Everything as it should be

Sometimes, everything just works. Like this weekend. Everyone was cheerful, no-one whined (much), and there was lots of fun!

It helped that Saturday morning dawned frosty and sunny. So Ian and I took turns in going for runs across the crunchy moor while the children ate breakfast, and then I dug the front garden some more while Nathaniel taught Thea how to climb up the rockery and over the wall and generally ran around having fun in the sun.

Then we took a pleasant stroll into town via a convoluted route which took in some areas that we'd not walked for ages and met Mikey and Jim and Vicki for brunch in Meltons Too. The children behaved like angels and joined in our conversations or sat contendedly which enabled us all to tuck into full english breakfasts followed by pudding, including a vat of jelly beans which Nathaniel charmed out of the waitress.

Thea and Ian went guitar browsing with Jim and Mikey while I took Nathaniel to music (via a lovely 15 minutes chatting to the banks of crocuses covering the Dean's gardens), followed by a screening of Cars which Nathaniel much enjoyed.

Today we headed out to Skipwith Common with a crowd to make the most of a mild, albeit overcast, Sunday. Here you can't see parents strolling and three five year old boys careering around on bikes.

But here you can see Thea, all kitted up for a chilly wind and plenty of mud:

We found puddles to fly over, gorse to fall into and trees to climb up.

We pretended we had been for a proper walk and headed to the pub to entirely blow our eating out budget for the month (yes, it's only the 2nd!), but the feast was greatly enjoyed.

Particularly the ice cream sundaes:

We met some guys who had been catching rabbits with ferrets, and having convinced them that the kids didn't need the evidence hiding from them, they let us stroke the ferrets and showed us their tracking devices to help them find them and their prey underground. The kids were predictably fascinated and unbothered by the dead rabbits, and had to come back to chat to their new friends to report that they'd found a rabbit burrow (I suspect that they dug it themselves), and ask advice on what to do next. (They were advised to bait the entrance with lettuce and then sit very quietly near by all afternoon while their parents had a pint!)

We took a different route back through some more convincing rain, and failed to see deer (can't think why not!!!), but felt that we had been outside and suitably exercised. And then home to chat and drink tea and make marble runs and play complicated games with baricades over doors (?).

And then bath and bed and great satisfaction over a weekend well spent.