Gathering next years wood and learning to ride

Last week baby girl and I visited with friends on my Friday off to make the Guy for the bonfire. Can you believe it's something I'd never done before?! In typical fashion the kids joined in for a few minutes then lost interest and played in the sandpit. The adults however enjoyed finishing the job. Some of the guys even briefly made the Guy 18+, show's we never got past the teenage stage!

The next evening we did the bonfire and fireworks; unfortunately we missed the Guy going on the fire, apparently he went up in seconds.

We had another big moment last weekend, big man learnt to ride his bike. He is naturally cautious and the fear of falling was holding him back, but with some encouragement he got it.

This week the kids had to go to school dressed as a superhero for Children in need day on Friday. Now as you guys know I'm super tight and it grated that I had to buy a costume for a single day at school, it goes against my anti-consumer sentiment but I know it's important for kids to feel they fit in so I bit the bullet and ordered a costume. Which to be fair he loved.

James' workplace had a family open day yesterday and it was so interesting. I confess I didn't anticipate it being so good but watching the huge machines at work was great and seeing a factory line was fascinating. We couldn't see his office unfortunately, but that's not where all the work happens anyhow ;-)

Yesterday James went off with a mate to cut up some Ash that had come down on a neighbours land last year. The neighbour was kind enough to say we could have the wood if we could get it out. Now they were a few hours longer than I expected as it was inaccessible but the pickup came home loaded with wood and filthy. Today he's split it all ready to season. There's more to get but it will have to wait for the land to dry a little. The wee man helped and baby girl was sat with me in our bedroom watching the boys and shouting encouragement from the window. 

The kids went to another local friend's house for a few hours this afternoon and I got the opportunity to write an essay for my training program at work. The program should finish at Christmas so it's the last push to do yet more essays and portfolios. Unfortunately there is no qualification at the end of it so it seems a pointless amount of work, but it means my employer is funded to train me so I just have to put up and shut up.

Apart from that the weekends at the moment are spent in cleaning the house, the chickens, the kids etc and doing some work from home online. Come the new year we want to focus on the  growing season and eating the outside sorted.