Dad played Molly some tunes on the guitar shortly arriving today.
She is sooooooo excited that he’s here!
He braved the journey from North Wales on the trains amidst the crazy weather we’ve been having.
I’m glad he approves of my choice of guitar… Though I may have trouble prising it off him over the next few days!

Clyde is as fed up of the daily rain as we are. He’s lucky to be warm and dry in our conservatory – his ‘winter residence”. Many rabbits aren’t as fortunate. He really wants to get out in the garden for some fresh air… But when?

With gale force winds battering the coast we were more than happy to stay indoors.
And with trains cancelled what evening could be better for Conor to assemble Molly’s new trike?
The assembly instructions are worse than useless, which accounts for Conor’s grumpiness right now.
You’ve got to laugh though when Conor points to the “Made in China” sticker and mutters “should read ‘made in our bloody conservatory'”!

What a joy it was to see 9 happy little faces beaming up at us today!
Every minute we spent preparing for Molly’s 3rd birthday party was well worth the effort.
Conor’s magic tricks were a hit and the kids’ party table seemed popular too.
We were having so much fun that I was as gutted as Molly was when it was all over.
But then there were presents and more magic hat tricks to cheer us up!
Oh, and a hurricane to keep the boredom away.

Molly wants to be a ‘scary friendly spider’.
The main part of her costume arrived today.
Ebay’s great isn’t it?

Molly gets her groove on in the garden while Conor puts up the last panels of our DIY picket fence project.

Molly can swim… with arm bands.
Does that still count?
In Malta it does.
It only took 4 trips to the beach for her to venture out of her depth and propel herself forward.
We were impressed, since she’s never swum in the sea or worn armbands before.
Now there’s no stopping her!
She’ll regularly announce “let’s swim to the boats mama” and is off before you’ve had time to even say no!
Her confidence and newly discovered ability means we’ve had to turn the supervision up a fair few notches, but its worth it to see the fun she’s having.

“It’s really fun to play un-serious guitar, and I strongly urge anyone who thinks they want to play guitar to not sweat the issues of “doing it right” and instead focus on enriching your life with the ancient pleasure of playing songs you like. It can be incredibly fun to bang away clumsily and not-too-proficiently on a song you enjoy, and in my world view that sort of thing is much more needed and welcome than someone playing perfect scales and arpeggios in a practice room somewhere in preparation for perhaps someday playing some real music.”

– Harvey Reid, On learning to play guitar.