the
travelling twins
lots of people
suggested that I should illustrate the story of my family, which through Ania’s efforts as The Travelling Twins, has been a popular instagram feed for a few years, and is now a blog also.
I resisted for a while – Ania is an enormously talented photographer and manages that documentation quite well enough herself. However, I find my kids pretty irresistible and, well why the hell not?
As this was not a single exercise in illustration the style is not consistent – seems I was using my family for a bit of experiment.
lots of people
suggested that I should illustrate the story of my family, which through Ania’s efforts as The Travelling Twins, has been a popular instagram feed for a few years, and is now a blog also.
I resisted for a while – Ania is an enormously talented photographer and manages that documentation quite well enough herself. However, I find my kids pretty irresistible and, well why the hell not?
As this was not a single exercise in illustration the style is not consistent – seems I was using my family for a bit of experiment.
this
was the first one.
It was based on a photo Ania had posted on instagram in July 2017
The next time I drew my family, the pic didn’t have the twins in at all. It was about our life together back in Oman . . .
"sweetheart,"
I said, in a random moment of wisdom “If ever you find me dead, you should use my thumbprint with the bank app to get into my account.”
“Would it work if you were asleep?”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Well, then you wouldn’t have to be dead, my love” she cooed.
I started
to pick up the pace a bit when we left Oman for Poland in summer 2018.
Ania and the girls left a couple of months before me, and they had so much luggage that it was cheaper for them to travel business class.
it used to be
that Ikea furniture just came with an Allen key.
Now they provide power tools which make assembly so easy that even an eight-year-old can do it.
ania needed
a 404 page for her blog. So I knocked this one out while going through a Quentin Blake phase.
while
I was still in Oman, Ania called me with this story. It was Eid.
She had spotted an abaya ahead of her in the crowd in Poland. Muslims are a rarity in small-town Poland so my dear sweet-natured missus hurried forward to wish this guest to her country and culture a blessed Eid.
Oops. Simple error – Nuns, as you may know, are not at all rare in Poland.
the thing
about plaiting hair is you have to keep it tight. How you do this with three strands and only two hands is something of a mystery.
What’s even more of a mystery is why Tania will appear at hair-plaiting time wearing nothing but a pair of undies and her sister’s gumboots.
by this time
I was in Poland too.
Great thing about having kids old enough to read and write, is they can make a list and do the shopping while the old man relaxes and sketches.
What could possibly go wrong?
and
shortly afterwards
our kid dropped in on the way back from Vladivostok.
We went out for the day and found a zipline to play on.
tania's probably
the world champion cuddle princess.
Zoe is a remarkably fine cuddler too but in a quieter way. Getting hit by a flying Tania cuddle can take even the most loving sister off guard.
by mid august 2018
it became clear that our Polish house was haunted.
Just after bathtime each night a strange ghost appeared . . .
tania
is much lighter than Zoe.
She had a Bright Idea one day.
Unfortunately it didn’t work.
Fortunately both girls are alive and uninjured
it was decided
that I should teach the girls Chess.
Ania bought a set of pieces and we discovered that one of our backgammon boards has chess on the outside of the box. The fact that Zoe beat me on our first game by TAKING MY KING tells you everything you need to know about my own Chess skills.
when we lived
in Oman, the girls invented and developed the art of “thingfinding” when out on walks.
Tania’s weekly chore in Poland was to sort rubbish for recycling.
She loves this job.
The other enormous joy for her is jumping on plastic bottles to crush them.
a windy day
in Iceland.
And I was out for a walk with the kids.
We were discussing how the same animal sounds are spelt in different languages.
then,
we went skiing.
And I was pleasantly surprised to discover how quickly the girls grasped the essentials.
Second frame below.
yup . . .
always a joy to see the litte ones develop.
looking for some sun
. . . we rocked up in Morocco and found ourself in a surf resort.
None of us surfs but it didn’t stop us playing with a lonely surfboard we found lying about.
in morocco
Gotta try a hammam of course.
This involves lying on the floor in a steamy room . . . etc.
Well, you can see really. . .
there are two sides
. . . to every story,
Two sides to every naked woman lying on a wet floor . . .
And two sides to every designated specialist skin-scrubber.
back in the uk
the girls were given a table tennis set as a present.
Meanwhile and coincidentally, they had become pirates and they also had new wellies. So our kitchen was repurposed as a booted pirate ping pong stadium.
both girls
love animals and fresh air, so a week of dog-sitting in the South Shropshire hills was a big chunk of paradise.
the ancient
Central European tradition of Śmingus Dyngus involves sneaking up on your loved ones first thing in the morning and throwing water at them . . . as I had discovered on Easter Monday eleven years earlier.
Apparently, my sneaking up skills still have room for improvement.
back in poland ...
All the leaves from last autumn were still lying around, the girls were given the task of clearing them up.
But even the most critical assignments have to take a pause when there are new friends to be loved and named.
rain physics
Unfortunately had to rush out to rescue the girls from a sudden shower. Fortunately, Tania had an umbrella with her and the bright idea that if I carried her, then we could all three shelter under one umbrella. Even more fortunately, her idea was 67% effective.
procreate
added a text tool.
So I tried a kinda cartoon page.
True story, folks!
one of the delights
of watching the girls grow older is that we no longer have to take such care in playing gentle with them.
we had a small dog
to stay with us.
Otherwise life continued as normal
well,
more or less as normal.
took a bit of time
for the pooch to get acclimatisd to country life
sometimes
I get the impression that I think that my jokes are funnier than other people think they are.
