Anna Merriman

Moving onto the 5th of March, Anna had day filled with playing with her toys, getting some fresh air in the back yard by the utility room, and after another long walk all the way to the top of the back garden, a little chill out time on a bench. In the evening, her energy not yet drained, she decided to pull all the toys out of the toy box, and have a good look at the bottom of it. Unfortunately she was a little too eager and ended up flipping over and into the box. She recovered very quickly and after a little cry at the shock of finding her world temporarily upside-down, she stayed in the box for a few minutes. Finally deciding it was OK to take a quick snap shot of her, she decided to be upset again, so we put the camera down and gave her a hand out of her impromptu little castle setup.

Just a little more than a fortnight since the last post with photos of Anna. Which reminds me, I need to check if AnnaMerriman.com is still picking these up automatically, and whether the plugin used will work when I upgrade her blog to WordPress 3.0. Anyway, this photo was taken in the same place and at the same time as the last video published on this blog – the 4th of March 2010. You’ll have to forgive me if I maybe skip putting 2010 for the rest of the posts today, and if you are new to this blog, and wonder why the date is included, I want Anna’s site to eventually be something we can show to her and say, look, five years ago today, this is how you looked, and what you were doing
So, over by the lake that was in the camp site Mum and John were previously at, here we have John and Anna looking at the birds. Anna seems to be momentarily distracted by something land based, but in general she does seem to like watching animals in the wild

Anna And John By A Lake With Some Birds

Mum and John currently were spending a lot of time at a camping site, as it is a lot closer to Mum’s work, and the scenery was beautiful. Before they took the caravan there, they wanted to check a few sites in the locality, so John, Irina, Anna and I went to check out different locations, and at one of them there was a big lake with ducks and geese. The video was shot on the 4th of March. Since then they’ve had cows invade the area, as local chavs were breaking down fences so they could ride their mopeds and other hair dryer impersonating two-wheeled transport around the lake.

These two videos were actually recorded yesterday, but rather than stream them live, I recorded them without using Qik at all. (This was I can double the resolution used). However I forgot to then upload them, hence the 24 hour delay in getting them on the blog.

Irina, Anna and I went for a walk through Astana park, to take a look at all the equipment before it was disassembled. The castle walls, yurts, stone carvings (painted expanded polystyrene) and Kazakh warrior statues were put up for Astana Day/the President’s birthday, and are being removed. There were quite a few workmen wandering around without shirts, and from all the heavy lifting, it looked like they did ab workouts all day long. Sorry for the women (and few men) reading this post, but I don’t think we actually see any/many of these workers on video.

I hadn’t realised how windy it would sound through the phone’s microphone at the entrance to the park, sorry.

Small break in recording as I needed to use the phone for other things…

I just wanted to write something quickly letting people know about a post over at Celt Photographic (JohnK’s site). It has the picture below this text, and a request to provide a good caption for it. See here.

So far we have

“…and the world’s a better place when you’re upside down…sweet about me” ,

“Australian Baby rearing therapy is questioned” ,

and the current favourite, “Despite vigorous shaking the jelly bean dispenser appeared to be empty”!

I’ve added “Father very carefully & securely holds his daughter upside down, as she really enjoys seeing the world from that perspective, and at no point was any shaking involved whatsoever” more as an explanation for concerned readers (one hand holding Anna by the shoulders), rather than a specific entry to the competition.

Ts&Cs
The bar of chocolate needs to be picked up in Wales by the winner.
No quick weight loss tips are included in the prize.
The judge’s decision is final.
If I get around to upgrading CeltPhotographic to WordPress 3.0 and the site goes down, you may need to resubmit your caption.
No idea when the closing date is

Sleeping Or Seeking? You Decide…

Before I carry on with the videos from our Fourth of July (American Independence Day) meal with Walton and Assel, here we have a picture from just over four months ago – March the 2nd was when the photo was taken. I can’t quite tell whether Anna fell asleep during her meal, after a hard morning’s work, or simply dropped her cheese and was trying to relocate it. Hopefully Irina can come along and clarify things? Anyway, I noticed I had one Anna photo post, and one Anna video left in my drafts area for some reason. I’ll try and crack on with the rest of the UK based ones soon. We haven’t been taking as many here in Astana, so it shouldn’t take as long to catch up with them.

Carrying on from the last Anna’s Videos post, we have some shots of Anna and Irina. Anna has on a Welsh outfit that apparently used to be worn on days other than St David’s Day

One day I will figure out how to prevent duplicate posts from appearing in Anna’s blog when I put both photos and videos in the same post, and tick the appropriate categories. Until then, you’ll just have to put up with a little scrolling inconvenience

This time (1st March 2010) we have another Wales top, this time no sports involved, just a simple message… I Love Wales. Also in the shot was another of Anna’s favourite reasons to dive onto the ground and giggle, a big (somewhat flat) sheep. I wonder if vegetarians and/or vegans wear wool? Totally unrelated to the picture really, I realise. Not wearing leather I could understand (obviously the cow has to be dead before you can wear the skin), not drinking milk or eating eggs I can see what objections could be raised (possible poor conditions and taking away hen’s creation chances), but does shaving wool off of a wandering sheep count as cruelty? Any veggie readers, please do let me know. Feel free to stay anonymous if you want to avoid finger pointing/laughs from Kazakh meat lovers.

Anna Loves Wales

The 2nd Of March, one day after Saint David’s Day (Dydd Gwyl Dewi Sant in Welsh) was when this video clip was taken. Anna is dressed in traditional Welsh costume. Mum is dressed in a traditional dressing gown Hmm, listening to the video again, Irina says it was actually St David’s day when the video was shot, so maybe it was just the camera being set to Astana time (+6 GMT) that has thrown me off?

Yep, confirmed looking at the dates and times embedded in the pictures from two different cameras, and the date and time from the original videos (MPGs), these were shot on the 1st of March.

Anna re-arranging her new furniture after playing in her paddling pool (~35 degrees outside) Dedushka in b/ground – http://twitpic.com/1y4npn

Taken on the 26th of February, here we have a couple of shots featuring Anna in a Wales rugby shirt, kindly being put into place by John, before we settled down to watch the match. Also another shot of Anna with her little backpack on, because (we think) she looks just so cute

Although Anna could already feed herself by the 24th of February, back then she was still a little bit more messy by the end of the meal. We also don’t tend to need to worry about using bibs with arms any more
Anyway, still working her way through all her lovely Christmas and Birthday presents, Anna, Gwen and I went for a little walk around the garden, and Anna had her backpack on. The dolly that came with it stayed indoors, perhaps she didn’t think it was warm enough?
Gwen performed her Anna guarding duties well, making sure that no harm came to her. Not quite sure what could go wrong in the back garden, but it was really nice to see Gwen acting protective over Anna.

Just shot this clip (#qik) http://qik.ly/BZ6BL

On the same day (22nd of February) as Anna having a little drink, we headed down to Swansea beach again. It was good for Anna (and us (Ira, Seb and me)) to grab some fresh sea air, and Gwen seemed to enjoy the opportunity to be allowed off the leash and have a run around. Other dog owners often come to the beach with the same idea in mind (dogs are only restricted to being on a leash in Summer months, when more tourists visit), which means that Gwen can socialize freely. This often means run towards another dog, then running away as soon as they show some interest.
Anyway, other than Anna taking some temporary interest in an old soup can in the sand, there isn’t a lot going on in these videos, but it is interesting for us to see how Anna’s walking has changed these last few months, if nothing else…

A quick compilation of clips shots today in Chubary. Featuring Anna, Assel, Walton, Irina and Ira’s Mum.
Guest starring Anna’s new play area and house in the garden…

irina (1)