1st Week

Well if the rest of the school holiday is as good as this first week we'll all be happy and exhausted by the end of it!

The first day off last Thursday was gloriously hot and sunny and most of it was spent in the garden. A friend of G's gave T this water blaster but unfortunately it was broken. G spent some time trying to fix it and once he thought it was all sorted, well there was really only one outcome wasn't there. Although the water fight was initially just between the 3 of them T couldn't resist the temptation and I ended up completely soaked as well, hardly fair as I had nothing to defend myself with! Never mind it gave us all a good laugh.

T and S also had loads of fun in the paddling pool and had G and I crying with laughter at their antics.

And in case you were wondering, the washing did get wet again!

The forecast for Friday was warm but with plenty of cloud cover so we decided a walk was in order. You can imagine the moans and groans and here is a lovely photo of 2 children about a mile into the walk complaining of thirst and heat exhaustion. Aren't we just completely wicked parents for taking them out into the countryside?!

Our chosen destination was Brockenhurst in the New Forest. I had kept details of a 5 and a half mile circular walk, which began and ended at the train station, which had been published in the local paper a few years ago and with views like this

and this

and this
the children soon forgot to moan and just ran around and played and enjoyed themselves.

We had our lunch sat by this massive tree.

G is 6ft 5 so that gives you an idea of how massive it is!

And of course fallen trees have to be explored and walked along. This was just one of several we found, the favourites were the ones that had fallen from one bank to another across the streams.

Saturday was a quieter day spent tidying thehouse in readiness for our housesitter and packing for a couple of days away.

We did pop out for an hour in the later afternoon though.

Just over the bridge from where we live there was an event being held to celebrate the start of the round the world Clipper race and part of this was live music over 3 evenings.

We chose to go and see a Madness tribute band who very quickly had the crowd dancing and enjoying themselves.

Sunday and Monday were spent in Norwich as we had arranged to meet up with T's birth siblings.

He spent time with S

we spent a lovely evening with R

and had a short meet up with his other sister R.

We had very little time for sight seeing, just the odd hour snatched here and there. We did a tiny bit of shopping and S decided white shades should be part of her new look!

We found the most beautiful shopping arcade ever, this deserves a whole post on it's own which I'll do another day.

The other thing which cuahgt my eye were these glass globules on the fence around a churchyard. They were in different colours and must look fabulous if there is lighing around them at night.

If you don't like snakes then skip this next photo.

T's sister S has a partner who likes snakes and he got their pet snake out to meet us. It took a liking to G and G took a liking to it. He sat with it crawling over him for ages, he said it was very relaxing!

Yesterday was spent travelling home again, so no time for anything else.

Today though with the sun out once again G loaded up the car with the bikes and we went up to the Common. Lots of cycling through parts we don't normally visit and then on to the paddling pool which was heaving with people. After half an hour or so I went to buy ice creams and bumped into a friend I hadn't seen for a while so whilst we sat chatting and arranged another meet up the children played and had fun in the sun, just what the holidays should all be about.