Huge Catch-up! Part 2

And so to holidaying in Edinburgh...

Making ourselves at home in Aunt Jill's flat.

First day... driving over the Forth Road Bridge...

... in search of Pizza Hut...

... and fellowship with very special friends.

Second Day... my birthday girl! 9 years old! Her special request for her special day? - to be in Scotland again for her birthday; and being a Sunday, to go to our old Fellowship.

Presents... she spent a lot of time building her Lego gifts.

Spike even got a sort of 'not birthday' gift! Lucky him... we didn't get presents on someone elses birthday when I was young!

After church... fun in the park with Spike's special friend J.

Making the most of time together. It's great how they can be such good buddies... lovely to watch.

Thanks, Pat, for putting on a lovely Fellowship lunch and 'birthday' day for Bubbles! It was great to enjoy the day in good company... and it really made Bubbles' day.

Just enjoying the day.

Evening tea, at Aunt Jills... a fitting end to a lovely day.

More cake! Lego cake bricks these are!

That's my girl... isn't she beautiful!

Pin the Nose on the Clown... fun to end the day...

Huge Catch-up! Part 1

This is the week before we went away...


Dad turned 65 the week before Bubble's birthday... we celebrated with a lovely meal at their house with them, us and my brother, sister-in-law and T. I completely forgot to take photos... but Spike got this lovely one! So, Dad, you can retire officially now!

Before we went away, Spike was expecting something in the post... I can't even remember what it was now... but he took up this position in the kitchen, watching impatiently out the window for the post lady every day until 'it' came! My lovely kids just have NO patience at all!

Sadly, the tomatoes have been struck by blight :o( O well! I'm not sure I'll grow them next year... these I picked off the stem, to try and ripen indoors and see if they will escape the blight.

A lovely trip to Dudmaston Estate... we went to see the exhibition of old inventions... the exhibition wasn't half as big as I thought it would be, but fascinating nonetheless... Bubble's entered a competition to create her own invention... she decided that a sort of 'window wiper' for your glasses would be very helpful! She spent a while drawing and describing it... then we went and sat and looked at the view and the kids ran around.

Beach Update

Here's a few photos of our Birmingham beach trip, courtesy of Dad. The beach is right next to the Library and Museum and Art Gallery... and Bubbles and Spike declared it just like London...

Weekly round-up

Once again, a very quiet week... the weather just hasn't been too good which hasn't helped, and I'm running very low on energy... in need of some R&R I think!

Saw this steam engine pass by the house last saturday (when this picture is from... by the time I realised what I was seeing and ran for the camera it was half way down the road!) and it popped past again today!

We seemed to be in 'pancake' mood this week (Spike watched some episodes of Peppa Pig and they made pancakes in one, so it all started from there!)... so here's Spike rustling some up ready for cooking.

Washing hands after cooking is definitely the best bit!

We made cakes this week too... here's Bubbles mixing fast and furious.

Mum suggested we went to the Beach on Friday as the weather was actually nice... so we decided to head off to Birmingham to do just that... ! YES, we went to the beach IN Birmingham!! The kids were very very excited, as we got to go on the train... in fact, they were in such a hurry to get going that Bubbles actually offered to help brush Spike's teeth - I was so blessed! It was great to see them helping each other out, instead of squabbling and fighting which seems to be happening rather a lot lately!

Bubble's took one of her Sylvanian families... the Pettyfur guinea pigs, complete with bucket for making sand castles.

Spike took some of his cars.

Here's Bubbles on the train.

And the photos of our time on the beach......................... grr... the camera decided to corrupt all the photos pertaining to our trip out on Friday (except for the 4 above). How ANNOYING!! So, I'll have to see if Dad took any photos... but he probably didn't have any of the outstanding sand castle that Spike and I made... we made Edinburgh Castle! And Bubbles laboured and made about 26 tiny sand castles with the Sylvanian family bucket, and protected them from tiny feet and flying hula-hoops and little boys with digger toys, and butterflies, wasps and bird poo (yip, some landed on her knee! made the day more authentic!)... and we took a lovely photo of the Pettyfurs with the finished result... and nothing to show for it ! That's life I guess!

So, how did we manage to go to the beach in Birmingham?! Well, right in the centre, they cordoned off a small area, and filled it with sand and deck chairs! It was lovely! Since we are probably about a 2hr journey from the beach now (struggling with that concept, having lived so close to the beach before) this was a lovely treat! We also had our first trip through Birmingham, somewhere we haven't been before (ok, it wasn't hugely exciting, but it might be a useful place for the variety of shops)... and saw the 'bubble wrap' building (as Spike called it!) more commonly known as Selfridges... I'd never heard it was such an iconic building in Birmingham... I'm a bit out of touch! The weather stayed lovely, despite some very black clouds rolling over... and it was a great highlight of the week... somewhat dampened by the loss of the photo memories, but we'll get over it!

Weekly round-up

It's been a quiet week!

Time to trim the hair...

Very handsome! And the leftovers...

Watching the steam trains, in Kiddy

Bubbles went to Coughton Court with the church 'Tuesday Group'... she loves that group... even though everyone there is atleast 50 yrs older than her!

The summer reading scheme at the Library... we don't much care for the characters this year... but the kids like the medal they get after reading 6 books!

Hmm... seem to have done a lot of this this week! (I've been feeling terribly worn out, so the kids have been amusing themselves to a large degree...)

We discovered Bewdley this week... very pretty.

Bewdley museum... punishment....!

Bewdley museum... brass rubbing.

Bewdley museum... watching a rope making demonstration, and Bubbles taking a turn at helping... 9 year olds used to work on the 'Rope Walk'... they were expected to do the work of an adult, 60 hours a week...

Bewdley museum... enjoying the hands on activities.

Chips at the side of the Severn, Bewdley.

Been doing a lot of reading aloud... Bubbles new 'find' in the way of books... Nancy Drew, girl detective... maybe that's why I've had a sore throat this week!