My boys

These are my boys, Wilfred and Teddy. What they’re doing in cardboard box I’m not quite sure. Just hanging out.

There’s three-and-a-half years between them but, particularly now Teddy is getting more mobile, they play together a lot, watch the same shit on TV and look out for each other all the time. We often find them both in Teddy’s cot when we wake up in the morning.

They clearly adore each other and we clearly adore them.

But they couldn’t be more different. Wilfred is intense, non-stop, hilarious, annoying, barmy and incredibly charismatic. No-one who meets him forgets him, as you can tell when we go to the local village shops and the shop owners all greet him by name.

Teddy is placid, lovely, unassuming, happy and very chilled out. If he bothers you it’s because he’s hungry or tired. Otherwise he’s just content all the time.

They just came out different.

God knows how they’ll develop as they grow. But watching it happen will be the joy of my life.

Turner & Co. cider

Exciting times for Turner & Co. cider! We’ll have a couple of boxes on sale behind the bar at the Brogdale cider festival this bank holiday weekend. And I’ll also be entering the cider competition. (Apparently the National Association of Cider Makers judge is coming down from the West Country, so it’ll be interesting to see what he thinks of our Eastern Counties ciders.)

Unfortunately that means we’re almost out of the 2012 vintage. But I’ve been getting the equipment ready and preparing the cider workshop for what should be a bumper apple harvest this Autumn so we can significantly up production for next year.

 

 

 

Jersey knights

Someone’s having fun pretending to be a knight! This is at Mont Orgeuil castle in Jersey at the weekend. We ran round the castle walls looking for the dragon to slay. Then, in the cold depths of the castle chambers, Wilfie actually started to get scared about confronting the fire-breather. So it was time to leave. Such is the imagination of children!

We were visiting Pete and Suzi for the weekend, their last visitors I believe before Suz drops baby No.2. So fair play to them for taking us to the zoo (where we saw gorillas, orangutans and, Wilfie’s favourite, meerkats) to the beach, to the castle, out for dinner (at Sumas in Gorey, where we sat outside overlooking the harbour and the castle on the cliff-tops – recommended) and cooking us delicious meals, accompanied by fine wine from Chapel Down, San Miguel beer, champagne, Chase vodka, a drop of Padron before supper on Saturday night and Canadian Icewine and Sauternes to follow.

This is why we live in the country

Grrrrrrr!