Sadly today was Sam’s grandma’s last day down in Southland with us. We tried to hold on to her for longer but she insisted that she was needed back home and that her train was leaving today.

Yesterday Cara collected us from our home in the morning and took us back to her place while we decided what we were to do that day. We had made plans to maybe visit Greenwich – but changed our minds when we realised that it would be a bit of  a tricky journey. However, we did go in the end and spent some time doing a little window shopping in some of the lovely little Greenwich shops and then went to a little cafe near the entrance to the park.

After a tasty lunch which included a cake course (yum!) we headed off for a quick wander round the park where we came across a very nice play park which looked like lots of fun, definitely one to come back to when Sam is a little older. Unfortunately our trip back home was slightly traumatic as our bus driver didn’t seem to be a very good driver and had some real problems with a hill start after which a good few people decided to get off… that’s the last time I avoid doing a short walk by catching a bus!

Today Cara brought round her mum and minion number 4 (aka Nick) to spend some quality time with Sam. We all visited the mobile toy library together (hooray for the big white van!) and had a simple lunch back at tea towers before it was time for Sam to say bye bye to his grandma.

We’ve all been very happy to have a couple of visitors from Northland this weekend. Sam’s grandma and grandad both came down late on Friday evening and spent Saturday and Sunday with us in Tea Towers.

We had a quiet day on Saturday with a lovely barbecue in the evening which Cara and Nick also came round for. Sam’s grandad discovered that tapping our fence also causes Sam to giggle and much fun was had by Sam as we all had a go at giving the fence a good tapping (I wonder what the neighbours thought of our strange behaviour?). Sam was also treated to a bath in the evening with the help of two willing wannabe minions who seemed to enjoy it just as much as Sam did.

On Sunday we all headed off to Kesley park for a picnic lunch (courtesy of M&S) followed by a trip to the play park and a wander round the lovely grounds. Sam’s grandad had to go and catch a train back up to Northland in the afternoon (bye Rich’s dad – thanks so much for visiting!) but we kept hold of Sam’s grandma as we think she may be useful for a few more days.

July is certainly the month for Birthdays in my family with my sister’s, mine and our dad’s all being within 8 days of each other. To celebrate my dad’s Birthday we invited him and mum around for some lunch and were also lucky enough to have Thea, Marcus and Katie come round too.

Sam seemed to enjoy a slightly quieter time with all his family and played nicely with Dad as well as being good enough to have his mid day nap while we all ate lunch. For some reason I went a little over the top with the amount of food so we’ve now got a fridge full of leftovers which should see us through the next week!