Some changes, and tree climbing

I've changed my blog :) Sorry if you don't like it, but I was finding that the long thin layout was giving me repetitive strain in my wrist on account of having to scroll up and down all the time! So I fancied this more spacious layout, that gives a person a little room to breathe and stretch.

But I've a feeling that more changes are coming this year. I'm not actually going to say what they might be, because I'm not at liberty to do so yet (oooh, are you intrigued?!) - but I do think there's going to be a period of transition in the second half of this year. (I sound like I'm reading a horoscope! Sorry :D ) Lots of decisions to be made about books, careers, houses, college courses, and all kinds of things. And I'm looking forward to finding out what comes next. I think I've been getting a bit frustrated at life staying the same for a bit too long now. It's not good to stagnate, is it? I don't want things to change too much, because life is good, but I think things could just do with a bit of a shake up. It's time to start getting out into the world a bit more, at weekends, exploring and seeing the world properly. Whenever I think of my little family going walking I always imagine us high up, at the summit of a wee mountain, seeing the curve of the Earth on the horizon and getting a good sense of what's going on below us. It's like my dream flying, and I feel a bit like one of Terry Pratchett's small gods; I want to get up high so that I can evaluate my little patch of world, see what needs doing and then make plans to sort it out. (What am I on about?!) Anyway, big changes coming - I can taste them in the air!

Something I would really like to do more of is tree-climbing. I don't mean in the same way as we did at Go Ape, with harnesses and wires and all that gubbins. I mean just climbing trees, like kids used to be allowed to do in parks. I climb trees wherever I can. I can't help it. If I see a climbing tree I have to climb it, before my children even think of it. I get competitive about it too - if Thomas sets off up the tree, I have to climb it faster, and I have to get up higher. There's a nice tree to climb in the park, across the road from my grandma and grandad's house. It's not massive, but it's got thick, long branches that stretch right out to the side, and you can sit several people along them side by side. The tree in today's photos is at Alnwick Gardens in Northumberland. I can't remember the age of the tree, but it's very old; but also very beautiful, don't you think? Kev and I climbed it as high as we could. And then the thing about climbing a tree is that I don't really want to come down once I'm up there. I could just sit there, with a book, swinging my legs for hours on end. I could happily take a flask and a sandwich with me and spend one of my days off up there. I really don't know what it is about a tree, but it's absolutely one of my favourite places to be; perhaps actually even my No.1 favourite place to be. I didn't discover that I could climb trees until a couple of years ago. I thought I'd be rubbish at it, with my weedy arms and general lack of strength and fitness. But I found that I'm much stronger than I imagined - probably due to having been lifting and keeping up with three small children for the last six years running (who needs gym membership?!). I climbed a nice tree when we had our walk along the river the other day. The first branch was quite high up and I thought I was going to have to give up because my legs wouldn't quite stretch far enough. But in the end I used my arms to pull myself up just enough to get that first foothold and then I was away. I was very impressed with myself. Kev likes to climb as well, though I'm not sure he feels quite the same pull towards the tree as I do. It's a strange thing. Just a shame that there aren't more good climbing trees around here. I wish we had a good one in our garden. When I lived up the road at my dad's house our next door neighbours had a super climbing tree - it was an apple tree, with a tyre swing on it. And it had long branches that made really good seats, and there was a space for each of us four kids to sit on - me and Noomski, Caroline and Darren :) Ah, good times, good times...

If we ever do move house I think that a decent climbing tree in the garden will be a prerequisite - for the boys, for the boys, of course!

Catching up.

Ahhhhhh. Lovely. Two children at nursery, one sitting on the sofa with a big pad of drawing paper and large supply of freshly sharpened pencils, a cup of tea within easy reach, a fully charged laptop and novel-writing equipment at the ready. Perfect. I've missed this - just sitting in peace and quiet (I say peace and quiet, I'm tuning out the sound of 'Dogtanian and the Muskehounds' on the TV - but it's nice to be busy working alongside Thomas all the same). It seems like I haven't blogged, or worked on my book for such a long time - it's been a whole week since I wrote anything of length. I do like to do different things from time to time, but it's good to get back into my routine of mumming and writing.

This weekend was great - Go Ape was very good. It was a shame that the difficult section of the course had been taken out - those were the bits I had been looking forward to - I was going to challenge

myself to take the hardest routes. But it was still lots of fun, and we have many, many photos and videos. The video clip I love the best is the one of me on the Tarzan Swing, and the scream that comes out of my mouth completely involuntarily is very funny! It's so loud! I had no idea that I could scream like that.

The party in the evening was nice too - not going to dwell on that too much though, as I drank two full bottles of wine and can't remember everything. I did say when I gave up drinking that I would drink at the Beer Festival, and on my birthday. No shame - everyone's had nights when they've made a prat of themselves. It's in the past now, and I'm moving on! :) One very positive thing to come from such a terrible hangover is that I'm definitely sure that giving up drinking is the right thing to do - I don't want to drink anymore, it's just stupid.

I was completely ruined on my birthday, on Monday - I was not expecting the most amazing present that Kev got me. My very own electric guitar?? Oh yes, my very own. It's just beautiful, and sounds so nice. I'm really not very good at all yet, but it does take rather a long time to become a maestro! I can play about ten chords, and my changes are getting a little faster now. But I still can't change between two chords without looking - oh, yes, I can change between an Aminor and an E without looking, but that's probably the easiest. I asked Noomski what sort of things he could play at the end of his first year, and he showed me some basic chord changes. I was pretty encouraged by that, as it didn't sound too fast or too complicated. But I'm enjoying playing the guitar a lot - it's much easier to pick up than the piano. It takes years to be able to sound impressive on the piano, but the guitar can sound impressive very quickly. Or maybe I'm easily impressed! Well, whatever. I love it. But I have no aspirations to fame and fortune with the guitar, ha ha - no, don't even want to be in a little band. I just play it for me. It's wonderful to have my own now.

Well, that was our weekend. Well, actually, we packed in quite a bit more as well - a trip to Barton Grange garden centre to see some birds of prey (that was actually very disappointing, as the bird handlers were very disorganised and seemed to be annoyed that there were so many people there to see their birds!). And yesterday we took the boys out to the park for a well-deserved Run Around. We took bikes, a frizbee, the stomp rocket and a football. We climbed trees (Noomski and I had been missing the heights, had to get up a tree and feel the wind in our hair again!), rolled around on the grass getting muddy, and breathed the fresh air in very deeply. It was very refreshing. I should try to remember to get out in the fresh air every day if the kiddies are going crazy over these holidays - we stay in the house too much. It's always the same at this time of year - we stay in a bit in the winter, and get a bit fat and lazy, and forget that there's air and exercise to be had.

The sun's out, it's warming up, and I'm feeling very alive today. Happy Wednesday everyone!