February #2: Ward hunt, camping, Glen Helen & snow

The second half of February included a poetry treasure hunt around Peel, through the Ward Library. It was good fun, though somewhat chaotically planned, with meters between most of them, and then two or three ones extremely far out. We enjoyed it though, especially some of the poems we were spotting in the locations we identified (such as this lovely one pictured). They boys also very much enjoyed the hot chocolate mix they got as reward from the library (including one made especially with Orry's allergies in mind, which was very thoughtful of them!):

We planned to go to Dhoon Glen on the next day, but it was rained off. But gladly Granny was with us, so we could just take our packed lunch to the Guide Wood at Glen Mona, where we hid in their yurt-like building to eat our lunches. It inspired us to think about camping (in the future), but it had the knock-on idea of camping at home. So it was that Finn and Orry had a very exciting night camping in the front room:

As well as being lovely place to hang out and play, they pretty much managed the sleeping there through the night too, though Orry was confused in the early morning over waking there. But Finn was sufficiently happy there to do it the night following.

A successful outing was our first ever trip (for Finn & I at least) to Glen Helen, which is yet another beautiful Manx glen:

Unfortunately, Orry has decided that he prefers to have his back photographed than his front, which rather frustrates most of our photographic intentions (see above), but we hope that this will soon get old with him (as it certainly has with us!). Also unfortunately on our trip to Glen Helen, we became split up and the slower team (Orry with Cori) never made it to the waterfall, but we all happily met up again to go to the playground, close to the Amy Johnson tree:

We also had a lot of fun when in doors, such as with blocks...

As you will see, Orry (& Finn's) sense of order is still flourishing. This, for instance, is how Orry occupied himself quietly for a few minutes on day:

Finn then saw this, thought it was a good idea, and so together they created this, which they were very proud of:

Orry also really likes giving directions, and getting to be the boss. Usually in terms of "draw me a monster. It needs a triangle head and three eyes and... etc"

Also on the Fun Inside theme, is a now-rarer playing at being a doctor:

Also, we got out the Mecano, which is s step up from Lego, but many many times more irritating and not nearly as much fun... or perhaps Finn is still too young for it. At least he & Orry are still dudes though:

After last months Big Snow excitement, we were rather un-delighted by the reappearance of snow, although it was good to actually have it in Peel itself this time; it at least made for pretty pictures, and also meant that we didn't need to put too much effort in to get our fix of Snow Excitement, before scuttling inside to get warm again!

All very lovely. Also surprisingly lovely is this picture taken inevitably too-early in the morning, when Finn came in to wake me up. Sometimes we can snatch a minute or two more sleep by letting him creep into our bed to lie beside us snuggling in warm. A small piece of happiness (& sleep):

But rather more classy are the pictures taken when the swanky camera was in the house from work recently (our own camera is effectively broken now as the connection between the camera and the lenses (and therefore auto focus) refuses to work). They are lovely things in places, and probably a good place to conclude the month on: