Why hello Thea!

Ah Kelsey park – how I do enjoy popping in to see you 🙂

Yup, yet again today I found myself visiting Kelsey park again, this time with my sister Thea, little Katie and Cara. The park was as lovely as ever and the weather was also pretty perfect for sitting out with a picnic. We treated ourselves to some food from M&S and had a good lunch before needing to visit the play park.

Katie had a good time meeting some of the other children (at one point climbing over another little girl in her attempt to scale the helter skelter without using the stairs) while Sam spent some time having a good swing. After Katie’s exertions in the park she needed a bit of a rest and it seemed that only Cara would do.

Thanks for spending the day with us Thea, Katie and Cara, Sam and I had a great time 🙂

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!

Now that Sam and I seem to have his feeding down to a fine art I felt that it was time to put my ability to get about to the ultimate test and make a trip to visit my parents in Kew. Oddly enough the distance to Kew isn’t really the issue but the lack of direct transport routes is. For us to get to Kew we need to catch two trams followed by two trains which takes just over 2 hours if everything goes well.

Luckily everything did go well today, we made our connections fine and even arrived there slightly early. Sam seemed to enjoy the journey and was keen to catch lot’s of fellow passengers eyes in an attempt to get them to smile at him.

Mum made her delicious leek and potato soup that I’ve always loved and Sam also got to try a bowlful which he seemed to enjoy though he did keep trying to wrestle the spoon from me. After his lunch he thought there was too much fun going on to have his nap, but after half an hour he did finally doze off and so I got to drink a nice cuppa tea with my parents out in the garden.

Thanks for having us Mum and Dad and hopefully Sam and I will be round to visit you both again soon.

Today was the last full day of our trip visiting the in-laws and so it was decided that we should go out somewhere nice for a good walk and a chance to enjoy each other’s company (while it was still available). We headed off to Shibden Hall park which has some lovely grounds, a large pond/dammed river as well as a very unimpressive waterfall thing that Rich found pretty disappointing. There was also the house (Shibden Hall itself I guess) that I really liked the look of… maybe in a few years time I’ll have a big rambling tudor esq type mansion like this one that I can have big parties at or just sit outside quietly by myself enjoying the scenery and a good book.

Rich and I have had a lovely time up in Northland – having Sam’s doting grandparents around really lifted the load and gave us a chance to have a bit more of a break than usual. Thanks so much for having us Rich’s Mum and Dad!

Time seems to have really flown round here recently, somehow we are now only two weeks away from Cara’s wedding (see how surprised Sam is by this news!) and my not having anything that fit for the big day was starting to become quite a worry.

Thankfully though the future bride herself managed to spare Sam and I some of her time to take me out dress shopping, and after a good few hours of hunting we found a lovely dress that fits me and looks good! I’m very please with it and after the wedding I’ll probably try to get away with wearing it on all sorts of other occasions too… but maybe going out to the shops in it would be a little too much?

Sam was his usual well behaved self and got a few complements while out in the shops – Cara was also complemented on Sam and told her how much her son looked like her 🙂

Thanks so much for coming round Cara – very much appreciated!