"The toad, without which no garden would be complete"

Day 94:

When I popped out in the garden last night I saw this little cutie quickly disappear under the shed. Tonight when I walked outside they were obviously feeling a little braver and came over to say hi. Our garden is only really small but backs on to an undisturbed piece of land with a stream so we get all sorts in there. The frogs always freak when I pick them up but this little dude happily sat on my hand for a photo shoot, my toady encounter really made my evening. 

"The art of photography is all about directing the attention of the viewer."

Day 91 and 92:

Opeie has really been getting into his LEGO photography for his latest comic idea. He's been in the garden with all sorts of kits and bricks creating scenes for each picture and its been so lovely to watch. As I really wasn't in the mood to write yesterday I decided to use two of his photos for today. I can't wait to see the finished piece, its starting to look really interesting.

"Peace begins with a smile."

Day 49:

Todays #creativelockdownproject word was 'Peace', obviously a fitting word for this day but for me it made me think of how much slower life has become since this lockdown period. I sat in the garden today and painted with my favourite peeps and it was perfection, we had nowhere to be and didn't leave the garden all day, LUSH!

"Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better."

Day 21:

We've been budding entomologists for the last couple of years, since Opeie became interested in beetles and started a project. We've found so many interesting ones over the years and always document them when we do find something new. Being stuck at home has given us the chance to really investigate what's going on in our garden while we are planting new plants to attract more. It's amazing how much is actually going on in such a small garden. 

“Trade your expectation for appreciation and the world changes for you.”

Day 7:

I've been so thankful of the garden over the last few days as we've spent most of our time sat out on the trampoline listening to music, drawing and playing games. As rubbish as this situation is I hope that for many people it really makes them appreciate the space that they do have. People always seem to want more but when it comes to situations like this would 'more' actually mean anything?

I will (as always) be focusing on the important things in life. Like the people that really make this life worth living.

"Water is the key to life, but in frozen form, it is a latent force. And when it vanishes, Earth becomes Mars."

Despite the coldness and having to layer up this time of year, there is something so exciting for the kids when the temperature drops, especially first thing in the morning. being able to look out of the window and see what has frozen over is great. Opeie spotted a bowl of rocks from the beach that we had left outside and he was fascinated by the sheet of ice on top and the cold water sitting below.

It didn't take long for the ice to melt, especially as Opeie had been stabbing it with a knife so we ventured out into the garden to see what else had frozen over. Luckily we had nor really done mush in the garden so any container that was left out there was full of water from the rain and had a great frozen sheet across the top. Our frozen finds had us taking a trip to the supermarket for balloons and food colouring to fill up and leave outside for making bright coloured ice orbs. Sadly it wasn't quite cold enough last night and tonight's weather is looking the same, so we've now given them a head start in the freezer Brrrrrrrr!

"The most important thing in the world is family and love."

Saturday felt like a little bit of a wasted day. Mrs M was working for a few hours and the weather was awful so me and the little super hero spent the day in apart from a trip to the game shop to trade in some unwanted games for newbies. Yesterday really made up for it though, the sun was out and everywhere looked cheerful again. We didn't have any plans so we spent the first couple of hours of the morning trying to decide what to do. eventually we decided and packed a picnic and headed to Attingham park. We took a stroll towards the house on the grounds and it was really peaceful, I love walking around holding Mrs M's hand, we don't seem to get to do it very often and it always feels quite romantic.

 Our game of hide and seek in the garden was made a little easier by the big red super Mario hat that Opeie was insisting on wearing all morning. He was looking rather cute though.

After eating our grub and spending some time in the walled garden we jumped back in the car and took a slow drive towards Mrs M's parents house. Opeie was feeling exhausted so it was a great opportunity to get him down for a nap so that he was full of energy for all of those kisses he was going to get off nanny.

After a cup if tea, racing some toy cars and a game of Bigjigs skittles with Nanny and Grandad we all jumped in the car and drove to Auntie Lottie's house...

Opeie was so excited that he got to have a ride around on one of uncle Aaron's vintage tractors and i even got to drive it around the garden too which was lots of fun. The weather was so lovely all afternoon and being around the people we love the most made for a pretty perfect Sunday afternoon.

Science at Home - Ribbit Ribbit , it's a tad pole exhibit

Gerald our garden frog seems to have left us a rather unexpected gift.... The other day Pauly noticed some tadpoles in the paddling pool , which is in our neighbours garden whilst feeding the rabbits. 

I mentioned it at work and one if the girls got very excited and asked me to put some in the air tight tub she quickly passed me. So, yesterday before work I filled the tub with about 50 tadpoles only to find the boys at the back door eagerly waiting to see the specimens . 

Opeie assumed they were fish, 

or "fish-eees" as he excitedly shouts- anything in water with a tail , is a fish, according to Opeie .

Seth asked if we could get some tadpoles of our own for the garden , which I agreed to as his excitement and smiles were hard to say no to , and lets be honest tadpoles aren't a big ask ! 

So today, after work , we put on our wellies , and headed out into the garden. 

Opeie however was more interested in the Lolly pop he had, as he'd never had one before .  Seth was excited as he had never seen tadpoles up close before . 

I asked the boys where they thought the tadpoles would feel happiest , and after a long hard thought Seth decided on a round plastic Garden bucket . 

I asked Seth how he thought tadpoles grow into frogs , and he looked closely and realised some had started to sprout legs . We then thought about how best to make it easy for the grown frogs to be able to get out of they plastic pond . 

I explained to Seth about tadpoles needing rain / or stream / spring water as they couldn't survive in tap water . He asked why can't survive in it, why do we drink it ?! Good question my boy , but lets not get political on the blog just yet. We spent the next 10 minutes looking for rain water in the garden and surprisingly found a lot, mostly in the old hanging baskets . 

Finally we rehoused the tadpoles into their new home and they seem happy , especially since Pauly moved them into the shade. 

I will keep you up dated with tadpole news! 

"Just living is not enough. One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower."

I'm quite sure that over the last few days most of the UK bloggers have had a post about the sun coming out, sorry to disappoint you but I'm jumping on the ban wagon. It's so much nicer when its bright and sunny and warm. Over the winter i get really lax when it comes to tidying the garden, the shed seems to become a dumping ground and the weeds... well they just take over everything and i cant be bothered to tidy them. As soon as the sun comes out though its a different story. The grass in our back garden is finally cut making it a lot more inviting to the boys to come and play which they have been taking full advantage of.

The weeding still needs doing and there's plants that need putting in the ground but that will come with time. Right now its all about making the most of the sun (could all be gone tomorrow). The garden looks really bare since we sold our climbing frame last week so we're in need of filling it up with new toys, any recommendations?

 In the mean time we can concentrate on other garden fun like feeding the birds...

Feeding ourselves...

 And larger scale painting...

Like many of you i will have my fingers crossed for a good summer, it doesn't seem fair that its only the rabbits that get to take advantage of the garden. I'm going to make it my mission to get the garden looking pretty so we can make the most of it this year.

"Ribbit, ribbit, a tadpole exhibit It's a transformation no one can inhibit"

A few days back I read a post over at snowingindoors about a visitor they had in the garden. It was some form of bug that they had never seen before and was unsure what it was so put it down to them discovering a new species, amazing I thought but why do we never get anything interesting in our garden? Well today I was proven wrong. After dropping the troops off at their destinations and pulling up outside the house. Opeie said 'baby rabbit', this is now part of Opeie's daily routine, we get home and go straight up to see the rabbits. We stopped at the kitchen first to get the veg peelings from last night and then we headed up to find a new friend had moved in.

Opeie got to have a stroke of all the babies and was running about excited. We hopped from run to run letting them out of their hutches when I spotted a pair of eyes popping out of the water in a bucket that was in one of the runs. The bucket was black and the water was a little boggy so i couldnt see what it was so i put my hand in to fish it out (yes i am either brave or stupid). Opeie's initial response was 'ewwww.....yucky' but as he walked away quickly he obviously thought about it again and turned around saying 'frog' and then decided to come and investigate.

We decided to call him 'Gerald' after Opeie's new favourite book, fingers crossed he's still there tomorrow morning.

Ho! Ho! Ho.....ld on a minute that's a Gnome not Santa.

When i was younger there seemed to be Gnomes everywhere, people would proudly show them off on their front gardens and although some of them were a touch creepy they always gave the garden character. I'm not sure if not seeing them about much is because they are not seen as 'cool' anymore or more likely a sign of how our world is these days. People seem to pinch or break anything if you leave it out.

Despite the lack of them on gardens we can be sure that recently they are making a comeback in our local Asda, giant ones. Opeie loves them and always says "Ho! Ho! Ho!" as he thinks they are Santa.

 While we were in there a few days back Mrs M noticed a paint your own Gnome and she picked one up for me and the boys to paint while she was at work. The boys were really excited about getting stuck in. It seems that painting a Gnome is far more entertaining than the rocks we had painted a few days back. But luckily because of our previous craft session we had all the acrylic paints that we needed.

I usually find when painting things with the boys the finished item ends up an all over greeny brown colour as Opeie seems to dislike washing the brush off between colours. This time though the boys took their time and did their best not to go over the parts they had already painted. It kept us occupied for an hour which was great because the boys lose interest in things not long after that (unless it's Lego of course). When Mrs M came home from work she was greeted by our new friend proudly flaunting his amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. I'm not sure how well he will hold up in the garden through British weather conditions but either way Mrs M was very impressed. I'm determined now to buy a few more and let the Gnomes make a comeback in our garden.