Sharing a room

Nicholas and Daniel have been sharing a room for the past couple of months. It all started with the arrival of the first of our steady stream of visitors. We only have 3 bedrooms so we moved Danny into Nick's room so that we could use his room as a guest room. They have grown quite accustomed to sharing a room so we are thinking about making it a permanent fixture. My next project is ... the boys' room ... I must say I am quite excited about it. Here they are singing our favourite bedtime song to each other!

It's all in the sound!
The picture is meant to be black as it was night time!

Is any holiday ever long enough?

We're missing you already Gogo! Thanks so much for coming to visit us and for everything you did while you were here! The house feels so empty without you! The boys keep walking around looking for you! Nicholas says 'I am actually missing Gogo!' and Danny says 'NO it's MY Gogs!'. At least we'll see you in 3 months time ...

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Eye Of The Tiger

I like the song and for some reason I always end up singing it when I see the London Eye. Anyway, last weekend we went to soak up the atmosphere on the South Bank, and did an impromptu sunset jaunt on the London Eye. Well, the boys took Gogo up, while we we enjoyed a drink on the terrace and watched from below. Those aren't just random shots of the Eye - if you look closely enough you'll see Gogo and the boys!

Nature Detectives

Forest school is back up and running and Daniel is very excited about it especially since he could take Gogo along to 'see it'. This week the theme was seeds and fruits. It was great fun searching for different seeds and fruits and matching them to the pictures on the chart. I also learnt quite a lot about identifying different trees by their seeds/fruits using the leaves as confirmation. Autumn promises to be an exciting time in the forest!

Daniel loves showing Nicholas what he did at forest school every week. It's a pity Nick misses out as I actually think he could really benefit from it. We do, however, try to do a repeat of the activity every week so he doesn't miss out completely. This week was especially interesting as it tied in to his weekly theme at school!

I came across two great nature related websites with great activities and games for kids. Check them out if you're interested in the outdoors and the changing seasons and have little ones to entertain: Nature Detectives and Wild Child!

Oxford

Dad had his 5 year reunion at Oxford last weekend. It was great fun seeing so many old friends from around the world. It brought back a lot of fond memories of our time there. We made a weekend of it and stayed in the beautiful Keble College. It was fun giving Gogo a taste of college life and showing her our favourite parts of Oxford including the Pitt Rivers Museum. No trip to Oxford is complete without some punting on the Cherwell!

Oops!

Best of British

Last weekend we took Gogo to one of our favourite British events: Proms in the Park. We made a day of it having fish and chips for lunch and spending the afternoon exploring Hyde Park - including a pedal boat on the Serpentine. Before we knew it, it was time for the concert. I don't think Gogo has seen a gathering of so many people before so I hope she enjoyed it, even though she isn't a huge classical music fan. The boys were in their element and loved all the familiar music as much as we did. Waving that Union Jack is becoming easier to do as time goes on!

Grow your own

Our veggie garden has been a bit of a mixed bag this year (not half as good as last year). In June we had quite a few nice strawberries, even though the plants are healthy, no more fruit since then. They have however propagated like crazy and now we have a whole strawberry plantation. Our courgette plants are small but are producing loads of lovely flowers. Little courgies start growing but then just seem to shrivel up and drop off. Only one has grown big so far and it was a very odd shape (nothing like last year's delicious monsters). Our chillies are flourishing and lots of little peppers are finally starting to appear. Our tomatoes are looking the most promising - we've had a few ripe ons so far - if all goes well we'll be harvesting a fair crop soon. Oh and our flower boxes are looking pretty good now. Luckily Gogo Greenfingers is here and she is trying to sort it all out for us!

Strawberries

CourgettesChillies

Peppers

Cherry TomatoesGogo Greenfingers