From one Bank Holiday to Another

Shelly, Ed & Freddie Ford 4 May 2013

5 Wards & 2 Fords

Rea Smiths & Co

The year is spinning by and leaving me behind.  As August Bank Holiday Monday dawns I am still catching up with May.  I'm thinking back to the gathering of the clans in Hackney Town Hall for the joining in wedlock of our Ed with beautiful Shelly and further back to the years that a younger Ed spent with us Newcastle.  when nothing was certain and everything scary.  And now here we are 17 years on and still smiling.  What a lot has happened in those years in between.  And so much still to come.

Fast Freddie

 Freddie zoomed into the world 10 weeks early, in a hurry just like his dad always was.  Ed never hangs about. When he lived with us in Newcastle, we had to be on our toes to keep up with him. So much energy. None of the Rea Smith prevarication and contemplation of options which sometimes goes on for years.  When Ed has an idea he makes a decision and if he's going to do it, he does it.  Ed wanted his own company - and he has it: All Lovely Stuff   And so with Freddie.  When he thought it was time, out he came, into the world, taking all by surprise especially his lovely mum, Shelly.

This gorgeous little man is definitely the son of his parents - blonde, smiling and wide-eyed about the world around him.  And growing up so fast.  I can just imagine a family day out with Lizzy and Freddie at Lightwater Valley,  just like when the Ward brothers would come to stay and we used to pack up a a picnic to eat in the rain inbetween swooshing down the hellslide, careering round the skatecart track and scrambling up the spiders web.
Now, Great Aunt Penelope is really looking forward to our family get together in October, to see how the next generation is doing.

Down in the woods

I've been in the woods today.  I only have to walk for five minutes to be in an ancient oak wood, thought to have been self-seeding since the Ice Age. The trees themselves have been cut down many times as this wood has been farmed for many hundreds of years, for timber, for fuel, for charcoal, and for the making of whatever could be made from the leftover bits.

Today I was gathering a strange harvest of scrap metal, plastic and broken glass from the hillside. It looked so much better when I had finished.  Its a shame that tidying my house doesn't have the same appeal.