Lara's Writing

We've not spent as much time as we would have liked helping Lara with writing practice, but based on her efforts this morning, she doesn't need our help!

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Beer, Grass, House Hunting & a walkabout dog

Other things going on in the past few weeks - we had our annual trip to the Reading Beer Festival on Bank Holiday Sunday, Lara was desperate to get there to play on the bouncy castle with her friends Eve and Tess, she was asking about it for days in advance. The girls also had their make-up done:

This has been the wettest drought in history, it's rained almost every day for the 6 weeks since a hosepipe ban was announced. However, this last weekend was dry, and after getting my first cricket match of the summer in on Saturday, I was able to mow the lawns for the first time since March on Sunday. Here's a before and after :-)

Lara enjoyed having a picnic while I mowed around her..

(that's not Danny's pram, by the way, it's for Lara's dolls!)
Hopefully I'll only have to mow that lawn one more time before we move out; we've been filling in all the necessary paperwork for the solicitors for the sale, and it should all be sent back to them tomorrow.
While that's all being processed, we'll carry on with househunting, with a view to starting to visit potential properties in June.
We had some fun and games on Saturday night, after we got home from cricket at Littlewick Green, where Olga, Lara and Danny had spent much of the day, with Lara climbing trees and making pretend camp fires in the woods. We let the dogs out into the back garden to do their business, and when I called them back in after a couple of minutes, only Mishka returned... Jacky had disappeared again. I did two laps of Deeds Grove calling for him to no avail, so I got in the car and started driving round the estate, before Olga called to say a woman had phoned - Jacky had turned up at their house, a quarter of a mile away, and they were looking after him! I got the address and popped home to grab a  bottle of wine as a thank-you, and went to collect the little tearaway. Sometimes he's just too friendly, although we suspect he escaped to chase one of our fox family!
Only a month now till our holiday, yayy! And tomorrow Danny is off to the Doc's for some injections, Lara will be keen to know if he cries or not - she loves to boast how she never did for her injections...

Danny at 2 months

Danny is doing really well. Olga took him to the health centre today and he weighed in at 6.12kg, he's been putting on between 500 and 600 grammes every two weeks, and is on the 75th percentile. He's already in to aged 3-6 month clothes! Recently he has started laughing and smiling at us, at Olga and Lara in particular. His sleeping is still erratic, during the day he'll go upto three hours between feeds, then once he is put to bed between 7pm and 8pm, he can go anything from three hours to eight hours before his next feed, then he's back to his two to three hours intervals. Olga is being an absolute trooper at coping with the broken nights, I do try to help out when I can, like tonight - she's gone out with Lucy for a meal in Wycombe, and I'm in charge at home, and will feed Danny at night from our frozen supply so Olga can enjoy a couple of glasses of wine tonight.
Here are a couple of photos of the kids from the past few weeks:

Midsomer Murders filming

The makers of Midsomer Murders spent a few days filming at Littlewick Green at the start of May, and they wanted to include some shots of a cricket match in progress. So ten of the players from the cricket club turned up on a cold, windy Wednesday morning to stage a game. We were treated to bacon sandwiches whilst they filmed a scene before they needed us. Then it was time to perform, and I made sure I was going to be the bowler. The director filmed a "long shot" from the balcony of the village hall, whilst we played, then he moved the cameras on to the square, and filmed a close up of the batsman. The director knew cricket, and asked our batsman to hit the ball down to the 3rd man area, and he placed the camera so as to get the best view of this kind of shot. This meant I had to bowl the ball in the right place for the batsman to hit it there, and I was worried we'd be there for an hour trying to get it right, but as it was we got it right on only the third delivery. The director then turned the camera to film me in my run up, and filmed several deliveries - the camera was close to the ground, so I don't know if you'll see all of me, or only my legs! And that's if they use the shots at all, but look out for it on ITV in late June or July. I think the episode will be called Death of a Diva...

The House Hunt is ON

Away from anything Danil-related, our other big news is that we accepted an offer on our house on Thursday. It's been the only offer so far, and after a few back-and-forth phone calls over a 10 day period with the estate agent, we agreed on an acceptable price. The purchasers are first time buyers, and we'll be renting a house somewhere, so there is no chain at either end to spoil things, so we're really hoping this can go through smoothly. Given that we had no problems reported from our searches or survey when we bought this place, and the buyers have a deposit and mortgage offer in hand, this is about as good a situation as it gets, and we might be out of here by the end of June. 
We haven't decided where our next home will be yet! Within reason, we could work pretty much anywhere in the country, given that we work from home. We will run our ideas past the bosses at work and make sure they're ok with it, before we draw up a list of places to go and see. We won't be signing any agreements until we've exchanged contracts on this place, of course, and we've agreed with the buyers to have a four-week window between exchange and completion to allow us to find somewhere, sign the papers, and pack up our considerable amount of possessions! Whilst we're not counting our chickens before the contracts are exchanged, getting to this point is a big relief after being on the market for a while, and having more than 30 viewings without an offer.
So, evenings are currently occupied with scouring Rightmove's website.... we're looking for somewhere big, semi-rural, and cheaper than the mortgage we're currently paying. Anyone have any suggestions!?