Catch up

A lovely dinner with family in Wales this week reminded me that this blog has been a great way for us to share Alex’s first years with our friends and relatives all over the world – and as a result I’ve been feeling bad that I’ve become terrible at keeping it updated. Promise I’ll try harder…

My excuse is that the past couple of months have been completely mental – with the countdown to the arrival of baby number 2 resulting in work being busier than ever, the London Olympics and a huge number of house guests – and of course the extra exhaustion from pregnancy – blogging hasn’t been my top priority.

But we’ve kept taking pictures, so I’ll attempt to quickly catch you up on July in this post. We started the month with Alex smarter than ever before at the christening of our friend Marie’s little boy, Harry. Check out the cute shirt (and smile!):

We also enjoyed a wonderful trip to Hampton Court Palace to celebrate Auntie Katharine’s birthday – the weather took a surprising turn for the better and we enjoyed a picnic in the grounds with her family. Alex loved a horse and carriage ride – he looks a bit cross here, but he really did love it:

And the gorgeous grounds gave us an opportunity to take some nice family pictures:

After a glamorous start to the month, we then headed with some apprehension to the New Forest for our first family camping experience! Not sure what I was most nervous about – sleeping in a tent whilst pregnant, or coping for two nights in the outdoors with 6 couples and 6 boys under the age of two…

It was both a fabulous experience and a bit of a nightmare. Despite the rain, the boys adored it. New Forest ponies wandered around the campsite, they could jump in muddy puddles to their hearts content, and run around all the tents. And we grownups enjoyed the chance to properly catch up and spend some time together. The first night saw Alex sleep brilliantly in the tent with no night waking, and sleeping till 6.30am. Sadly, I got almost no sleep at all (quite why Matt and I thought that the old bedding rolls we used in our early 20s would be acceptable when 6 months pregnant, I don’t know!) – so I was a bit of a zombie on Saturday!

But we still had a fun day, visiting Longdown Activity Farm where the boys petted baby animals and played on toy tractors, and Lymington where we watched the ferry and lots of sail boats. It was a fun day, but Alex got progressively grumpy and not quite himself. The day sadly ended with him being very sick in a Lymington pub (sorry other customers). So we packed up the tent and fled back to London just in case he was coming down with something. Thankfully he slept brilliantly and was fine the next day – and I enjoyed a bonus night in my own bed.

So all in all, it was a fun introduction to family camping – and a definite indication that holidays under canvas would be fun as Alex grows older. I don’t regret for a moment going, and am already looking forward to the 2013 trip as we’ve agreed to make it an annual trip! Here are a few photos of the experience: