So, to take things roughly chronologically, we started with a trip south, led by a joint Manx dance practice with another group, in preparation for Tynwald Day. But while we were down there, we took a walk round from Scarlett, looking for a Bronze Age fort, but we had to give up after 30 minutes or so walking, as we were on course to be late. But it was a lovely walk anyway, including the not-before-seen WWII radar station:
With the final practice out of the way, we were all set for Tynwald Day, though we did add an extra element to the festivity this year. Traditionally there is a record of Manx people going up South Barrule with rushes as a rent for the god, Manannan. I went up with some friends of ours to make a film about this for work, inspiring many people to take up the tradition again (a few people already did it, as we saw when we went up and found rushes there already). It was the sort of thing that Finn gets into, so he and I took a packed dinner up South Barrule and we delivered our year's rent to the Manx god. It was a lovely walk, which we both enjoyed (I'd brushed up on my folklore tales for the area, to keep Finn talking through the hour-long walk!), even if we did have to bring our sandwiches into the car in order to avoid the midges!
The next day, of course, was Tynwald Day. I was in work, as ever, but Cori was in with the two boys all day, from 11am or so through to 5.30pm or so. A long time for anyone to be on their feet, let alone an extremely pregnant lady with two kids! She did get a bit of relief though, when she manned the Yn Chruinnaght table for an hour or so, leaving Finn to go off with a friend and their parents, and only Orry to annoy her by wanting to be on her 'lap.'
Much fun was had, and the main event, of course, was Finn's first Manx dancing on the green, which went really well:
He was very much in the mood for dancing after that, and was merrily freestyling to the music over the tannoy (not the best video, but he's in the right off in the middle):
Cori was quite the expert at Tynwald Day this year, as she'd been working on a project for my work, looking into the history of St. John's and Tynwald Day. This is something she took on weeks ago, fully anticipating being long finished with it by now - but since then time has ticked away and she has been forced to spend a lot of time slaving at it intently to get it finished before she becomes otherwise distracted by incoming infants. This has her taking Orry on a few scouting trips around the place, about which he's been of middling delight:
Inevitably, we've been working hard to get things done in the house in preparation for The Arrival. This included deliveries and the like, with an excess of cardboard to be sorted. A bright idea one weekend was to outline a few objects or scenes for the boys to fill the detail in of. They had a great 20 or so minutes working together all sorts of things:
Continuing what began in Mexico, I had Finn explain it to me in Manx too:
As last year, the boys went up to Ramsey for their Ramsey Day event, full of free rides and other such stuff. Cori went alone with them and held back from contacting our friends who live there, for fear of imposing, but then they bumped into each other there and everyone had a great time hanging out:
The last picture is worthy of special mention. It is amazing that Orry is on a donkey here. We were amazed! He has always liked animals, but from a distance. And, even just a month ago (at the Home of Rest for Old Horses), he would never actually go near a horse or the like or dare to actually touch even a dog or a cat. That he then asked to go on a donkey, and then actually followed through and got on it was truly amazing.
Orry has been growing up a lot over the last two or three weeks, doing new things like this and trying out new aspects of his personality. It's great, even if it does have its draw-backs, such as his now apparently being absolutely terrified of spiders (which is probably about 50% true).
The latest development (today, 19th July) is to decide to be 'helpful' now that he is about to get the title of Big Brother. After watching a TV programme, he's interpreted this as being the Line Manager of Finn, delighting in doing impersonations of Cori in calling Finn into line when he's not paying attention or putting his hand on his hips and pointing out Finn's behaviour. It's clearly a very fun game for him to be playing, and one that could stick. It would be lovely if it did, being both a path to much humour and also to better behaviour, though it might annoy Finn greatly!
Finn has also delighted me recently, by agreeing to walk to school. He did this with his school back in May, in wet conditions and with great misery. But at that time he agreed that he might want to do it with me one morning on the way into school. Finally this month we agreed to do it. We made a list the evening before of what we'd need (everything is more exciting for the boys if a list is required!) and many snacks and treats were bought for the journey. We got up early and set off at 7.45am, arriving at 9.05am at school, tired & late, but very happy with our healthy & enjoyable walk. A lovely thing to have done.
It was even such a success that we did it again on his penultimate day in school, with another positive reaction from Finn, with him very proud of his achievement and delighted to guzzle the left-over apple juice before going into school (late again, despite leaving 10-15 minutes earlier!):
One of the delights of the end of term is the school sports. As per last year, the sports day at Finn's day are wonderful fun. The kids help devise the sports, on a theme. This year it was Alice in Wonderland, to tie in with their annual school musical. So there was flamingo croquet, crawling under a blue sheet (a sea of tears), throwing the bean-bag/jam-tarts in the card-box, & hopping like a rabbit to move the time on a little on the clock etc. They were arranged in teams which cut across the ages, and they competed as the group, so no individual lost. It was a lovely positive time, with lots of cheering and lots of fun:
Also, to continue the random photo-story bits, here is Finn as we found him quietly using time before leaving the house for school one morning as we rushed around - sat quietly at the little table with some Lego, and the thing from the curtains...!
The boys decided to challenge themselves to making a track which was just bridge, as you do:
The boys remembered the phone picture sticker thing, and made this fine thing to send to Cori again (they have mechano hoovers, apparently):
The late evenings creates a patch of lovely light where Finn sits of an evening, which creates the opportunity for pictures like this:
Orry continues to shock us in his excellence at reading/writing. He now moans about having to read things (but I still force him to read the easier titles of books before we start reading anything at night, and he continues to impress), but he's recently started to write things too. We're not working on writing things at all with him, but he's decided to do it himself, writing occasional notes or the like. This was a letter he was writing to Finn, entirely off his own back. As you will see, he lost interest, but it is quite amazing writing for a 3-year-old to write out on his own, without help, having never really been taught to write anything at all - we're all very impressed:
His pictures are still great & interesting. Here is one he did of someone flying a kite (as for all of them, they start as quite nice simple pictures, but he draws more onto it and then scribbles on it too before discarding it):
Another nice picture is described here:
As you can see, it is indeed quite the picture of a girl eating poo with a fork:
Cori continues to Be Massive:
People naively tell her to get rest/sleep at this stage, imagining that all the No Sleep is when the baby comes. But, of course, there is little sleep getting done now anyway, what with being so large and all. This makes it all the more delightful when an extra snooze can be snatched, such as when she arrived early to the school pick up having collected a cot bed, which she lay out in the shade in a quite part of the carpark and had a snooze there in the open with Orry:
But, getting back to the run of events, one of the big things which had been eating Cori's time for weeks & months was helping to bring about the Celtic music festival in Peel. We all got involved towards the end, such as in putting up the banners around the town:
After months of planning and late nights it was upon us, with Cori out every night at events and Finn also involved with his dance troupe for some. Perhaps the highlight for us all was the ceili, at which Finn performed with his group, and then we all just had a lot of fun, until tiredness hit:
We had a couple of Welsh musician/dancers staying with us, and they also performed at the ceili. Finn was very proud to have them as his friends, even if it did mean that he was stood up by them as they tried to teach the room something of Welsh clog dancing!
As a weak attempt at illustrating this, here is Finn and a friend watching their dancing closely:
Finn was also dancing at the weekend's outdoor performances outside the House of Manannan, which was great:
Orry was also there, having fun both in watching the dancing and music, and also in making a rock pile:
I was delighted when Orry had the idea of using the festival programme with the blue-tac to make a display in the kitchen. He was very excited to show it off to Cori, for good reason:
You might be able to see this in the background of this picture of our new game:
As you might be able to see from the strips of tickets in their hands, this is a raffle game. It consists of me arranging some prizes on the chair, including their vitamins and a couple of toys, and then reading out numbers which they don't have and then ones they do, as they come out and choose their prizes with much applause. What's not to like! The idea of having such a game in the house was entirely Orry's idea, inspired by his having fallen asleep before the raffle at the ceili.
We got a big scare a few days ago when Cori called me upstairs one late evening after the boys were asleep. The was a cause for concern as she had had 'a bleed' as it seems to be called, and so I phoned the hospital, who said it would be best to go in for them to see her. So it was that I darted off for the car and Cori called in a friend to sit in for us. Full of fright and worry, we set off to the hospital. They confirmed that it was just something that sometimes happens and that there was nothing they could find that was actually wrong, but also confirmed the inevitable - that Cori would have to stay in there for observation for 24 hours. So I returned home (disappointing our friend greatly when there was no actual baby news!) and had a nice day with Orry the day after. Our first stop after dropping Finn at school was to go and see Cori in the hospital, taking her all the the things we'd failed to make ready in her The Bag:
After that, since it's only around the corner from the hospital, Orry & I went to see his soon-to-be pre school. I had tried to phone, but without success, so we really did surprise them when we went in, but they welcomed us in and we had a lovely time. Cori had found it hard with him there when she had gone to visit before, but we had a nice time and Orry enjoyed it. Perhaps a part of that was timing it perfectly to be in for jelly & a strawberry at their party tea. By the time we were done with the tea, Orry was keen to follow on behind everyone else to look at the sunflower outside and to go and water the plants. It was good fun, and all very promising for September:
Cori's being in hospital meant that she missed going with Orry to Finn's school play, but she did get to go later in the evening, after she was discharged. It was Ealish ayns cheer ny Yindyssyn - Alice in Wonderland, created by the teachers with help from the children (they have to create it themselves as there is no readily-available Manx-language musicals for school-children, funnily enough!), and Finn was a card. It was great fun, even if we were rather lost at times as to what was going on. Orry didn't care about understanding it at all - he just loved it. He was stood on the chair throughout absorbed in it. His only complaint was that we wouldn't allow him to watch it a second time - we only soothed him from his tears over it by promising to get him the DVD of it when it's available (in a week or two)!
The dry run to the hospital rather shocked us out of complacency. As we were rushing out the house, we we both mentally shrugging our shoulders about the tasks and chores we were leaving not done and seeing that it wasn't so important. So, when we found it to be a false alarm, we were able to return to the chores afresh, and get through them easily. Chores such as finally getting the room ready for Grandma & Auntie Jaimie's visit (the day after school finishes), creating something handmade for the new baby to come home in (as she did for the other two, this time a pair of trousers), fixing the car, fixing the camera & other tidyings up and the writing of this blog!
Cori also finished off her work commision for my work, which was a great relief. Now, on the other side of that, everything left is small and not-so-important - it's about time to have a baby!
The boys have been asking about how long for a week or two, so we've been keeping a count-down on the back-of-the-door blackboard, to avoid having to answer their questions a few times a day:
(The blue lines, and the red outline are both further examples of Orry's fine drawing skills).
The final thing, in a blog of this title, is the end of school. Finn is staying with the same teacher next year (as the older children in the same classroom), so it's not that grand a change, but it is still a milestone. Inevitably we've been coming home with books and art works for days now, much of which we might share later. But one thing worthwhile sharing here is certainly his report, which says so much about the sort of child our Finn is:
A clever little chatterer.
Tomorrow Finn & Orry's American grandma& aunt arrive, so we're onto a new chapter, ready for a new blog post. So, as something nice to leave you on, here at two of Orry and a duck (taken with our at-last fixed camera):
