Primary caregiver Dad

Living so close to our children aged 2 and 5 for 12 months traveling through Thailand, Nepal, India and the UK. Sleeping every night together, spending every waking day together. Exploring, observing, planning together.

I find myself the Dad who is at home while Clarissa returns to work after 6 years.

It is now my turn, without the stress of work in the background of my mind, I have the luxury to fully focus on both of them, getting in tune with their feelings, their cycles, their individuality, their thoughts and then use that to coax them into a western lifestyle of getting from place to place on time, brushing their teeth, getting them to wear trousers when going out, even wearing a seat belt.

My hat goes out the to stay at home mums, especially the ones doing it solo!. I see the facebook posts of their frustrations and challenges.   I used to think “chill out, there is no need to be so emotional, so stressed and sometimes even angry at the simple things”.

Its a journey, constantly changing, constantly a challenge. I discovered I need plenty of sleep and to have my wits and patience (in bucket fulls) about me.

Over the last 3 weeks I have walked beside metaphorically with our 2 children with one starting school and the other at kindy. It's been an exciting and changing time for them. They both have taken on the challenge but are after all just normal children and often just don't feel like it but the world has its own schedule which does not stop.

There is no manual, every child is different, things change change almost daily. I have found the most influential tool is storytelling, telling stories days and weeks ahead about the challenges they will face physically and emotionally with how the character in the story approaches the challenge and solves their own problem. see my previous post on this.

This time although challenging is also one of my most rewarding times in life, but it's not that obvious.

You need to stop and think and cherish the relationship and trust you have with your child, think about what you mean to them as their parent, their role model. But also what they mean to you, close personal friend, buddy to enjoy the most mundane things in life.

time to go pick one up from school and hear about her day, her thoughts and her dreams. .........

Inspiration for homes and community buildings Scotland and England

The thing that I really noticed coming from India to England was the amount of Stuff. Coffee machines and toasters and kettles and rice cookers and toastie machine and a microwave  and a oven in place of a pot and a gas cooker . Wine glasses and ,beer glasses and best glasses and coffee cups and saucers and tea cups  and mugs and all you need is one cup. 

And as a consequence to all this stuff comes clutter and then storage issues.. ... 

Most storage issues I recon can be resolved by eradicating the stuff to store.

Nepali Kitchen

Walled garden protects against wind , traps sun radiates heat at night time, provides structure for espalier.

Cob walls, simple, heat retentive, sculptable, cool in summer

Water feature

The feature I liked about this kitchen was the drying rack above the sink that could be used for storage so that the dishes need only be washed and stacked, not put away

Shallow depth open shelving to store kitchen foods and equipment. Makes stuff easy to find, takes up less space. Richy and Heathers kitchen.

A bothy. In Scotland porches are critical . people wear sooo many outdoor clothes and boots and warm coats and the houses are sooo warm that a porch is vital to store everything.

Bothy kitchen and bathroom combined

Bothy fridge

Bothy roof sleeping space

Botanical gardens hot house Oxford...... I liked this concept as a shower . hot house or polytunnel for ferns, grey water feeds plants

Courtyard living

Cobble stones ( river stones) to create walk ways.

Garden play for kids. This was created with palates, fishing nets and ropes salvaged from the beach and some barrels.

Sails to reflect sunlight within a glass house

Homecoming

I love New Zealand, people are sooo friendly and it is so warm. Midwinter here and we are in the same clothes as summer in England.

Touched down in Auckland and picked up by Boyd's cousins, Phil and Erica and stayed with them whilst we recovered from Jet lag and the kids played with Erika's extensive collection of Toys at 2am in their underfloor heated lounge.mmmmmm.

The morning that we were due to leave Boyd woke with Excruciating pain and woke me writhing and spewing in the toilet. Phil drove us to hospital and Erika guarded the kids nursing a cold . 

We rushed into A and E Boyd yelling with pain and ran to spew in the toilet which got dramatically punctual service and within 20 mins he was reviewing morphine and then fentanyl and final ketamine to control the pain. Ketamine is an anaesthetic at high doses and an hallucinogen at pain relieving doses so though comfortable, Boyd spent an hour and a half playing tetrus with the ceiling tiles and spewing from the nausea of so many drugs.

Waitakare hospital delivered an excellent service. By 4 am he had had a CT scan confirming kidney stone and by 9 am he had had a Ultrasound scan of the kidneys. He was transfered to Auckland central for observation and got the best views of Auckland I have ever seen from the 8th floor in Acute surgery ward.

Now he is fine......,:-)

Laura in Salisbury

Salisbury is a very cute mediaeval market time, carefully preserved and popular with tourists. It was built on chalk soil and within the chalk are flints, a grapefruit sized roundish boulder that when split (or knapped) produce extremely hard flakes of stone suitable for forming knives or spearheads. The action of flint against metal also creates a spark used to make a fire. The chalk formed as tiny crustaceans deposited on the sea floor. And the flint formed because amongst these were small sea sponges that died and became incorporated into the deposits. The cavity left by their decomposed body filled with chalk solution and slowly crystallised forming a flint..

Salisbury cathedral home to Magna Carta . The Magna Carta was created in 1215 and forms the basis for Britain s statue law.

Mediaeval Gate

Flint used in wall decoration.

Laura, TARA and Luke

Laura Will and Boyd

Stone henge, drive by.

Life in Oxford

Setting table for lunch

Granny bashing out an ugly drain

TARA demonstraing her wobbly tooth.

Luke and Richard. Ricard is mum and dad's builder from Newcastle who would stay for a couple of weeks at a time and build bathrooms, paint, pláster ,rearrange the front yard etc. He had a dry sense of humour and the kids adored him. His funny saying still live  on in our family repatoire : " None shall pass!" , "Too many persons " and " Now's the best time! "

Punting in the waterways around Oxford. A time honoured tradition.

....and pausing for a pint and a picnic with an old friend... Susan Harrison.

This is Lukey busting into the Bodleian library in Oxford, the most prestigious library ever...... And that day Lukey was in a running off and shriek mood :-)

Train journey to visit Jamie. Teacher Benton took this outing, Here he is explaining about staying behind the yellow line. The kids took it all on board and would warn fellow passengers, scooters and passing pidgons if they transgressed across it. "Stay behind the yellow line!!!"

Lazy Sunday with Leo and Charlene. Biking to Blenheim palace ground and playing on the underwater causeway  . 

Cob, Rose and Floyd.

North Devon is an area in which cob houses built 500 to 100 years ago are still used and lived in , still standing ,testament to the sturdiness of the sand clay and straw combination, and still in (relative) abundance .

Cob houses are warm in winter ,and cool in sumer ,they are cheap to produce ( although require lots of labour to construct). I was attracted to the sculptable qualities of building possibilities and the mud play potential. They are constructed by mixing clay samd and straw and then the mud lumped into a wall shape creating 1m layers at a time allowing to dry and then adding to them. Dry weather is essential for construction

This cob wall is a great example . Cob needs good boots and a hat. In this case the stone footing serves as the boots and a corrugated roof prevents cob erosion. The original wall may have looked like this but more likely was rendered with a lime plaster.

 

Row of cob houses in Crediton

View of cob house from the playground. The kids took great pleasure in yelling "look mum its Cob!!!!" Whenever I got into peering at walls and scratching at paintwork.

Interior Matts mums house showing the original fire place. The  origanal house was composed of this room downstairs and a similar sized room upstairs as the bedroom. It was a thatched cottage. The fire place had an earth oven off to the left which could be filled with hot coals from the fire and sealed with a cowpat to bake the bread!

Soil sample from Matt and Lou's place showing 50% sand 40% silt and 10% clay

Arrival into Rose's courtyard off the main Street in Crediton.

TARA in front of Rose's  cob :-)house 

Rose TARA and Floyd

Luke TARA and Floyd and baby...,....