This weather makes me feel so happy! I love not having to wrap the children (and me) up in jumpers and coats and adore spending the day outside. And for the weather to be this brilliant on a Bank Holiday Monday in the UK makes me even happier as Matt could enjoy the day with us 🙂

He took Alex to the Brockwell Park adventure playground this morning whilst Sophie napped and I prepared a picnic for lunch. This afternoon Hummy Mummies, the choir I go to each week with the children, was singing at the Dulwich Village Preschool 50th Anniversary fete. It was the perfect place to be on a glorious afternoon like today. It was small and safe, so Alex could run around barefoot. He spent most of the time on the two bouncy castles getting hotter and hotter! We managed to drag him off for a gingerbread man, and later an ice cream – but mostly he just jumped!

It was fun singing with the choir – here we are, with Alex joining us in the middle:

And a video if you’re super keen of us singing a cheesy Carpenters song!

It was such a beautiful day, we decided to walk home whilst Sophie had a quick nap in her buggy. We wandered through Dulwich Park (where it seemed most of the population of Dulwich were spending the afternoon) the park looked beautiful, although we had to concentrate in order to dodge the bicycles, runners and dogs speeding round the perimeter! Alex spent ages looking at the ducks and lake, trying to persuade us to take him out on a pedalo (!). Maybe next week…

Sophie soon woke and seemed very entertained by her brother on the buggy board in front of her. It was the first time in her entire life that her arms and legs had been exposed to warm sunshine – and she looked very happy about it!

Hot and sweaty after the long walk home, I promised Alex we’d get some water out in the garden to splash in. So I found a big tray and filled it up, chatting to Alex about how we’d play with his Octonauts toys and boats in the water – but as soon as the tray was full, Alex stripped off and sat in it. I don’t think you could get a smaller paddling pool (I feel bad, as we have a proper paddling pool in the shed!). He LOVED it – making a kelp forest for his fish with grass, blowing fairy liquid bubbles and generally getting very wet. It was so nice watching him having a brilliant time outside – I hope this weather lasts!

Today’s been the culmination of a lovely few days. Sophie started properly settling in with Jacqui, our childminder, on Friday so I had the full day to myself. Whilst it felt very wrong to begin with, not having anyone to look after, I quickly eased into a lovely quiet day. I relaxed at the hairdressers (and now no longer have grey hairs!), treated myself out to a yummy lunch in Brixton Village and did a spot of shopping and baking. I have four whole days to myself next week – am very excited about it!

On Saturday, Matt took Alex to a local messy play club (with the brilliant name Happymess). I’d spotted it online and thought it looked like a fun way to spend an hour – particularly when the theme this week was dinosaurs. Alex loved painting his own dinosaur:

And he loved making foot prints and dinosaur eggs from play dough.

It’s a great concept for a playgroup – I’m sure we’ll be back.

On Saturday afternoon, our Auntie Joan from San Francisco arrived for a quick visit, meeting Sophie for the first time. Matt’s brother and family joined us for dinner and Alex had a great time with his cousins (in fact, he hasn’t stopped asking for them since!). I’m kicking myself for completely neglecting to take any photographs of the family reunion – so annoying.

We had a pretty quiet Sunday. We all headed down to the Herne Hill Farmers’ Market for supplies and Alex had a little trip on the Brockwell Park miniature railway. Unfortunately my iPhone was stolen on the bus down to Herne Hill, so my Sunday afternoon was spent on the Vodafone shop in Brixton buying and setting up a new phone. My mood was improved at the frozen yoghurt shop in Brixton Market – Alex and I gorged outselves 🙂

As I sign off and head to bed, I’ve just realised that this is my one hundreth blog post! Thanks for reading.