South America and New Zealand - though she did manage to visit me in Prague in the old days - and this girlie get together was due to Chris' tireless effort to get us back in touch. Paula's work is pretty broad and all at www.BlindDitch.org

Er, a slight detour. While we left Paula in New Cross to pack up the stuff, Chris and I took the train to Charing Cross and popped in at Madame JoJo's to wish a friend of hers a happy birthday.

And here is Matt trying on his new neck scarf, lovingly knitted by Chris.

And here she is again sporting new haircut which really suits her, methinks.

Santa arrives at MotherToddler

It wasn't long before Alastair had another Christmas party to go to. This one was at our mother-toddler group which is held at the Baptist church up the road. Here is Doreen looking out for Alastair. Doreen has always taken a special interest in Alastair and thinks his progress over the 18 months she's known him has been remarkable.

She should know. She's fostered over 50 children with special needs. We think she's remarkable.

And after lots of singing and playing, he finally came.

And started the imaginations whirring......

Start of the party season

We went to our Parent and Toddler group last week. We don't always make it these days - to fit in playgroup, lunch and then go to something else at 1pm. It depends on the weather and our moods. Anyway, this week we managed it and the boys soon settled on their favourite activities. I have made a few friends there, a couple of whose children (will) go to the same nursery as A&G begin next year.

Alastair filling his car up with diesel, then taking his bird out for a spin.

Gregor sneaking in to the back seat. Wonder if this is a sign of things to come - Gregor the gooseberry?

Then our rather depleted Russian group had a little vodka and caviar and sweets to celebrate our success in mastering the language such that we can all book a luxury hotel room, ie with shower, in Siberia for two people. From left to right: Alla Steele (teacher), Athran (has Ukranian penfriend), Carl (granddaughter learning Russian at university, wants to surprise her this Christmas), Susan (took her grandson on the transiberian railway, wants to do it again), Mike (a Jehovah's witness, recruiting Russians) and me, the photographer, who wants to speak with my mother-in-law!

Then on Saturday afternoon Alastair the social butterfly had a party to go to. It's the child development centre where he was assessed before the summer and all the local area's children with special needs are invited. It consisted of a wonderful music session with singing/signing and instruments, then food, then presents. Assiduous readers may recognise Annie, the physiotherapist, in the background. As Misha was working, my sister Sue and her two, Allie and Will, kindly travelled up for the afternoon and looked after Gregor (and did all my ironing). Great.

And here we are about to rip into a Cadbury's mini swiss roll. It's funny to think that this time last year Alastair didn't eat. In fact, I suddenly remembered that it was at this party that he made his first breakthrough. With a Cadbury's mini swiss roll.....

And here he is playgroup this morning, getting his teachers to fight over him. His main one, Kirsty, is out of shot pretending to sulk because he didn't want to go with her. He has an emphatic shake of the head when he doesn't want to do something. And a wicked, cheeky glint in his eyes when he wants to be persuaded.