London

Ian has been away all week with important work:

So I thought that I would take the kids on an adventure to London! It almost didn't happen - a freak rainstorm (requiring changing of all clothes down to underwear) delayed us on the way to the station, but we did manage to catch our train. Thanks to Nathaniel's running, we actually had 5 minutes to spare, but the train was late anyway......

The kids made up for my grumpiness towards the couple who sat in our seats and declined to move by being charming and playing nicely and holding adult conversations with the surrounding passengers.

And then as the train emptied out, played jungle explorers down the carriage (complete with swinging from vines) until they hurt themselves and I got disapproving looks from people!

Nimmy and James kindly met us from the train and helped us home and the kids enjoyed their transport options as usual.

The next day Nathaniel planned a complicated route through London using the most amazing number of different tube lines.

It all came a bit unstuck when he got totally overwhelmed by Baker Street station, but we managed to press on by a new route which was fortunate, otherwise we would have never accidentally run into the Lord Mayor's Show parade!

The Butchers

My favourites were the Modern Livery Companies (I enjoyed the accountants), and no-one forgot the farmers!

Then we got to our goal - the DLR - and managed to get the front seats so we could pretend to be train drivers all the way to Greenwich.

We had some lunch and a brief play in the Maritime Museum (just enough to make us want to come back to do it properly), and then decided we were exhausted and went home! The important thing was that Thea got to do lots of Tube surfing (which she is pretty good at), and everyone got their fix of interesting stations (I like Canary Wharf) and trains (many, many metropolitan line trains!).

The next day we got to Kings Cross early enough to have coffee in sight of the Eurostar trains and the rather fine architecture which everyone was pleased about.

And then we went home. For about 2 hours. After which we needed more stations, so we went back to pick up Ian!

Sorry about the blurry pictures - not entirely sure about my new phone's camera yet......

A&E

I'm pretty pleased that we have managed 6 years and 20 days without going to A&E. I'm sure that when we were kids, no-one ever went, but most of my friends now seem to have taken a kid at least once. Maybe it's due to living in a town with an easily accessible hospital.

It all started very happily. There was thick fog and no wind, so sailing was out, so instead we went off to explore Weldrake Woods with the usual suspects.

We took two small dragons with us:

The woods were wonderful - lots of different tree areas, not to plantation-y and lots of ditches to fall in, stumps to climb on and mushrooms to notice. We took walkie talkies and hid in dense christmas tree lots and jumped out at people. We found mysterious corals created deep in the undergrowth. We had lots of fun.

And then disaster. After a perfectly ordinary game of 1...2...3..Weeeee!, Thea started crying. A lot. Which is really unusual for her. And despite trying, she didn't seem to be able to grip Ian's hand. So the inevitable followed......

But she was a star! Despite clearly being in loads of pain (she cried out every time the car went over a bump), she was really brave, and just concentrated on eating a lolly which I had found in the bottom of my bag.

And then both kids sat quietly in A&E and chatted and read books and munched more sweets.

And all was well. Apparently a "pulled elbow" is very common and doesn't mean that you have been too rough with your child. The doctor held onto Thea's arm and twisted it a little, and then there was a little click and suddenly she could use it again. Within two minutes she was using it normally and clutching a bear she had been given (who is called Peas'n'Jim. Go figure.....). One happy girl.

Might not be doing much swinging our kids by their extremities from now on........

Not Camping

We've had this weekend in the diary for camping, and of course the weather was spectacular, but in the end, were all a bit under the weather and tired and a lot of people had to be at work until 5pm on Friday (which is rather close to sunset up here in the north), so we made a new plan.

Camping in the garden!

Rather than our Baden-Powell inspired ubercamp, we made a nylon city at the end of our garden, decorated it with fairy lights and lit the chimnea.

The first two tents go up....

We cooked Friday supper on the oven in our kitchen and then toasted marshmallows for a "midnight" feast on the fire.

Two skeletons enjoy marshmallows.

On Saturday we got up slowly and then went for a walk along the river at Benningborough which was just enough exercise for us all! There was wood collecting, and log clambering on and a little muddy beach to play on.

And then lots of other people turned up for a barbecue and roasted corn on the cob and Benningborough burgers and home grown courgettes and tasty sardines were eaten with glee.

Today the kids played endless complicated games inside and out. Walkie talkies were used liberally and every single toy in the house was used for something.

And then we all decamped to a friend's 40th birthday celebrations and ate cake all afternoon.

We didn't get our dose of wilderness, but we had lots of fun.

Six

Thank you for all the wonderful birthday presents sent to Nathaniel! He has much to read and play with and is very appreciative.

He even managed not to get up at the crack of dawn, instead lying in bed and reading until 7:30. I had to write that so that I'd remember it in years to come!

And then we opened presents!

And then we played with presents!

And then after some lunch it was time to go to his party. I had declined to have loads of kids in our rather messy house, so we had an explorers party in the woods. It was all very exciting!

Basically 6 friends joined Nathaniel and a bunch of younger siblings to rampage round the woods for a couple of hours. They ran, we made a den, made some fire, created candle holders with special gems and generally had fun.

The star of the afternoon was definitely Ian who was the bear! We ran numerous bear hunts - the bear ran through the woods leaving a trail of white pine cones. The kids chased after him picking up his pine cones and stuffing them in their foraging bags. They were then rewarded with sweets for all the cones they returned to the bear (we got through a whole tin of Roses!). They wanted to do it again and again. And again. And again.

It was a great party!