Shed Restoration / Redemption

Lara and I love to restore things which have been left to ruin to something of their former glory (or improve upon that). There is something of the divine nature in that, we feel. Our mangy, spider-infested shed desparately needed some love and attention after being neglected for years. After some structural work and a good scrub down, we picked up the paintbrushes and set to work!

Unintentionally it turned out rather like a lovely beach hut, which is amusing considering we're about as far from the sea as is possible in England! In the picture you can see Ana trying to hide, in case we were to give her a paintbrush too.

Surf's up! (somewhere)

Bundle of joy!

Here is Ana having an after-bath snuggle, all bundled up in her towel. You can see two teeth in this picture, and it looks like two more will be joining them shortly...

Mmmmm....

Slurp, slurp, slurp...


(don't worry, we did peel it for her later.)

Please note, this is an orange

"Will the members of the board please pay attention... This, my colleagues, is... an orange.

''I will now demonstrate how to eat said orange, or at least how to chew it, skin and all."

The apples are ripening and Ana is striding forwards

With the apples ripening on the 'Nana and Grumpy tree', successfully transplanted from our house in Bedford to Olney, and rare summer sunshine drying the grass, Ana could practice her steps on the soft, soft grass (which needs to be cut. Again.... sigh...)

A magic basket ride...

We think our little pickle will like fairground rides if this is anything to go by! She loved being whooshed around the room in our laundry basket (and we wonder why the last one broke...!).

She also found her mother very amusing when she climbed up a tree on the way to Clifton Reynes yesterday -and even more amusing when she hung upside down from the branch. Ana laughed for a good 30 seconds at least, before pausing for breath. Very funny! She then kept laughing and giggling for the rest of the walk - sounds like she is developing a good little sense of humour.

This camera looks interesting...

Not the most flattering photo of our daughter, but it shows her inquisitive nature well... As I type, she is lunging toward the computer to 'help' me type... and pulling my arm hairs out! Ow!

Like daughter, like father

Who can roar loudest? - debatable. Either way, Ana found it amusing.

Who can squeal loudest? - not even a competition. Ana can reduce our legs to quivering jellies with her ultrasonic squeals.

Ear protection is provided to guests, on demand.

And she has a chair of her own

On our recent visit to Bristol, this cute antique chair seemed to suit Ana perfectly. She loved sitting in it, kicking her legs with glee! It's the simple things in life...

Are you this happy about your chair?

Our little baby can sit

Now, seven months old, and our little baby can sit up all on her very own! Plunking her on the floor with a number of toys allows us a few minutes of 'freedom' to unload a few dishes from the dishwasher before she has tossed all her toys across the room, out of her reach. Won't be long before she crawls to get them!

First steps in the grass

Here is Ana taking a few deliciously wobbly steps with Daddy's assistance (providing some much-needed stability!). Her encounters with grass have been brief this summer as most of the time it has been sodden. She was therefore slightly surprised by the sensation at first, but soon got used to the feel of it.

First Tennis Lessons

Lesson 1: How to hold a racket.

"Oh, Uncle Simon, this is SUCH fun!"

Bring on Wimbledon 2025...

Simon's through to the Semi-Finals!

A tribute to my honourable younger brother who is through to the semi-finals in both the singles and the doubles in a tournament in Bury St. Edmunds tomorrow; Simon provided us with an emotional day of tennis on Wednesday, cruising through three matches with panache and style. The Toro certainly became Loco when a badly-behaved opponent showed his true colours. Simon's then turbo-charged serve would have made Federer shudder and was more than enough to remove the unworthy player from the court in next to no time. Indeed, of the next 13 games, Simon convincingly won 12, in about half an hour.

An excellent first day of tennis watching for Ana.

Ana's introduction to the forest

We all went to this lovely forest today, with an incredible walkway through the treetops. Ana had never been in a forest before and seemed to love it, if her squeals of delight were anything to go by.

The walkway was amazing, getting up to 20m above the ground. What was very interesting is just how much the whole trunks of the trees move in the wind.

Keeping her off the keyboard

We are trying to discourage Ana from following a computer science career by keeping her off the keyboard. This is proving more and more difficult, as she becomes more mobile. So here is the most recent approach of removing the keyboard from her grasp...

Little Poppet

As we had a request from Great-Grandpa Ben for more photos... Here's one Mr. Gavin Forrest took earlier today prior to her messy lunch of brocolli and apple (which she hated...)

The teeth have arrived

Ana used to do this regularly (chewing on people's fingers), but it now has to stop... the teeth have arrived. This was discovered by Mummy one day when she noticed what felt like a razorblade emerging from Ana's gum. Since then Ana nearly drew blood on one occassion when an unsuspecting parent got bitten, ouch! Instead of chewing on fingers she now has pears, butternut squash and baby rice - much more tasty!

Our submission for the Tate Modern

We'd like to call it Nappies Online pandering to both traditional values and the e-society in which we live.

Lara Farewell, 2007, (bamboo on plastic line with metal poles)

Art is art. You can't argue with that.

And this has to be more creative than a perfectly white room. (For that 'art' see earlier postings from the renovation...)

'Studio' lighting

Lara is exploring the option of setting up a designer jewellery business.

I have been roped in (enthusiastically) as the photographer, and have discovered that photographing jewellery well is extremely difficult! But, after a week or so of experimentation, I think we've got there -perfect white, shadowless backgrounds!

This is the third 'light box' I've made, and unlike the first two, it seems to work. I could have bought this setup for £180 or so, but instead, some nice people at Freecycle Olney provided the desk lamps, combined with a bit of white paint in an old cardboard box, supported by a spatula taped to a potato masher...

Some may call it 'bodging'. We prefer the term 'resourceful'.

For those of you who might be interested, the trick appears to be getting enough distance between the product (i.e. the earrings) and the background. This is so you can place the lights which light the background behind the product. I found you need the background to be something like 3-4 stops overexposed in order to wash it out completely. So, you need to have another light (less bright) lighting the product, so that this is correctly exposed.

The other very important thing is to get your white balance correct - otherwise you get a beautiful grey or salmon colour... Lots of people, it seem, use daylight bulbs, but there doesn't appear to be that need for that expense anymore if your camera can handle manually set white balances.

Carrots are my FAVOURITE food...

... apart from the fact that there is a strong correlation with her eating carrots and being sick. Humm. So back on to the baby rice for a few more weeks before her stomach will once more be faced with the intense flavour of carrot.

Cuddles for Mr. Teddy

Ana is now reaching an age where she loves her different toys. And different toys envoke different sounds from her. Rattles, for instance, bring out a loud shouting "Grargahahah!" whilst fuzzy toys produce a coo or squeal of delight.

Ana's lovely high chair!

Ana has just started 'solids' (can baby rice really be called a solid?!) so now we have the joy of delightfully messy mealtimes. We therefore thought it was high time to invest in a high chair. Here's Ana trying it out for the first time and thoroughly enjoying herself. I can't believe she's growing up so quickly, I'd quite like to freeze time for a little to enjoy each stage more. She's great fun - especially when she's not teething : )

Ana devours books...

She has a huge appetite for books. Let her near one and in the mouth it goes! Tim however likes to read them, so here is a very apt picture of Daddy and Baby enjoying books together in their different ways.

All Farewells

By some coincidence, all divisions of the Farewell clan (Olney, Cardiff, Cambridge) were free this last Saturday and congregated in Cambridge.

So, we're all Farewells in this photo - and what is odd is that it is now a 50/50 split, boys v girls. Incredible!

Sitting in her pram

How to keep a little girl amused for a moment or two whilst Mummy tidies the house?

Sit her in the pram... "What a great view from up here!"