The Big Catch-up... Part II

 
So, our first video is of Zafra in May trying lemon for the first time. It's just interesting for the facial reaction...

There's a competition called the Eurovision Song Contest that happens every year. It used to be hosted by a man called Terry Wogan and you would watch Eurovision as much for his sarcastic commentary more than anything else. He gave it up a few years ago because the voting had become silly - all the Balkan states were voting for each other and therefore they always won. Eurovision is a TV experience as much about the voting as it is the singing. Viewers phone in (we don't) to vote for songs and then each country awards 1,2,3,4,5,6, 8, 10 and 12 points. The results of each country are read in English and French, so it's a good linguistic learning exercise. It is considered utter humiliation if at the end of the evening your country has "nul points" (read in French accent), something the UK achieved only a few years ago. If you win the contest, you host it the following year. Ireland won it four years in a row and have never put in a good entry since because it costs so much to host. Now with the recession, what was really needed was a country with loads of oil money to ensure that they could host it. Now, which countries can we say can be considered as being in Europe? Azerbaijan, maybe? Hmmm.

Zafra contemplates who to vote for. Surely not Azerbaijan, right?

Zafra adds to the Eurovision music...

Zafra decides that this Eurovision entry needs accompaniment...

As well as watching Azerbaijan win Eurovision for the first time, we also recently went to visit Highcliffe Castle with Linda. Highcliffe is an interesting place because it is a castle that a man built while his wife was away thinking he was just going to upgrade the house a little bit. Apparently, she came back and was just a little bit angry! So they had some costumes laying around, hence the following snap of Jenny...

Zafra and Grandma in the Perfumery Tea Rooms in Christchurch

The Amswychs

At the Hare and Hounds pub after a very long walk

Outside the hall in Poole where Zafra's birth was registered. In 1955, lightning struck the clock just as Doc Brown connected a wire to it, thus allowing the 21 Gigawatts of energy to pass into the flux capacitor and therefore send Marty back into the future...

There are times when Neil has to work so Jenny goes out with Zafra. In the following few snaps, Jenny went to Farmer Palmers, a kind-of-local petting farm.

 

Counting sheep, Zafra... well, you know....!

Baa Ram You...

If Daddy had been doing this, there would have been sneezing by now...

So there's something rather funny that they do at Farmer Palmers, which is races. They strap teddy bears to the sheep and have races...

A Day at the Races

Zafra loves anything to do with cameras.

Zafra reads "That's Not My Monster"

So, some other news. It seems that a couple of tadpoles remain in the pond! It's a bit amazing considering that the pond was almost choking with pondweed. There aren't the hundreds that we had before, but hopefully some of the surviving few will become frogs.

We've been to a few weddings recently, a mixture of work and personal, so Zafra's now been to three weddings, with a fourth coming up the day before his first birthday. She's really developing in an extraordinary way. For example, when Zafra used to go for Neil's books in his study, he could just put Parker's bed up sideways to block then books. But now Zafra knows to move the bed out of the way before going for the books, instead of just giving up. That kind of persistence is why she can now climb the stairs by herself and why she has started to stand up by herself - she's done that three times. There are also times when she can pull herself up on something and then let go and be standing there for around ten seconds. It's really awesome to watch, to be honest.

We made this picture extra-large so you could see one thing in particular ... look at Zafra's bottom gum.

The one tooth has developed into two teeth, which has led to many interrupted nights. And the gurgled sounds have developed into primitive words. Dada and Mama both appeared on the same day and, rather strangely, there was one morning recently when Zafra pointed down the stairs to where parker often sits and said very clearly the word "Dog." That could have been coincidence if it weren't for the fact that she went away and five minutes later came back and did it again. What's weird is that we never use the word "Dog," we call him Parker. So it's very odd. There have also been a couple of times when she points to something and it really sounds like she's saying "Look," which is something we often say to get her attention. So there are definitely primitive words. It's very hard to pinpoint a first word - probably Dada and Mama on the same day.


Neil has become a bit of a geek with a boardgame called Star Wars Epic Duels which he bought in New York in 2002 (Adam may still have nightmares about Darth Vader's "All Too Easy" card (probably not, though!)). Neil found a way to create new decks online, so there's been a lot of printing and some buying of Star Wars Miniatures online. It's allowed a new geeky outlet while he also organises an interfaith sustainability agreement between faith communities from the local area.


Jenny hasn't been 100% healthy recently because of a wide variety of British lurgis so there's been a lot of family time at home recently as well. Oh, Jenny's birthday. Because the great British summer seems to be rainy this year we had an indoor picnic with some friends and their babies who then retired after lunch to the ball pit...

Zafra, Violet and Imogen

Ladies wot lunch

 We will try to get better about the blog - sorry for the extended delays.
  Hope you're well.