A post about posting...

The supreme being has made a new discovery of sending and receiving. It all started with a bit of inquisitive questioning about the postal service, then before you know it she's strung it all together and has discovered that if you put things into the red box they turn up at other people's houses some days later.

And that was just the start. This innocent discovery is slowly turning into a full blown cottage industry. And at today's postage costs not a cheap one at that. Conversations now generally start with..."Daddy, let's do some drawing..." then before you know what's happened it's "And then I want to post all the pictures." It's costing a fortune.

From there Emily has also discovered texting, particularly huge chains of smilie faces. Obviously getting in early for an activity that she'll probably be doing with alarming regularity as she gets older...that's if texts still exist!

So watch out for a random text on your phone or a picture through your door soon...

 Get your cash Daddy...I'm off to the postbox

 Daddy, Mummy, Emily and the Hedgehog

 Emily riding a horse

Yes - it's true. Emily got to live the dream over the Easter weekend by getting to ride a pony. She barely spoke for the next 15 minutes and just nodded and grinned at everything we said. It was wonderful to behold.

The Easter weekend passed with us just enjoying our locale, the garden, eating chocolate, Easter activities, and some quality time with friends. Final stop was the Woodland Explorers - which is a kind of unofficial outdoor playgroup where tiny children get to play with fire and sharp sticks. All under the watchful eye of us adults. In particular Viv is in charge (for the record a qualified outdoor teacher). Emily seriously idolises her. Anything Viv says goes. And Emily's always first up with her hand at anything Viv suggests. Mummy and Daddy could probably learn a thing or two in how to tame a 3 year old.

So what ever you got up to - I hope the Easter bunny was good to you and there was spring sunshine shining down on you :-)

Living the dream

 Putting chocolate bananas on the fire

 Stoking the Kelly Kettle under the watchful eye of the magical Viv

 A pair of gorgeous Easter bunnies :-)

Springing about...

Spring has sprung in the West of Scotland in recent weeks, and along with that goes a whole new world of outdoor adventures. The supreme being has been discovering the joys of nature as everything starts to come back to life after the winter. We've spent a lot of time outdoors looking for new shoots and buds, planting seeds and young plants, and discussing all about baby animals and checking the nesting box from a distance. I have a dedicated assistant in the garden now and Emily helped plant nearly 60 plants the other day...I was seriously impressed by her attention span as I was expecting she might get bored after the first 2 or 3. We were out there for hours :-). In recent weeks we have seeded the wildflower meadow, planted lots of perennials in the cottage garden, and put lots of seeds into pots and watched them all start to come to life...

The gardening duo

 Spring has sprung

 Happily watering

What the garden might look like

But spring is not just about gardening. Recent weeks have also seen trips to museums, adventures in the play parks, the whole Gedik family visiting, and discovery of the world's largest chip...the latter being possibly the most exciting thing in a long time!

The world's largest chip

Videoclip: Making me dizzy

What did we do?...

Major rumblings have been underway in the first few months of 2016 in the Rooke household. As you'll have heard in recent posts we've been very busy (and a little frazzled) doing some quite big alterations in our lovely new home.

We're all but there now - just some final light shades and blinds to top it all off. But I hope you can see from the photos below it's a really great job and we are all completely delighted. We set out to bring light and usage to the side of the house that we weren't really using and we now just can't stop living in it. We all just tear around the place bathed in sunlight (yes, there is some on the West Coast) and now regularly enjoy evening meals at the far end looking onto the garden. A brilliant success and a tribute to all the craftsmen that were involved. Most importantly though a massive thank you to David Scott, our friend and architect supremo, who gave us the inspiration for it all :-)

So please visit soon...there's now loads more usable space for everyone to enjoy...and we love having visitors.

Old playroom to dining room

Old study to kitchen

Old bathroom to new bathroom

And old kitchen to new spare room