Happy Birthday James










12th December was a fabulous day with two friends for a "party" followed by visits by grandparents and godparents, not to mention mountains of presents. James went to bed a thoroughly exhausted but happy 5 year old.

Congratulations Mr and Mrs Davies!

What a wonderful day! Lucy was stunningly beautiful and radiantly happy on her wedding day. Happy, happy day.

About the woodland I will go,
to see the cherry hung with snow.

Some pictures from yesterday's walk

Siberian Sunnyside

James I'm sure has Eskimo blood in him as he is always wanting to play in the snow....don't know where he gets it from. Here's some fun from the last few days.

The Snow Slide Returns!

One year on (almost), the snow slide has returned. Let the action commence... (see facebook for a better quality version)

December snow

After about 24 hours of constant snow (and it's still coming down), we now have around a foot. Yesterday James's school was open much to his disgust, but to add insult to injury, my school was shut so I got a snow day and he didn't. But today we were both out enjoying the snow. Despite not setting out until 11.30 Maisie and I made the first footprints on the Big Wood Walk.

RIP Ruby

Alas, this morning Ruby had opened up her wound for the fourth time and we decided that enough was enough. She is no more. She is an ex-chicken.

Ruby Ruby Ruby Ruby!

After a week of administering caster oil and massaging her crop, the large solid lump of undigested food was refusing to shift, so yesterday we performed an operation on Ruby to remove the offending mass. Armed with a razor blade, clean towels, iodine and a bottle of superglue, Mab and I carefully cut her open and extracted a small bucketful of fermenting grass (which seriously ponged!), cleaned her up and glued her back together.
All was going well until left to her own devices she pecked open the wound, which was looking quite good until the fourth time of gluing it back together this morning. The ice-cream tub lid collar finally seems to be doing the trick, that's if she doesn't die from superglue poisoning first... At least we had an interesting and novel excuse for James being late for school this morning!

Bonfire night!

We treated James and Jennifer to a late night on Saturday to experience their first real bonfire night. After James's recent run-in with a sparkler, he was quite worried about standing too close to the fireworks but he escaped unscathed, if a little tired and over excited having spent an hour in the company of the undeniably "cool" Uncle Matt, Andrew and Malcolm.

Autumn at Sunnyside

The Rut















A guaranteed wildlife treat can always be found at this time of year in Knole Park. Jenny and I headed down for a picnic on this my last but one Wednesday off before returning to the world of full time employment.

Where are all the otters?

The news this week is that otters are making a come back in all counties of the UK except for Kent. How disappointing. In a bid to prove those reporters wrong, I went down to the exact spot on the river Medway where I saw an otter over 20 years ago, but my hopes were dashed almost immediately by the sound of barking and baying and the call of the bugle. Not the best time for spotting wildlife..

Welcome to the world Baby Sam Foster!

Baby Sam Foster arrived a little ahead of schedule on 1st October, after playing the okey kokey with him mum for 3 days as she went in and out of labour. Both are doing fabulously and Sam, blissfully unaware of all the attention, slept through being poked, prodded, cuddled and kissed by two very excited little children.

Never Too Young to Learn

James doesn't seem to understand yet that DIY in the long line of Burgess tradition means trouble. Here he is practicing the fine art of how to hit your finger with a hammer.

Extreme damson picking





Much of the fruit on our damson trees is out of reach, but with a little help of two small boys, a slide and a toy sword, we managed to get a good trug full.

Painting

James and Jennifer help Daddy to paint the tree house.

First week at school

We made the most of our long lazy afternoons on James's first week at school, here visiting Ightham Mote.

First day at school








It's a big day for James - we have just returned from school having dropped him off for the very first time. What a fine figure he cuts in his royal blue uniform. Despite my expectations of being very level headed about the whole event, as I watched him walk away into the classroom holding the hand of his new Teaching Assistant, I admit I did shed a very small tear. My boy is growing up.

Bath

What better way to spend the bank holiday than with the Daveys? Apart from the intermittent whining and wailing from tired children, we had some happy moments playing on the green outside The Royal Crescent in Bath.

Dressing up

Knights and Princesses

Bodiam is set to be a favourite spot for picnics, games of knights and princesses, and watching melons being catapulted into the moat medieval style. What larks.

Tree house

Mabs, Grandpops and James have been hard at work over the last couple of weekends building a tree house (which will double up as a hide for spotting wildlife and popping off the odd rabbit for supper). What clever chaps!

Monkeys!

The northern Burgesses are on their usual August vacation to the South to escape the rain. Here are our plucky girls flying high on the rope swing at Auntie Daphne's farm.