January, the first week: Dressing up in the Isle of Man

The first week of January was spent in the Isle of Man, as we were hanging around for a Manx dialect theatre thing. We had fun though, mostly through dressing up. But first, the monthly pics...

14 months

15 months

51 months

52 months

The first thing to happen in January was the New Year's Day Dip, which Cori mysteriously signed up to with Finn's granny during the Christmas meal (perhaps a glass of wine to the good). Once committed, she had to had to do it, and do it she did, with cousin Thomase and Uncle Dean too.
Their was quite a mob down there, and I was in the flat with a sleeping Orry, so it was left to Auntie Heidi to take the pictures, but she was mainly occupied keeping children gathered, handling the towels, and making sure that Finn didn't die or something from getting a bit of a wave on his toe (because of which he then claimed that he too had taken part in the Dip!) - regardless, that is to explain why there is not an actual in-the-water picture:

Note the novelty silly hats especially provided for the occasion by Granny. These were then the delight for Orry to try on once he'd woken up (or maybe the delight was Orry's parents'...):

It appears that the bulk of what follows is very slight, and pretty much just consists of more pictures of everyone dressing up. However, there is the story of the start of a Finn Obsession that was still rumbling on in February.
What soon became the bane of our lives was Finn's having been inspired by a particular episode of the Octonauts while in the Isle of Man (this one, in fact). This began very innocently, but when back in London it become something of a rather repetitive game. Or, it would have been a game, if Finn had developed it at all beyond merely allocating roles and then bullying us to stick to them. He and Orry were the cubs, I was Captain Barnacle - though Finn insisted on just calling me "Barnacles" - and Cori was the cub-mum. Nothing much follows, other than Finn's bullying us about keeping to the name-allocation, but it was relentless at times. It was ok inside, when he had other things to concentrate on, but every morning upon leaving the house towards nursery he was reintroduce the game with "Barnacles, Barnacles." "Yes, Finn?" "No! No, Barnacles. I'm cub. And Orry's a cub too." "Ok."
This would generally make the five minute walk to nursery the longest five minutes of my day, daily, for weeks. Sigh!
Anyway, this is the original line-up:

And this is the masterful recreation of the two cubs, courtesy of a couple of Cori's hair-band thingies:

The request for these to go into their hair was entirely Finn's - it was not Cori's suggestion, and it certainly wasn't Orry's!

The dressing up came mostly in the House of Manannan, in Peel. We had been before as a family, but beyond Finn's memory, so it was good to go again. The main drive was Cori's interest in their Viking gallery (because she's involved in such stuff through her work), which I was delighted to discover was entirely new, and mostly created from a previous exhibition on the Chronicles of Mann, which I'd loved. The Museum as a whole was enjoyed by all, and Finn was very brave in the darker areas (where the Museum-provided torch was a big win), but the new gallery was excellent, and we spent nearly half of our time there alone. This was helped by there being very few other people there - I am rather proud to believe that we were the first visitors of 2016!
The reason for our long stay in the gallery, besides the exhibits which Cori devoured in their completeness, was mainly just the dressing up and the excellent outside space to mess about in...

The game which eventually developed was that I was a King hoarding my gold coins, scared of a Viking attack, only for Finn to arrive on his boat; we fought on the shore, but he drove me back and got into the castle to steal my coins, before leaping back onto his boat and sailing away, leaving me weeping at the loss; but it was ok because then he sailed back and gave back the money and we became friends. It looked much like this:

Then we found the beard. We liked the beard...

An excellent trip - and very glad to be on the Island long enough into 2016 to see it open.

That was about it in the Isle of Man at the start of 2016: we were only there for a week or so. And most of that was me chasing my Manx literature things, so a lot of time for the family was spend hanging out in the flat and hanging out with the cousins or going round the town etc.
We did get a trip out to Douglas and the Manx Museum though, but after Peel it was just not-as-good. Still, they did have a at least something to dress up in!

The London January update is to come shortly...