Whilst we are still in the middle of our “Xmas break”, and I can confirm Bea has had the most wonderful Christmas to date, I am only going to offer a single photo as of the others taken none really show the happiness, surprise or (bluntly) the gratitude Bea has presented every single day.
She also she asked me about a time, “in the next season where we all make promises we keep for the year“. This took me a few seconds of questioning to work out that she was talking about “New year resolutions“!!! When I asked her what she planned to resolve to do in 2017 she promptly and sincerely stated (we were standing on our own in the middle of a field with only the dog in earshot, safe in the knowledge he is largely deaf), “I want to love everyone more and give everyone more cuddles. Everyone including Arek“. I was completely taken aback by this sincerity and honesty that was offered with the sentiment, that I didn’t know where to take the conversation! So I gave her a hug and said thank you. X.
Bea often comes into our bed first thing in the morning – mid week she rarely finds me there, but over the Xmas period I’ve been there every day – mostly being the last person in bed!! So when she jumped on me and ended up laying back on my upright knees, it reminded me of some earlier posts (On the knees morning photos – Aug 2012 & Easy like a Sunday morning – Nov 2012) where I commented on how much she has grown. I explained to her that I used to take these photos so she generously offered a “modern day” pose of the “knee shot”.
So having started school in September Bea has done amazingly well – not that any of this is a surprise, she takes more than most 4yr olds take in their stride like it’s normal.
So when she performed in the school’s Christmas nativity as a sheep, not only did she learn all the moves she was the only reception child that was able to perform them all!
I was a little far away, but she is the middle sheep on the hard right of the stage here:
Comments Off on Bea’s first time beating for pheasants
Blimey… We just don’t update this blog much these days… Sorry about that… Will try harder.
Ollie and I have been beating together for a few years now, and it is our main one-to-one time together and I’m keen to be protective of that; so imagine my surprise when a certain set of circumstances meant Bea was available to come too. Conscious that I didn’t want Ollie to look after Bea (he is wonderfully independent and people ask for him over the radio and he responds), but I also get into some tough locations that carrying a four year old through wouldn’t be practical for Bea, the job of beating or my back!
In event Bea was resilient and plucky; only once did she say she couldn’t do something; she received the standard, “don’t tell me you can’t do something” response (pushy parent?), and cracked on with clambering over a branch. There were a couple of extreme situations that she couldn’t get through so she was happy to be with Paul and Jack and probably only once with Ollie during drives. We always popped out the other end together and chatted about what we had seen. Ollie had done a good prep job on the differences between girl and boy pheasants, so she was able to identity the difference. We talked about the other animals and things we might see whilst in a proper woods (not a public footpath), so we had lots to talk about!
Lots of the guns were impressed at her with her beating stick almost as big as her striding confidently about the undergrowth.
Lunchtime came and we had set her expectations that tomato soup, bread and cheese was the only option, so when we got back that’s what she “wanted” and dutifully got on with dipping and making a mess!
After lunch we were supposed to only have one drive, but we did two. The last one, whilst short, was a bit too much for her, and it was an effort to keep her interested. We resorted to her looking for pheasants that were either hiding on the ground or flying overhead. I loved her commentary that they were flying in “teams”. 🙂
The weather was cool and bright and we didn’t attend a full day, so this was an amazing introduction for her. She came away keen to know when the next one was on.
She was asked great questions throughout and added a wonderful colour to our conversations and of course increased the cuddle count massively.
Bea has been wanting to go back out on a big girls and big man bike ride (her term) for a couple of weeks. Diary and stuff hasn’t really allowed.
Today there were no restrictions so off we went to a new part of the Downs Link we haven’t travelled down before. We started at the now disused West Grinstead Station and after 15mins we were still faffing about starting, stopping, starting, stopping.
Eventually we kind of got underway; I could of crawled faster, but she was having fun and jibber jabbering throughout.
We rode through every puddle, getting stuck in some, in an attempt to spray me whilst I was behind her! Dutifully giggling maniacally for each one and checking to make sure she got me good.
Just over two miles eventually in about 60mins. She enjoyed herself immensely with rosy cheeks and a keen eye for a biscuit once we were safely back in the car.
Comments Off on Sunshine – first motorbike and bouncy castle
The sun came! Of course this meant Daddy had no excuses and finally mowed the lawn. This revealed the lawn as a suitable playground for a day of hooning about and Bea lapped it up. Mostly.
Having worked out how to pedal a bicycle without stabilisers and recently enjoying being ridden about on some dirt motorbikes, I asked her if she would like to learn how to ride a motorbike on her own. She of course jumped at the chance and was almost outside before the question was finished, such was her excitement.
Having managed to calm her down, put on her new elbow and knee pads, plus mitts and helmet from cycling, coupled with some proper motorbike boots, that were once her brothers, we were ready. Unfortunately the little pw50 motorbike had other ideas – I had forgotten to drain the carb at last use (last year) so it refused to fire, so we had to strip the seat off, remove the carburettor and get the crud out of the float bowl – she thought it was all very entertaining, and hearing a four year old say carburettor so clearly will stay with me for a good while. We discussed the explosion of the engine; she was very inquisitive. Eventually the little bike fired and we were ready.
We did a few careful laps with both of us on the bike – yes, it does struggle with my weight on it, but once rolling you can get yourself into trouble, especially given my legs were bent double just staying on the damn thing!
I encouraged her to pull the throttle with me standing behind her, and she did a little bit. What I was most impressed with was her ability to listen and she shut the throttle when approaching a wall, and pulled the brakes; later even instinctively putting a foot down. I managed to let go of her a couple of times, but didn’t linger away from the bike, just in case she pulled the throttle the wrong way. She was doing so well, that when Mummy came out to see, she shouted for Mummy to stop and watch – filled with such excitement she pulled the throttle a little too hard, kept it open and crashed into a low wall. All of the armour she had on worked well. The only injury (mostly shock) was her left thigh that took the weight of the little bike and didn’t have any protection beyond some leggings. She of course cried and with both parents on site in a second, she was scooped up and checked for damage. She was fine, and Daddy even rode off and crashed to show that everyone crashes at some point. She laughed. We were going to be ok.
Later in the afternoon we had another go, and she had lots more confidence, but not enough to yank the throttle wide open. She kept wanting to stop and chat (clearly comfortable being on the bike) – we talked about butterflies and flowers and trees over the noise of the bike ticking over. We even parked the bike on the swing frame and swang ourselves silly whilst continuing to chat freely. In a quiet moment she even asked, “Daddy, what are you thinking about?“!!
Eventually she was taking the corners, and I was nervous of the edges of the lawn and the drop to the patio below, so held on tight. She eventually pulled the throttle too hard and was heading towards a parked spade, not too far from the wall edge, so I yanked the back wheel off the ground to arrest her progress. The spade went over. She laughed and confirmed. “it doesn’t matter Daddy; I’m fine“. Unfortunately I had twinged my back a little and with sweat pouring down my face from all the running around and lifting the back of the bike, was running out of steam. We had one more run where she crashed into a wall, again laughing while I pulled backwards to overcome the forward force of the rear wheel, and that was enough.
I managed to convince her it was time to quit, and decided to pull out the bouncy castle and inflated it much to her delight. The castle is quite quite tired with lots of holes throughout so isn’t efficient and collapses under my weight – Bea is fine on her own though, so spent the next 45minutes clambering round the back, over the integral climbing wall and throwing herself down the slide entry chute.
All in all an amazing day – Mummy took her for a trip to see the lambs in the back field and she stuffed her face really quickly and well at dinner time. She squeezed both Mummy and Daddy intensely hard at bedtime, big kiss and then dropped off straight to sleep exhausted apparently!
Here are a couple of videos of her motorcycling and bouncy castle antics:
Comments Off on Bea’s 2nd PROPER bike ride – MUDDY!
Bea was keen to go for a “big girl’s ride” again, so decided to find another bridleway that was a little quieter, and hopefully simpler to navigate, and maybe with some gentle slopes in. Found a good route that was far enough away to mean the bike rack was needed on the car.
I put on my proper bike gear, and found some old cycling shorts from one of the boys for Bea – with proper padding in!
Bea is getting better at the braking – I’ve been teaching her to “weeeee” down hills with her feet off the pedals so she can get the feeling of adjusting the brake pressure rather than just jamming them on to stop quickly. Gradually getting there on a couple of the hills here.
She found some of the ride hard, made harder mostly by her desire to ride through the centre of EVERY puddle. Whilst it was funny getting sprayed (I was behind) with mud off her rear wheel, there were a couple of tumble moments when the bike just stopped as she hit the mud. One time she went over the bars, and both brakes got buried in the slime.
Not quite as far as last weekend’s ride of 4miles, but there were slopes, tunnels and ditches to navigate and avoid; she pulled an amazing emergency stop when she wobbled towards a ditch – I was super impressed her reaction was to jam on both brakes and she stopped herself from going over. We managed a little over 2 miles, and I think she was more exhausted than last week!
Managed to get the Garmin GPS watch working and was able to track our route here:
Here’s a little YouTube video taken as we were “weeeeee-ing” down the road to the car:
At the last cycling outing Bea was adamant she couldn’t start off on her own, eventually being encouraged and mastering it.
I offered that if she became good at starting off on her own we could all go on a proper bike ride.
This captured her imagination and since then has asked to go out as a family – especially with Mummy on her pink bike (just like Bea’s).
So thought we should have a go on a local bridleway that is mostly hard packed, but certainly not car park smooth as she has been used to.
I was a little nervous of her ability to brake, go up or go down hills, and the various steep drops from each side of the track.
In fairness she only fell off badly about three times, once trying to ring her bell, once trying to look behind for me and the other was mud related!
What impressed me the most was her staying power, aside from a couple of, “I can’t do it” comments (and overcoming without assistance), everytime I asked her if she wanted to go back she said no. In event we travelled over four miles on a bumpy surface and were “riding” for 1hr20mins!
I was getting changed at the end of a long week at work when Bea came and found me in the bedroom. She took herself to the window, arms behind and stated, “Right, Daddy, this is my position: for my next birthday I would like a guitar“.
I managed to stifle the laugh and shock and said that was ok. We will remember her request and will ask her again closer to her birthday. She quickly stated that was fine but, “I am sure that’s what I need” (at the same time reinforcing with a solid flat-hand affirmation)!
I followed up (in an effort to stump her… is that cruel?!) if she wanted an acoustic or an electric guitar. Her response? She asked a bloody question: “which one will play loud music?“!!!
It was this point I couldn’t hold the laugh in anymore….. 🙂
