Autumn fun

We went for a little walk last Friday afternoon in Stanmer Park, just in front of our house. It says it's a local nature reserve - a sort of park really. We actually drove there to get further in but have discovered a path since that will let us walk there. I'm just not sure how long that'll take. We'll try it some time to see. We actually didn't get very far at all from the car because we stopped to sort shoes out and to give some people a much needed snack. Meanwhile Rachel and I had a go at drawing this totally beautiful tree. Playing in the leaves beneath it took the next hour and a half. We ended up with a huge pile of leaves that was a lot of fun to play with. I got the camera out and just took loads of pictures of these beautiful children having such a fun time playing with nature. I did manage to put it down enough to join in with them too. :o)

Everyone felt so much better for being out in a beautiful natural place and just having fun. The fresh air, light, beauty and playing about did us all so much good. It was so nice to have everyone coming home refreshed and happy.

Yay - we're clean, and just in time!

We spent much of Saturday and Monday de-gunging the garden! (Is that a word?!) We'd had had way too many accidents on the decking when wet and as that makes up the majority of the garden, and autumn/winter is very often wet, this became a necessity. It took ages, and too much water to think about, using Mum and Dad's power/jet wash on it. I was exhausted after quite a while of doing it on Saturday, but everybody other than Peter also took a turn that day. Then Monday I took on the job of doing everything that remained. I got soaked and dirt-splattered twice in the process. A lovely bonus is that I much prefer the look of the garden now. Lighter and yellowish (wood-colour) instead of grey. It was an exciting thing seeing it all come away! :o) The biggest most fantastic thing about it though is that I can hang the washing out without slipping over, the children can play with (hopefully) no more injuries, and we can get back into the house down the decking-clad steps with ... no more injuries! I even managed to slip (and catch myself just in time) on the very last bit of slimy decking left just before I washed it all off!! So thanks to Mum and Dad for lending that too us - it was a life-saver. One extra bonus (monetarily, not environmentally!) is that we got it all done before the water board fitted a water meter to our property early this morning. Phew!!

It's quite a pleasure to look outside now. here are the first few pictures coming of our new place, albeit little bits of the garden with washing in progress. I promise to take some more all-encompassing pictures soon! ...








I did just find this one of the shed that Michael has put up since being here (taken from the conservatory window). The video gives you an idea of the garden. It is taken from our bedroom window (it doesn't seem too high up because the garden goes up a fair bit from the back door). You can see a bit of how slippery the decking was. That did seem to be one of the trouble spots where Peter keeps falling over, probably because it never gets any sun. Luckily it's not by any steps or brick walls. The steps were pretty bad before. It's a little peek at Peter and Rebekah playing too, and Rachel doing the sweeping that she loves so much (I'm serious there - it's her favourite job!) :o)

We're here!

Well we're back on line now, and no I don't have any photos of this house for you yet other than the one you've already seen. We've had a battery problem for quite a while now with our camera which is at last sorted out, so we do have a camera now. There were several occasions in our first couple of weeks here that I wished I had the use of a camera, but have committed those occasions to memory at least for a little while and enjoyed them at the time at least. No, we haven't been to the beach a lot! We're not really as keen on the beach on Brighton seafront on the hotter days as it is so packed and frantic. We found a lovely beach where we had a short family "home evening", or really a "family beach afternoon" I suppose, a few Sundays ago. It was rocky still of course, but it was a place to just be by the sea and enjoy the wonder of it. That was along the coast a bit somewhere around Shoreham I think. We plan to go back there during the week as soon as we can (before the weather really turns to winter if possible) so we can explore it properly.

These photos are from our last Sunday in Coventry. Rachel, Hannah, Sarah, Michael and I all spoke in sacrament meeting, and we all sang one of our favourite songs together. At least everyone did but me. Michael had persuaded me to play the piano - a piece I can play without a problem at home, but when I started to play in front of nearly 200 people, my hands began shaking enormously and just never stopped! It was quite impossible really. Nerves certainly got the better of me, but I had never played in front of people before, so that's a first anyway!! I'll be sticking to the singing next time, which I am certainly better at. :o) It was a lovely day though, and a bit of an emotional one, but then we have been in that ward since we were married, and me for a couple of years before that, and each of our children have been born and grown up there so far. It's funny to think that Peter, and probably Rebekah won't remember much of anything of it after a little while - quite a shame really, as it has certainly been home to us for a long time! Amazingly though, Brighton is beginning to feel a place to call home already.


Hannah spending some time with her friend Milla.



Rachel babysitting baby Heather for a while,
and clearly loving it!


Cousins - most of them anyway.


A big Peter watching the goings on in the corridor after church.


Ceri and Michael outside church.


Michael and Hannah outside the church where he only recently baptised her.


Our bishop, and brother, and uncle.


David let Michael lock the gate one last time!
He had some helpers who wanted to join in too.


A special place where we spent our "family home evening" that afternoon. We had a lovely time there, until Rebekah fell over on the hard gravel ground and called a fairly abrupt end to our proceedings she was so distressed about it! We were all exhausted though and needed a good rest, which we got that afternoon at home.

A little extra note ...

Just found out today that it will likely be 2 weeks after moving in that our phone will be collected, and possibly 6 weeks until we have internet connection. So I guess I'll talk to you again in about a month and a half! Bye for now...

See you soon!

Hi all! I had really wanted to find the time to put a few things on here from the past month or two, especially our visit from/with family in August, but no such luck! We spent quite a bit of time during August visiting Brighton, and trying to find the right place to live. The place we found in the end is not nearly so affordable as we had hoped but is only a 5/10 minute bike ride for Michael to the Uni, and just 5 minute drive down the main road to church, but we could bus or even bike or walk it if we needed to (it would just take a while longer!) It's close to needed shops too by car, a bit more tricky without, but we may have to make that work anyway at some point. Most of all though, it is very definately the right place for us to be, so we are certain it will all work out one way or another.

Well, this computer will be packed away tonight, as Michael is picking up our vans in the morning. Not that we're ready for them! Michael is still finishing off a friend's bathroom having had a few hitches, so is not around, and I was struggling through the day yesterday with a heavy cold, constant sneezing and a fever. Your prayers would be welcomed, but again, it will all work out I am sure. We are doing the things that we need to be doing, so going slower than expected can't be helped, especially as we were put back a week with illness a fortnight ago as well.

Well enough of that! I don't know the deal with internet connection in Brighton yet, so can't be certain when we'll be up and running again, but I will let you know when we are. For now though here's a little picture of the house we'll be living in certainly for the next 12 months. The children haven't seen it yet, which is just as well really as it is a student house and will hopefully be in a bit better condition when we arrive than it was when we saw it! If not there'll be a lot of cleaning to do. We'll make it into a nice home for the year though. I have sent the address out by e-mail. If you haven't had it then let me know and I'll see what I can do.

Guess what we saw?

We just went for a little walk in the woods near our house to find something that Rachel and Hannah needed for a Faith in God activity. In the woods, Peter saw a deer! He said it was a dog, and Daddy told him what it really was. Then we went back a few steps where we had already been walking in the woods, and everyone saw the deer. Every time it saw us it disappeared. Then we went a bit further back and we saw it really clearly through the trees in a clearing. It turned and looked at us and then quickly bounded off as if it was in a hurry.



It was a bit like this deer in the picture. It was sort of light brown. Its tail was sort of like a rabbit. Daddy only knew it was a deer because he recognised how it ran - they sort of leap, with their bottoms in the air! It was pretty surprising because there's never been a deer in Pig Wood before, at least not that we know of.

With lots and lots of love from Sarah xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Beautiful Flutterbys

We had five little visitors appear at our house round about the time of Sarah's birthday. They were VERY little - four were only 0.5cm in length and one was only 0.3cm long! A very dear friend had sent a wonderful birthday gift to Rebekah to share with her family - a butterfly habitat with a gift certificate for five little Painted Lady caterpillars.

So our caterpillars arrived safely just over a month ago, and we put them out of the sunlight, and out of easy reach of Peter, but right where we could see them and watch them grow. They grew really fast, the smallest keeping just a little bit behind the others in size. Before very long it was clear that our littlest friend wasn't going to grow any more though. It didn't get much bigger than the others had been in the first place. The other four grew hairy backs, and markings, and changed colour gradually, and got very big ... and long ... and fat. They spun silk webs, and climbed to the top of their pot and dangled down, and went all over the place. Then when they were ready, which was only about 9 or 10 days after they had arrived if I remember correctly, they climbed up to the top of their pot and stayed right there, hanging in a very still J shape.

All of a sudden it seemed they were covered in a leaf-like covering - their chrysalis. I caught the last one (while Peter was eating his birthday tea with Gramps and his sisters, and I was on the telephone), wiggling constantly backwards and forwards. I had a closer look, and saw it was spinning its chrysalis around its body, working from the bottom up. I couldn't show the children immediately, and by the time I could tell them it had finished - it was really quick!

Then we had a week of watching for signs of life, while the caterpillars did a quick transformation inside. I really liked that stage because each chrysalis developed some spots down it that were completely golden in colour; they even had the gleem of gold. It was at this point that the caterpillars had to be transferred from their little pot to their hatching habitat.



Then Saturday morning of last week, after everyone was up and ready for the day, and we'd had our devotional, one of the girls said "Isn't that a butterfly in there? It must have hatched from its chrysalis while we were in the room, but we hadn't noticed. From that point on all available eyes were on the hatching butterflies. They were so quick coming out though that while watching another butterfly for only seconds it was possible to miss all of the action! Of course the camera was being temperamental, so not many photos, which is a shame.

We never fully saw them hatch, but did see one immediately as it had done, all curled up with squished, wings. After hatching they each walked to somewhere they could hold on easily, and pumped up their wings. They apparently pump blood into the blood vessels in their wings, which lets them spread out to full size, and then once the wings are hard enough they are able to fly. It was interesting to watch them flapping their wings and seeing a bit of a change. They were still pretty still for a while, and weren't flying around properly until the next day.



We collected some leaves and foliage from the garden to go in the bottom of the habitat, and then we had to go and ask a neighbour over the road for some sugar to make up some sugar water to feed to the butterflies (we had none in our house, as we don't use it anymore - I hadn't thought of that!) Rachael, our neighbour, was so excited and came over to see the butterflies for herself. After putting some sugar water in the flowers and some orange halves inside for the butterflies, we ended up taking them over to her house, and she and I watched the butterflies for a good while while the children enjoyed playing in her garden and with the toys she gets for when her granchildren come. Peter even came home with a little Winnie the Pooh ride-on toy that she was going to give away as her grandaughter never used it (he wouldn't leave it alone while there and was amazed when it was allowed to come home with him.)

While we were at Rachael's house, we were sat in a lovely bit of sun and the butterflies kept opening their wings wide. They did that each time they were in bright sun over the few days we had them. The one esoecially was sat on an orange half and looked just beautiful with its orange-patterned wings (I love colour - can you tell?!)
I kept wanting to go and get our camera, but never did, and I never did manage to get a photograph of that, but what a fantastic sight!



We enjoyed watching the butterflies feeding, identifying their body parts at close range without frightening them away, and taking in their beautiful markings. It wasn't until later on that I saw quite how beautiful the back of their wings are (when they're folded up) They had a beautiful silky sheen to them. Oh, and I loved how furry the butterflies were on the front and back of their bodies - so soft looking.



So they hatched on the Saturday, Michael got to be amazed and enjoy them for a while on Sunday afternoon while he was at home from his course, and then Monday afternoon we went to let them go. We took them to the bottom of our garden, and unzipped the lid of the habitat they had lived in so far. They didn't go anywhere for a couple of minutes, despite two of them already being right up at the top. Then it started to thunder, so we brought them back inside, just in time before it started to totally pour with rain. Glad we didn't release them then.



The next afternoon we let them go, in the same spot. The first two took less than thirty seconds before they were gone, and flying straight up high into the sky togther. The second took a couple more minutes, which let us observe the last two for a while with no netting or plastic lid in the way, which was lovely. It then flew out, but landed on the flowers just next to it for a short while before flying off in another direction. It was strange to see them suddenly just be gone.



The last butterfly just didn't want to go anywhere, and so for about forty minutes we got to spend some close time with this lovely little creature. Rebekah and Sarah fed it some more sugar water, and it had a good long feed there and on the banana and orange halves.




Then Hannah picked it up out of the net and everyone got a chance to hold it up close and have a good look. Hannah hadn't been nervous at all throughout. The others were, including myself a bit at first, but Hannah frequently went and put her hand inside the net to be with the butterflies. So when the butterfly decided to walk from the fruit she was holding onto her hand, and walk around but never want to go elsewhere, she was thrilled! The battery on the video camera had given out by this time, and I just didn't want to leave watching the butterfly to sort that out. We enjoyed it more first hand without the camera, and I drew a few sketches of the butterfly as Hannah held it in my nature book, which Hannah will get a copy of for her journal. It wandered around a fair bit though, so was always at different angles. We could see a proper face there, and could clearly see from the front where the probiscis is rolled up at the front (it unrolls for them to drink through - you can see it the photo of the butterfly drinking from the orange).




When it finally did fly away, you could tell it was about to go, and instead of just flying away it went round and round the climbing frame that we were right next to, and then up into the leaves of the tree above us, and then on from there after a while. Peter still tells me about the butterflies in the gerden going up high in the sky, so he must think about them. He had called the caterpillars "pillars" the whole time, keeping on wanting to look at them, and was a bit puzzled I think to start with when they weren't anymore. He liked the butterflies too though.

I'm glad we all got to see the stages first hand. Now the children just know what happens, and we have experienced a little of the beauty and wonder of creation instead of just learning about it. What a great gift it has been. Sarah says she'd like to do that again next year, for her birthday. Hannah was comparing her experience of holding the butterfly and having it explore her hand while she got to see it up close, to how excited she was about being baptised a few weeks ago. Apparently this experience is right up there behind her baptism as her most special experiences. She's a proper not-so-little nature-lover. :o)