We’ve just had the most wonderful few days – but now I come to blog about it, I find I took almost no (good) photographs.  Useless!

With rather fabulous timing considering the stunning weather we’ve had over the last few days, I switched my days off and had a bonus Friday at home with Alex and Sophie. I say “at home”, but the sun was so glorious, we spent very little of the day inside.  After a quick trip to Herne Hill for supplies and Sophie’s morning nap, we packed up the picnic basket and swimming costumes and headed off to Ruskin Park to splash around in the paddling pool and enjoy an al fresco lunch.

Alex immediately found the water fountains and had a brilliant time getting completely soaked – he particularly enjoyed riding his scooter through the shallow water!  I swear he’s becoming surgically attached to it!

I particularly enjoyed bumping into a local friend Nici, and her boys Harry and Joe – so I had some fun company for the picnic, and Alex had some playmates.  It looks like Joe and Alex will likely be in the same school year of the same school, so it’ll be great fun to watch them develop together!

Once I finally dragged Alex away from the playground, we slowly walked home in the afternoon heat so Sophie could nap (although in the end she refused to) and Alex could chill out with a movie.  We then headed off to East Dulwich for a fun Hummy Mummies rehearsal where Alex had a great time playing with lots of dolls in a princess tent – no gender stereotypes for us!

When I got home, I realised I didn’t really have any food in the house for their dinner, so on the spur of the moment I took the children down to Pizza Express for tea.  It was only when I sat down on my own with two high chairs that I realised this had the potential for disaster – but they were both brilliantly behaved and it was actually quite enjoyable!  Here are my lovely dinner companions:

Saturday followed much the same model, with Family Agar selecting another local park for a day trip – this time Myatt’s Fields (a brilliant local park with stunning facilities for children – Alex and Sophie are regular visitors with their childminder).  They have a fabulous water play which occupied Alex for quite some time – sadly I didn’t take a single picture of him.  Whilst the boys were splashing around,  Sophie and I enjoyed chilling out in the shade of a tree:

It was so relaxing – a word I don’t often use to describe outings with the children!  After a delicious picnic, we all enjoyed ice creams in the sun (even Sophie who sampled some strawberry ice cream and pulled hilarious faces as the cold shocked her and then the flavour kicked in!).  Here are the duo patiently waiting for daddy to bring their ice cream:

When we got home, the boys headed off out to the Bermondsey Carnival in Southwark Park, while Sophie passed out asleep on me (so cute):

The boys had a more lively time, dancing to live music at the carnival and enjoying a stroll along the river (terrible photo below!)

The day got even more exciting with the arrival of the Hainsworth Family, visiting us for the night from Zurich.  Alex was so thrilled to see Phoebe and Henry again, I was worried we wouldn’t get any of the children to bed!  But thankfully we did – leaving us grown ups plenty of time to catch up on the last few months over a scrummy bbq and bottle of bubbly in the garden.

Sunday was all about catching up with friends – after some quiet time at home in the morning enjoying stories:

bubbles:

and cuddles (check out the spotty pants!):

We headed back to Myatt’s Fields to meet up with lots of friends and their children – only to find the water play was broken.  I’ve never seen so many disappointed children, made worse when the water came on for a few seconds to massive cheers, only to break for good!  We still managed to have a nice time chatting and letting the children enjoy the adventure playground.

We moved on to our friends Ben and Nicci’s house for a late afternoon bbq – and the Wimbledon final.  I’ll forever remember watching Murray reach his first championship point – only to have Alex run in and announce that he needed a wee wee!  I did, thankfully, manage to watch the moment when he won – and Alex certainly enjoyed all the cheering!

It was a truly lovely weekend – and we have the promise of another wonderful weekend of friends next week as our annual camping trip fast approaches.  I’m just praying it’s a little more successful for Family Agar than last year – at least it doesn’t look like we’ll have to face torrential rain this year!

Right – really must be getting back to my work inbox – but I’ll leave you with a little video of Sophie, who seems to find our Scottish rugby ball completely hysterical (her thoughts on the state of Scottish rugby!?)