Birthday boy

Today is Master Beehive the eldest's birthday. He is 12! Can you believe it. I have been writing this blog since he was five! It's been quite nostalgic looking back at his antics and the photos of his birthdays up to date.

From this...oh, alright, NEARLY from this, sadly he was born in the era of negatives and printing

so I don't have his early birthdays on the computer.

Age six

Age four here I think.

Age nine!

Age seven

Ten, I think!

Eleven

Such a dude now! Age 12

He went bowling and for pizza with his friends yesterday and today we're taking it easy. He's asked for roast gammon for dinner with an ice cream cake and he's been to buy his iPod touch that he saved for with his money. I guess we may now not see him again until he's thirteen ;-)

Mr Beehive (the very much oldest!) has been fixing me up some rather cool hanging guttering for my lettuce. He and my dad spent much of Easter weekend building a deck in the garden to hide the patches of earth and concrete that have been ruined by the fact that one of the previous owners of this house had stored diesel in concrete tanks underground.

We were unaware of this, but by law, we have to do something about it when we do know about it because, as you can imagine, if it leaches into the soil, it's an environmental hazard. 

It's not 'quite' the same as hitting oil in your garden, however, and we were soon considerably poorer with the professional draining and removal of the diesel and the tanks filling with concrete to prevent subsiding. This then left us with three ugly tank covers and nothing that would grow there. So it was decided upon that a deck would be the best idea.

I'm thrilled! All this has come out of my own and my dad's imagination and his creativity to be able to build this with Mr Beehive as his labourer ;-) We are intending to grow an eating grape over the top and a passion fruit (again, edible) and wish for lots of sunny English weather ;-)

Anyhoo - the lettuce thing came around from me being sent a 'pin' from a friend with these gutters down the side of a house. What an excellent idea! So lettuce...or strawberries maybe...although I have other imaginative ideas for those!

This week I have midwifery exams again, so Friday is the day of reckoning. I have just spent the last hour writing an attempt at a question...in all honesty, I think my hand might seize up before my memory...which is really saying something! I wish I could type my answers.

After this week, things are quieter for a couple of weeks, so I have treated myself to a Raggy Quilt workshop and we have cram packed our weekends before I start working on labour ward and may not see daylight again for around 4 months!

Still, I'm sure the boy will have an app for that on his new device...even if it's a direct line to a caffeine hotline to keep me awake after all the nightshifts!