Crabbing at Dittisham

We caught loads - the best bait is bacon.

Den making at Eden Project

We had 1 day left on last year's ticket.
The weather has beem spectacularly bad.
I do not know if it is a summer holiday if you have to wear thick coats

Climbing at Chair ladder

You cannot see the pounding waves, but they were there at the start of Terriers Tooth, crashing over the ledge wetting the ropes. One actually went over my head just as I set off.

We went to st ives

Did some watercolour paintings at a workshop at the tate, then digging on the sand.
Note all the 'surfers'.
They must wait all day.
There is one small dumping wave

Approaching hamleys toyshop

We have been to westminster abbey in the morming. Hamleys at lunchtime. Matinee of high school musical. What a day!

Swimming anyway

Despite the cold and record rates of rain, we are still at the pool! All the mums are wearing jumpers.
I just heard one kid ask if she could wear her school jumper in the pool. The mum said no

In defence of the realm

Here is Theo dressed as a knight at the Abinger Hammer Medieval Fayre.

Using his powers for good.

Dog in the bluebells

This is the woods through which we take the dog for a walk.

Look how fit and strong Rudi (the dog) is. He needs loads of exercise wouldn't you know. I wish that he could have a holiday with Anna, and she would sort him out!

In Spring, there are many bluebells growing amongst the trees and it is more pretty than you can believe. Except that it turns out that these are not native English bluebells. They are a weed.

It is not exactly lantana is it?

What is that in your pocket Harry?

It is a gerbil

Guinea Pigs are go

Here are the 2 guinea pigs.

The black and white one is called Patch and is very sweet.

The brown one started out being called Lucky, but then it tuened out that we did not like him as much as Patch, so I started calling him Unlucky, after a few days Matilda decided that he might understand that he had an unkind name, so she started spelling out the U N and calling him U N Lucky. I thought that she had changed the name to Ewan Lucky so we started calling him Ewan which was a pretty cool name for a guinea pig, but now they call him Leo, because you can spike his hair up like a lion's mane! This is now one confused rodent.

Bunny scores own goal

Whne we came home the other day, a baby bunny was caught in the net of the football goal, I mean soccer goal! Harry got it out (ripped the net , it only took 2 seconds) and then Toby fantasised about putting the bunny into the gerbilarium and loving it orever, he called it Hopkins.

Well he loved it for about 25 minutes, and then Matilda loved it for about 25 minutes, and then I suggested that they should take it to a field and let it go... So they walked around the corner to the field and set Hopkins free. He may well be the rabbit that the dog chases each morning on our walk.

Gerbils at large

It is big news here that the gerbils (pepper and salt, pepper is a light grey colour and salt is black) who escaped from the gerbilarium about 6 weeks ago are still with us! I have been working from home recently and from my vantage point at the computer, I saw them run across the small sunroom many many times. They are obviously very much at home, and by the look of them, getting a good supply of food too. Pepper especially is looking good. Or he may be about to give birth to 19 babies! So I am wondering whether we should bother catching them or just leave them... Hang on, there they go again..

Abinger Hammer Medieval Fair

We went to this fair again this year and thrilled to the olde worlde charms of dog races (shame on those Holmbury St Mary dogs for not being able to run straight), the 'toss the wheat sheaf' event, the 3 legged races and the 2nd hand book shop. The kids spent all their money on sweets. Then they all dressed up in medieval costume and had a go with swords. Lovely.

Toby is a cool knight

Matilda excited