Time with Friends

The Boy and his chums :)

Looking for water snails.

Making wheat favours

Papa making fire.

Late-night cooking.

Fresh air.  I love Summer!

Making a paper pond

And pond dipping for tiny creatures.

Cousins

A BIG Caterpillar!

Privet Hawk Moth Caterpillar! Not a bad find for a Wednesday afternoon :)

Enjoying our Summer Break

Holiday Club.  Free Holiday Club.  That's all I have to say about last week! :)

The week before:

Our favourite nature experts (our lovely ex neighbours) came to visit and the children chatted with them about moths, butterflies, nests and favourite Roman emperors...

...and they helped us identify some nests we have on our nature table.

The children's cute cousins came to visit for a few days.  They played pirates, climbed trees, played in the pool, went to sleep super late, ...

... had a few tea parties...

...and used the garden as a huge craft table :)

The cousins went home and we built a den in the woods with bestest Papa who knows all you need to know about surviving in the wild - although we did eat biscuits and we did go home for dinner and bed.  Hee hee!

Waiting for Papa's train.

Helping Mummy

The kiddies had a great opportunity to go horse riding at a nearby livery yard.

Lotions, Potions and a Garden for Grandad

We had a Lotions and Potions afternoon.  Incredibly it kept the children entertained for almost the whole of six hours.

Craft on wooden circles.  

..........................................................................................................................................

My father was supposed to have retired this week.  He had talked of fishing and creating and tending a vegetable garden as his big retirement plan and he had been looking forward to it for years.  He died unexpectedly and traumatically three months ago: three months before his 66th Birthday, three months before his longed-for retirement day.

It has been an incredibly painful three months for my mother and my five siblings, as well as my children and their cousins who lost their Grandad, whom they loved very much.  In his honour we made our own vegetable garden, something I have been planning to do officially once I no longer had a toddler and now seemed the right moment to give it a go.  

Previously we have tended the odd strawberry plant and tomato plants, but this time we have chosen a piece of garden, tended the soil and planted turnip, carrot, radish, pea and spinach seeds, which are still ok to plant at this time of year.  

It's now watered and ready to go.  Watch this space.  We love you Grandad.