February #2: Eating, facepaint & photo exhibition

Let's start of the second half of February as we ended the first - with some Oshin cuteness:

What a cute one!

Maybe note cute, but certainly lovely, was a trip out around from the Sound - a lovely place, especially in the lovely light at that time. We were hunting for the apparent remains of Finn McCooill's house, but sadly without success - but at least we have the excuse to go back another time now:

(A rare picture of me in there - huh!)

On a trip to to friends in Ramsey we were delighted when Finn and Orry disappeared off to hang out in their friend's room. But when Finn came down without Orry and we asked what they were up to, we were less impressed...

Well, I say that we were not impressed - in actual fact, I was delighted at the ridiculousness of it all. I thought it was hilarious. But then Orry wanted it washed off, and then that was rather less fun.
Apparently he was a cat.
It was typical of the friend (a girl in Finn's class), who wonderfully thought nothing of any sort of problem to putting make up on Orry. And likewise that Orry thought nothing of submitting himself to it. Such weirdos!

Oshin is progressing with glee into the world of food, as you might be able to tell from the pictures:

And here is some video evidence of his dedication to solid food - expressed both by his moaning for more whenever there is nothing on his tray, and also by his happy moans as he gorges himself on what he's given:

With all this fine eating on him, he's growing into a fine lump of a boy. This is obvious when friends try and hold the baby still and now rather struggle to hold him:

Or, more obviously, when it's clear that he's not going to go into his pram-cot again (which is a big shame, as this is the one place where he will be able to be put down and still sleep):

Of course, with Oshin at the table eating with us all, it means that we do a lot of our hanging out with him there, which is quite fun, as it means that we can all join in - it will often be everyone crying out to him and Oshin looking round trying to work out who to smile at. A very lovely thing, though normally tarnished by the mess being made and its all being too-late!
The late hour probably explains why Oshin's laughter here sounds like it's on the edge of crying...

A couple of good outings which Cori had with the boys included one out and about in the Archallagon plantation:

Archallagon is a place which many of Finn's classmates go to a lot, but they are more outdoor boys, but they were pleasantly surprised by how much fun they all had there playing about and having fun.

The other good Cori-&-the-boys trip was out with friends to the Wildlife Park:

It was lovely to hang out with everyone, but the focus was more on the playing rather than the animals. So Cori tagged on a quick trip around the animals before they went, which everyone liked:

Finn declares that penguins are his favourite animal. It's unclear whether this is a real interest in them, or just that he has an animal to shout for when they come up in books or the like. But they do like to put a sight on them when they are at the Wildlife Park.

Cori got a swinger for Oshin from the tip, but it didn't stay in the house very long, as he was swinging it rather precariously up on its legs. He did like it though:

Over the past month or so I'd been enjoying a book all about the Dalby Spook, Gef the Talking Mongoose. I would read interesting sections of it out to the boys, or summarise the good stories out of it for them.
So they adopted games of calling out "Coo-ee!" and then looking round for where the sound was coming from. Or they would do it from outside the door, and then dark away from sight before I raced out to see who was calling. Or they would shout out "Vanished!" before dashing out the room and off upstairs to bed etc.
This inspired the boys to write a story about Gef, which I wrote out and they illustrated wonderfully:

I sent this to the author of the book I'd been reading, who was thrilled to see it, but not as thrilled as Finn was to hear that the author thought that their pictures were great!
(Orry's picture of himself is obvious from the absence of a body, but all else is Finn's work).
Having finished the book, I was desperate to go and see the place where the house was (it was knocked down in the 70s), but the weather made it a difficult journey to work out as it's a long way from most places and I wasn't too sure where I would be going.
But one day I was out for a long walk with Oshin and I realised that the weather was perfect for a quick trip up the hill. So this is as far as we go on the coast path...

... before we darted back, got in the car and headed out to the home of Gef:

A lovely place to be, and very exciting for me to think of the Irving family and their house there where me and Oshin were wandering about.

It appears, all too quickly, that we're at the final thing in February - hurray!
Cori saw that the big year-long government initiative to get people out and about in the Island  - the 'Year of Our Island' - was putting on a photo competition. Ever the one for something like this, she trawled through the photos and submitted a few, one of which was shortlisted. So we went along to the awards and admired the picture there amongst the others:

It was a awkward event in that it was Cori who's picture was shown, but it was me who knew everyone there. So instead of everyone there chatting to her as I fended the children, it was me who was off chatting to people as she rounded them about. It wasn't really as we planned it, and it wasn't really very fair.
Also there was one of the teachers from Finn's school, who he went over and chatted happily to in Manx (of course, as that is all they ever speak to their teachers). Someone else joined them and Finn turned around and started chatting to her in Manx also, which baffled her into scared silence. This lovely teacher than laughed nicely and explained to Finn in Manx: "Cha nel ee loayrt Gaelg foast" / "She doesn't speak Manx yet." - The foast/yet delighted me; what a lovely thing to say to a young Manx speaker. Painting the world as if English-only speakers who will never even begin learning Manx, let alone master it, might one day be a speaker. Nothing Us-&-Them about it - all entirely open-door. I thought it was a very lovely thing, and it made me very happy that Finn was in a school led by such generous and thoughtful teachers.
The kids of course, didn't think anything of it whatsoever - they were too busy being excited about the loot they'd claimed from the event!

Thus ends February... vanished!