School started yesterday....

Dexter went back to school yesterday for the start of a new year.  I for one cannot believe how quickly this year has been passing.

Dexter cooked dinner last night.....

Well talk about a treat, Dexter cooked dinner last night and it was so yummy. It was what he learnt to cook at Cub Camp! Anders and I are so very very proud of him.  

He chopped all the ingredients needed to make carrot and coriander soup.......

..... whilst Anders set the table......

..... and then after we scoffed the delicious soup which was garnished with cream, olive oil and coriander leaves.....

......we ate the mandarin tart that Dexter also made!  This was served with fresh cream with some vanilla....

.....and followed with a refreshing cup of tea.....

.... all of this which in some ways felt quite surreal knowing my little Dexter had made all of this, so what better way to top it off but to have a dance to Barbarella which happened to come on the CD player just as we finished dinner. All of us, including the dogs.... what a lovely night, even thought I was on the clearing patrol :-)

Dexter is back.

Dexter got back yesterday from his weekend away with the Cubs camping and it sounds like he had a great time.  He learnt to cook, clean and sew (guess who the new home help might well be now!!!), in addition to going hiking, singing songs round the camp fire, playing all sorts of sports activities and just hanging out with his pals for 3 nights straight!

As it turns out, Anders and I have had a fantastic weekend too. We have seen great shows at the Festival, gone for some great walks in places we had never gone to before and just done a whole lot of stuff together as a couple.  Whilst yes, some of the things we could have done with Dexter too, it was really nice just doing them as a duet again!

So, whilst Dexter did miss us, and we definitely missed having him around, we all got to share in telling stories about what we all got up to which was fun in itself.  Dexter has sung me the camp fire songs he was taught, and is going to make us dinner tonight! I know, he is going to make us carrot and coriander soup and then a mandarin tart.  He also learnt how to make stuffed baked potatoes and blueberry and raspberry muffins (which we will have another night).

As an aside, this photograph is of a little desk reminder which I found in a church sale for only 30p, yep that is right only cost 30p!!!

I think that it is important to use each and every minute to the full and that is what this little object said to me when I saw it. In changing the numbers, days and months which repeat at varying speeds, it will remind me that I also have a constant, a fixed one in that there are set names of days, numbers of days in the week and names for the set months in the year but everything else is up for grabs!!! With that I am going to have a cup of coffee which has just been freshly ground and made for me by my lovely Anders :-)

Dexter has gone camping so what have Anders and I been doing?

Well Dexter has gone camping, more of which I will mention about in a moment! So what have Anders and I been doing?  A whole lot, but for starters, on Friday went out to see one of the many shows of this weekend which are on in the Festival. For this first show, I thought I did us a massive favour by getting us these awesome front row seats! Unfortunately for Anders this transvestite show required some audience participation (you know where this is going)!! Anders got pulled from the audience, and received his own lap dance from a 20 stone, opera singing man wearing a zebra lycra bodysuit. It was fantastic and I just loved every minute of it.  Yep, this very artist in these photographs, and he was just lovely, with a great voice, and just genuinely charming.

Whilst Anders was a great sport about it, he did say "at one point I felt as though I had had an out of body experience and thought, is this a dream" to which when his nose was crushed by the performers giant belly Anders then thought "no this is no dream"! I didn't take any photographs of the actual dance however, that is because at the beginning of the show we were told we were not allowed to. It wasn't until the last song that we were told, that we could take out our cameras, so Anders special dance cannot be shared, but will forever be remembered :-)

Now about Dexter, I know he is having a great time away, he was so excited about this camping trip, but I also knew there would be a moment before they left that he would start to think "I am going away from my Mum and Dad, oh no". Anders didn't think this would happen, and helpfully explained to him that he was but a few miles from Scotland's hospital for the criminally insane, and ended up telling him a story to tell round the campfire which he ended up with saying to Dexter "oh, and by the way, that story is completely true and the man is locked up in that very hospital right now". I of course was unaware of this Father to Son tale, but then in seeing the photographs I took of Dexter departing, I wonder now if that is what he was thinking about!

He returns tomorrow and will get huge cuddles and kisses from both me and Anders.

A fleeting glimpse of joy....

Looking for something good to not pass by,

 Making you think, what if, maybe or why,

The g-force of joy spreads across a face as it begins to giggle.

These are moments of joy I never want to rush by :-)

Dexter 1 and Dexter 2

Dexter 1, my beautiful son.....

 and a fantastic cat named Dexter, makes number 2.

 It has been a while since I shared any photographs of Dexter the cat, who is just so great.

A walk and a run both are fun!

Walking in the fresh air in beautiful woodlands and playing about with different lenses whilst the dogs ran about is a little of what I got up to this weekend as I think about having my photography reviewed in Santa Fe which is next week and how this is making me feel!  If you are interested, you can see all of the people going too to have their portfolios reviewed over there under Review Santa Fe 2011 which I am now starting to look through and I am blown away by their talent, so how did I get there too (my mind just is humbled and shocked by it all).  Here are some of the views I saw on the walk, can you see what feelings are going through my head as I take you with me on this walk.....

Can you see how I am feeling?

Wonder if JB and JB are still in love?

I did say a walk and a run in my title though didn't I?  Well....

...... Dexter's cub pack were competing to keep title to the sports trophy, which they retained for the 5th consecutive year - yey for them! In the last event which was the 400 meter sprint, Dexter came 2nd and was way ahead of all the others which shocked all of the adults who were watching - he literally just shot out, and didn't stop until the end which he couldn't stop smiling about when we went home!

So what makes you feel happy?

Bedtime rituals....

Dexter and I have a bedtime ritual which we do every night and he takes it very seriously! It all started out of saying (yep, like the Walton family if you are old enough to remember, or with the re-runs (echem, echem) in my case!!!) "Goodnight Dexter love you with all my heart" and him saying it back to me or vice versa!

This bedtime ritual has now become a game!  The "I love you" ritual moved on a pace, to me saying "I love you to infinity and beyond times infinity and beyond" to which Dexter would shout "rip" or "new chapter" or "rub" (we say that but in the US you will say erase!), or "new series", before getting to the end because it meant he could start saying it to me and beating me to the end so as to prove that he loved me the most!  His bedtime ritual is spent with us competing who is going to get to the end of the "I love you" statement first and therefore be the one who loves the other the most!

As you can imagine, it can also involve thinking of distractions too, like me giving him pumpy kisses on his tummy, or tickling him, or giving kisses on his neck which he finds really funny too and we have such a giggle doing this. All of the excitement and energy which goes on is like a last minute blast of energy which results in him being really happy and enjoying one big cuddle before the sandman comes along.  He goes to sleep knowing he is one very loved little boy by both me and his Daddy and that is something that I want him always to know.

Dexter however is one sharp young boy, clearly he had been thinking about this and the other day, he found a way to top this. He said he loved me from before he was born and when he was still in heaven waiting to be born and before I even met Daddy or the dinosaurs roamed the earth!  That would take some topping!

Rituals was this weeks prompt.

Dexter....

How did I manage to have a wonderful child like this.  He tidied up his bedroom, unprompted, all by himself at the weekend, it made him and I really happy and proud.

I then took these shots whilst Dexter was getting his haircut, I am so lucky as generally everything he does makes me so happy - Anders and I are very very lucky!

I love my little lovely, how could I be anything other than happy with him in my life.