We start this next phase with another World Cup football party, as England took on Croatia in the dizzy heights of the semi-final. We scored early, which led to a prolonged period of nervously trying to hold on. Croatia equalised, which took it into extra time, thus making it a bit late for the kids to stay up to watch, so they went to bed and woke up to find the news that we had, of course, been beaten. Never mind: we had a nice spread on for the party anyway.
They seemed to have mentally recovered a day or two later anyway. Must be fairly warm out if Gregory has gone completely sleeveless.
We skip forward a week or so and, with Lynne out with Jessica for a long lunch, Gregory and I decided to make some Rice Krispie cakes. Here, we look to be combining the chocolate mixture with the Rice Krispies.
And here are the finished articles, having been topped with some, er, toppings. I'm not quite sure why they are in a baking tray since they are usually chilled, but maybe it made sense at the time.
Later that day, likely fuelled by chocolate-coated rice-based snacks, we headed into the sunshine to play football. Ain't no cooler football than a Frozen football.
As Gregory's time at nursery came to a close, we were provided with a detailed dossier of Gregory's performance over the year. It was all very positive and it was clear that he had made amazing strides with his development whilst at nursery.
I've focused in particular on the handwritten summary at the end, which made us very proud. I particularly like the reference to his "groovy dance moves".
Speaking of nursery, it's time to get closure with an end-of-year performance. Gregory is wearing sandals and holding hands with one of his bezzies, which is sweet.
The venue for this final performance was St Paul's in Heaton Moor, where it was possible to get hold of some water of life, which sounds perfect for recovering from a hangover.
I don't remember much about the performance, but I think this was the bit where those who were leaving got to do their own slot at the end. It involved pointing.
So we're into the summer holidays now, so time to spend a bit of time in the garden. A welly-clad Gregory pulls up some potato plants. i can't actually see any potatoes on this, but then they do tend to hide in the ground.
Here is the evidence that we got a whole load of spuds. Gregory in particular looks chuffed (albeit slightly mischievously) to have collected so many.
Don't worry, we've not fast-forwarded that far. But we are in the middle of August and so it is time, it seems, to try on the school uniforms. Gregory hopefully won't be going to school in his socks come September.
More summer harvesting, this time of some ruby red cherry tomatoes. Gregory appears to be showing me the shape of them, or of his eyes.
With two working parents and the school holidays continuing, we utilised the services of Aunty Katie and her ridiculous (and hastily-bought) collection of stickers. Gregory has a large drink to keep him well hydrated through the day.
And this is the inevitable consequence of a sticker frenzy.
Kids' Day this year was hosted by Mark and Helen in their reasonably new house in Harrogate. Uncle Matt watched on as they munched some (I think) plums from the tree.
Uncle Matt had (obviously) brought along his full camera kit (I say that, but this is probably the light touch variant), as Gregory seems to be casually posing on the back lawn.
It looks like Uncle Matt is warning Gregory of the dangers of mystery cocktails. "Are you sure you want this?"
They were also keen to help out in the kitchen, by which I mean watch Helen make pizzas and ask a lot of questions.
Hopefully after the requisite period of digestion, it turns into the inevitable Allen pile-on, with Uncle Matt the (probably well-deserved) victim.
He was to have his revenge, tilting Gregory upside down to show off his skinny ribs. We all hoped not to see pizza again. (I recall that it was actually Daisy who, unusually, was a little bit ill later. Perfect ahead of a 90-minute drive back to Stockport.)
The Sunday of that weekend is also blessed with good weather, so we do the traditional outdoor lunch (standard fare: sandwiches, crisps, salad vegetables), shielded from the sun by the well-used small tent.
And with it being early September, suddenly school is upon us. This is Gregory's first day at school, in the reception year, and he looks absolutely ready. There were no issues, there was no crying, he sat straight on the classroom mat all smart in his tank top. In what was a phase beginning, half the class (including Gregory) were in on the Tuesday, the rest on the Wednesday, a somewhat needless break on the Thursday and then back on in the Friday. He was a bit more apprehensive in the Friday. The next week was a full week but he got star of the week for being selfless, and the golden sweatshirt at the end of the week, which he refused to wear (apart from for one photo opportunity - see later).
Here is by himself and then lined up with Daisy, who was going into Year 3.
As the morning progressed, they managed to get their shoes on and pose cheekily for yet more photos. Daisy's hair had also been tidied up a little.
The next weekend, we take a trip to Uncle Matt's, where the kids are shown the delights of an apple peeling machine...
...and get stuck in to some drawing. Looks like a big yacht?
One thing we also did whilst there was to print some homemade T-shirts for Gregory and Daisy. Pretty cool.
I had been trying to get them to do a Junior Parkrun (2km) but they maybe needed building up to it, so instead we went to Cringle Park for a shorter, more informal jog. I don't exactly know what's going on here.
Before you do any run, we establish a warm-up routine. Here: jumping up and down.
Before long, they are fed up of running and get to have a go in the playground.
My vague recollection is that there was some sort of cookery book for kids, and this was one of the recipes from it. It involved making meatballs out of sausage meat, grimacingly squeezed out here by G.
He seems disproportionately happy having made just one meatball.
Next up, another fairly straightforward recipe: meringue. There seems to be a mixture of concentration and apprehension here, as Gregory let's the electric whisk do all the work on the egg whites.
Before long, we had the glossy white mixture required (soft peaks anyone?), which Gregory proceeded to scoop out and plop (no better word for it) on to the greaseproof paper.
Here's how the meatballs turned out, complemented by chips (not homemade) and sweetcorn.
Gregory gives the thumbs-up approval for the meringue, which seems to be on his lip and his thumb. It goes well with strawberries, which he loves.
Having evidently got the cooking bug (everything is a fad with children), the next weekend we were making pizza. Gregory gets stuck in make some dough.
The dough is ready to prove.
And prove it certainly did - doubling in size as is the requirement.
They then set forth making the pizzas themselves, rolling out the dough, smearing it with tomato sauce and lovingly smothering it with toppings galore.
And the result was this: time to tuck in! It looks like Margherita and ham & sweetcorn are the constructions.
Having done some running training with them at Cringle Park, it was time to step up to the real thing: the South Manchester junior park run. This entailed a 2km run for 4 to 14-year-olds for two laps round the lake. Here the boy gets into the action - evidently he had some natural running ability, it's just that he wasn't always keen to use it. Daisy was more keen but often struggled with pacing as well as the mental side of running.
I mentioned earlier about the golden sweatshirt, which was awarded to Gregory at the end of his first full week at school. He was very reluctant to wear it so I don't know what I must have offered him in return for a photo or two here. We have the full range of emotions displayed, from grumpy/sulky to forced smile for the camera.
By mid-September, the greenhouse is somewhat overrun with tomato plants, making it seem like Gregory is exploring some kind of fruit jungle.
A frenzy of harvesting activity later and a box of juicy red cherry tomatoes is the result.
News of Gregory's newfound enthusiasm for cookery and evidently spread far and wide. Well, to his Aunty Katie anyway, who promptly came round to make cookies with junior. I think Daisy was at a birthday party this afternoon.
The enthusiasm had maybe waned here, as Gregory seems to have left Katie to do all the scooping out onto the greaseproof paper.
They look pretty good!
They taste pretty good!
The next day, we head out into the morning sunshine for some sporting activities. This is an action shot of Gregory waiting to catch a small rugby ball, trendily decked out in hoody and shades.
My bike gets a no doubt long-overdue clean, so Gregory helps out, giving his trike a wash while he's at it.
In order to make the trip to school more fun, they would often go on their scooters. Lynne was having a much-needed break in Tenerife at this point, so I was on school run duty. It's not quite clear whether Gregory is saluting or looking into the distance.
On the Saturday morning, we headed to Alexander's birthday party at a soft play area, featuring a massive slide that they both hurtled down.
At the end of the party, they all posed with a special guest star from Paw Patrol.... [checks notes] Marshall! Gregory is posing next to his best mate Dylan. As ever with these types of photos, everyone is looking in a slightly different direction due to the number of photographers taking pictures.
In what seems like quite a busy day, we were soon hightailing it over to Waterdale Close for a chippy meal with Nana Sue and Aunty Katie.
I'm not completely sure what is going on here but I'll have a go: Daisy was probably dancing but has eased off due to the proximity of my phone, Gregory is still going for it, Nana Sue is filming it and Aunty Katie is getting right into the groove.
Here is their first siblings school photo. Sweet.
I'm not sure why exactly, but Gregory is a big boy in the front seat of the car at nearly 6pm. We were maybe going to pick Daisy up from somewhere? Records haven't survived so I'm not entirely sure.
The next weekend, we all went for a Sunday lunch at Tusk, including Avis and Graham. I had clearly ordered something with gigantic onion rings, which Gregory could possibly have worn as glasses, were they not enormous, hot and greasy.
We finish this section with a couple of action shots from the school classroom. No, I have not been given unprecedented access as one of the country's leading investigative journalists. These are photos taken by the school staff and posted on Twitter (I think). This was probably before they started putting yellow dots on their faces, or maybe these aren't quite clear enough to warrant them.
And that is that for this period of his life. I've written this nearly three years after it happened, so my memory has faded somewhat, but he had clearly settled well into school and, for the time being at least, loved cooking. You can now head to the next quarter-year here.
Back to the Secret Portal.