Bill - A friend for George

At last, Bill has graduated from tadpole to Frog.  He has more brown on him than George, and more spots on his back.  Bill is larger than George, but he was a bigger tadpole.  Unfortunately, he is not happy with human company, and will leap into the pond, as soon as urchins appear.  Bill enjoys sunning himself on the rocks, and catching flies in his spare time.

Geroge

Bill, hiding in the rushes

Bill, pretending to be a plant

Food adventures

Christmas is a month away, so Tighe and I tried a new recipe, and made Christmas Bark, but the children want to rename it Hail Bark.
Easy as... just crush up some pepperment candy canes,  melt some yummy chocolate melts,  spread it out evenly, and sprinkle the crushed candycane over the top.  The bonus, Erik doesn't like peppermint, so all the more for us (but we do need to hide it from Gina, or it will not last the weekend).

The whole world in his hand...

After all the hail, and the clean up afterwards, Tighe discovered this little critter in the courtyard. 

Views from within

The courtyard connects the West Wing to the Main House.  Around the edge of the courtyard are the Wash house,(Showers, Toilet, Sauna), 3 bedrooms, the lounge, the master bedroom, and the exit to the garden and Man cave.

Looking from master bedroom towards the West Wing (3 bedrooms)

Looking towards the Washhouse from Quinns bedroom

Inside the Wash House

View from Washhouse towards Quinn's room

Inside the Wash House - The Sauna

 

The long and short of it

The gumboots on the left are Anneke's, the ones on the right are Erik's.  Guess who fits the ones in the middle?  Hint: it's not Quinn...

Quinn's Mini City

Quinn created a mini city using Yu-gi-oh cards, Dr Seuss cards, wooden blocks and toy vehicles.He made it in our lounge.  Within the city there were bridges, towers, hotels, pyramid, schools, factories, power plants, forests, roads, an airport and a harbour.
Sunshine then came along and attacked it, knocked over the Empire State building, demolished the forest with her tail, smooched along the rest of the buildings, and lay on the road, which made it out of place, much to Quinn's annoyance.

Quinn and mini city

The forest

Bridge, road and cars

Stream, dam and road

Empire State Building and Power Plant

Mini city

Mini city overview

Hail Storm in November - Freaky weather

This afternoon, just after 4.30pm a hailstorm struck.  The hail fell for 90 minutes, destroying the vegetable garden, blocking gutters, and creating mayhem on the roads in the area.

Hail filling gutter and orange marrow garden

The same window 20 minutes later

Looking down into the driveway

The orange marrows with their plant houses

There is still more hail to come

Looking down the driveway

The hail stone tablecloth

 With all the hail, the gutters overflowed, and the water wicked back into the house, causing leaks.

Pots and towels containing the drips

Initially Quinn and Tighe started to clean up the hail that bounced into the courtyard, but it was a losing battle against the hail.