Our Pembrokeshire adventure – part three {Fun with friends and family}

Posted on April 18, 2015 by Pamela Agar

Now the blog revamp is out of the way, back to normal service! Finally getting round to the last instalment in our Pembrokeshire holiday summary (well, maybe not quite the end of it, but more on that later)!

One of the reasons we choose to holiday in Wales quite a bit (see 2011 and 2012) is that it enables us to catch up with a good number of friends and family while there and on the way.

Our first stop was Cheltenham, where we popped in to visit an old friend and former colleague, Eve, and her family. It’s the perfect midway point and Alex and Sophie were delighted to get out of the car and explore Eve’s lovely garden. Eve’s gorgeous daughters, Gabby and Imogen, were perfect hosts!. Sophie, in particular, had a wonderful time playing with Immy!

We broke the journey home from Tenby with a stop off in the beautiful village of Marshfield near Bath to visit another friend and former colleague, Amy. The children hit if off immediately, enjoying their own private lunch table together and much silly giggling over their meal.

We decided to let them burn of some energy with a walk around the village – and we all had fun following the Easter scarecrow trail! The theme was heroes and villains and Alex loved spotting Darth Vadar, Spiderman, Superman and many others – including Bradley Wiggins – spotted below by Isla and Sophie!

We delayed our return to London with a quick stop in the Midlands to spend Easter with my parents. I think this may become an annual tradition as the local village Easter celebrations are great fun! But before the village celebrations, we did a little Easter egg hunt in my parents’ garden.

Our mini hunt provided enough chocolate to last ages, but we didn’t stop there! We popped over to the neighbouring village – Blakesley – for their big egg hunt and duck race. Alex and Sophie found plenty of chocolate along with the village children all over the playing fields before picking their ducks for the race. Alex’s started very well, leading the race for a while, but sadly got stuck on a bank half way along! Maybe next year…

We worked off some of the chocolate with plenty of playing in the local park which has recently had lots of new play equipment installed. And the boys enjoyed a spot of rugby in the garden, although not sure Alex quite has the hang of it yet!

Love this picture of the tired boys taking a break in Grandpa’s new shed. Alex appears to have forgotten to pick up his drink before saying “Cheers”!

We finished Easter Day with a family roast – rubbish photo, but happy memory as the children were really well behaved and the food delicious!

Our final stop in the long journey home was with our NCT friends, Dan and Bryony in Oxfordshire. With the weather properly sunny and warm, we met for a picnic and play at beautiful Blenheim Palace. It seemed most of the population of central England had had the same idea, so it was completely packed – and by the time we’d made our way from the overflow carpark to the entrance, we were already ready for lunch! So we found a clear spot of grass and enjoyed a leisurely picnic and catch up, cramming 6 months of catching up into a couple of hours.

We managed to navigate the maze, climb a tree or two and grab and ice cream before getting back on the road for the last push to London.

I mentioned at the start of this post that there may be yet more to share from our Pembrokeshire holiday… For the first time, we tried to take a bit of video footage of our trip, so I may be able to share a little holiday film. Watch this space…

Bicentennial blog

Posted on April 17, 2015 by Pamela Agar

I’m not sure I had much of a long-term vision for my blog when I started it up nearly 5 years ago as we prepared to welcome Alex into the world. I knew I wanted to share photos and stories, largely for my family who live around the world and therefore wouldn’t be able to witness every stage of Alex’s development in person. But I certainly didn’t imagine I’d still be blogging as he prepares to begin school and that I’d have managed to write 200 posts about our family life!

To mark this milestone, I’ve given the blog a bit of a facelift! I’ve contemplated changing its name for a while as I really regretted putting our surname into the overall title and URL – so I’ve finally taken the plunge and, thanks to feedback from friends on Facebook, this is now “Diary of a Herne Hill mum“. Of course, it’s not hard to figure out who we are, but I hope making it more anonymous will make it just a little harder to find if Sophie is one day running for Prime Minister or Alex is a celebrity!

I’ve also sorted out a proper URL – so it’s now the easier to remember www.hernehillmum.com. How professional looking!

I’ve got lots of more I want to do to improve it, but this’ll do for now. I hope you like it – do let me know what you think!

Looking back over the past 200 posts, I can lose hours to happy memories and am amazed at how much we’ve done and how much the children have changed.

It all started with us sharing the first scan pictures of Alex and then his arrival in the world in September 2010. The shock of the first three months saw almost nothing on the blog and I nearly didn’t carry it on, but I picked it up in January 2011 with a little post and a video of a giggling baby Alex that never fails to make me smile.

I’m so glad I carried on with the blog. I love remembering all the things we’ve done, from our ordinary weekends in London, to our holiday adventures, and some of the big milestones like the arrival of little Sophie, Alex and Sophie turning one year old and my returning to work.

Moving forward, I hope to try and participate in more online initiatives like the Siblings Project, Me and Mine and others – I love the impetus it gives me to try and capture particular things in pictures. And of course, I’ll carry on writing about our normal life (at least until the children are too embarrassed to let me!)…

Thanks for reading

Our Pembrokeshire adventure – part two {Beach fun}

Posted on April 8, 2015 by Pamela Agar

We chose Tenby as a holiday destination as we were keen for the children to experience a truly British seaside holiday! Considering how much I love the coast, they’ve spent very little time playing around on a beach (although they are regulars in our local sandpits!). With the weather forecast dire, I was nervous our trip to Wales was going to be a complete washout, and we were going to have to forgo the beach for the local softplays.

Our first two attempts at beachtime were somewhat disastrous – with Sophie immediately falling in a freezing cold rockpool within minutes of arriving on the first trip, and Alex walking too far into the incoming tide and being soaked to the waist on our second trip.

Buy things improved substantially after that, and we enjoyed hours of coastal fun over our week in Tenby! It’s a stunning spot on a beautiful coastline – we loved the beautifully painted buildings around the harbour (and took a ridiculous number of photos of them!)

I’m so glad we visited off season – we had the beaches almost to ourselves and the peace and quiet was such a treat after the bustle of London. I’d love to have a holiday home here – like the lucky people who purchased and developed the old lifeboat station shown below and featured on one of my favourite Channel4 “Grand Designs”!

Nothing clears your head better than some fresh air and the sound of the sea

The children weren’t quite so interested in peace and quiet – finding the beach one enormous playground! Of course, Alex made a beeline for any stone he could lay his hands on, throwing as many as possible into the waves.

And we all enjoyed some clambering and climbing on the rocks and in the caves.

Sophie had a permanent grin on her face on the beach – just love these pictures of her looking so full of joy and life

She followed Alex everywhere, copying everything he did. Here are my gorgeous siblings closely inspecting little rock pools together.

Alex helped Sophie climb into a little cave where they posed for a cheesy sibling photo – I love how he’s looking at his little sister here.

When you’re 2 and 4, the best thing about the beach are the waves – we spent ages splashing in our wellies and running away from the tide – they literally screamed with laughter.

Here’s Sophie following Alex again!

We, of course, spend many hours digging and building sandcastles – it was fun watching Alex directing Sophie in their construction project, which seemed to involve digging a river, lake and dam.

They worked so hard – and roped in Daddy as a helper when it got too tiring!

We were lucky enough to bump into a photographer who kindly took a few family portraits of us – they make me giggle everytime I see them.

And unusually I handed over the camera and Matt snapped some pics of me with the children

We loved the beach views from Tenby’s Castle Hill, where there were canons to climb on and massive hills to roll down!

We were keen to get out on the water, and were thrilled to find that the first boat trip of the 2015 season took place during our stay. So we headed out on a Seal Safari to explore the shoreline of nearby Caldey Island, home to lots of seabirds and seals. Sophie loved it, not minding the sea swell and the freezing cold wind!

We were lucky enough to see a fair number of seals who were fairly inquisitive, having not seen a boatload of tourists for months!

What a week! I’m still finding sand in random places, and the car smells somewhat fishy after all the shells the children collected, but we had such an amazing time, I don’t mind. Can’t wait to get to Cornwall in May for more seaside fun.

Our Pembrokeshire adventure – part one {Farm fun}

Posted on April 5, 2015 by Pamela Agar

We’ve had such an adventure this Easter, it’s going to take me a few blog posts to get through the hundreds of photographs we’ve taken and memories we’ve made.

Perhaps unwisely, given the usual wet weather in March/April in Wales, we opted to spend a week off at Easter renting a cottage in Tenby, Pembrokeshire. The forecast when we arrived made us think we’d made a terrible mistake, but thankfully, most of the wet and windy weather came at night and we had enough clear weather to enjoy some amazing experiences out in the fresh air.

We had quite a farm themed series of days during our trip – taking advantage of the close proximity to the brilliant Folly Farm. It was the perfect location for a couple of visits – with a vast outdoor park featuring everything from lions to giraffes to penguins. Sophie loved meeting the monkeys – and they seemed to like her panda, Buddy:

We met a giant tortoise and a giraffe that was even taller than daddy:

And the “Pride of Pembrokeshire” – a family of lions who didn’t look too bothered by the cool temperatures of Wales!

As well as the animals, there were loads of really toddler friendly ride ons and games. Alex and Matt thoroughly enjoyed driving mini diggers (I think Matt may have enjoyed it even more than Alex!)

And they both loved racing around a track together. Sophie was less than impressed to watch her beloved “Buddy” speeding around in the race car:

Sophie was more enthused by the Big Wheel – and we took the opportunity to get a cheesy selfie!

When the rain set in during the afternoon, we headed indoors to the vast barns which were filled with farm animals and more rides. Sophie loved meeting more chickens and Alex got to milk a goat!

Sophie even milked a pretend cow

It’s a great spot – I feared it would be super busy and really tacky – but it was really well thought out and so large, it never felt busy. I suspect it might be a different story in the middle of August! The children loved the farm so much that we made the most of the special offer to get half price tickets if you visit twice in a week!

We had another animal themed day while visiting our friends on The Gower – Luke and Laura, and their lovely children Isla and Taliesin. We enjoyed a good catch up, delicious lunch and windy trip to the local playground – but for Alex and Sophie, the absolute highlight was meeting the resident chickens! We were very impressed with the hen house Luke had constructed for them and it was great to see them roaming around the garden exploring.

I’ll be surprised if the chickens lay for a few days until they recover from being chased, stroked and overfed by our pair!

Our final farm adventure of our Pembrokeshire week was a visit to Matt’s family in Nantgaredig in the hills of Carmarthenshire. His cousins both farm – and we visited Godor Farm, where his cousin Ian and his family now have sheep and cows. Matt spent most of his childhood Christmas holidays on the Farm where his mother grew up, and after not visiting for nearly three years, jt was a real pleasure to come back and introduce Sophie to the Howell family.

It is such a beautiful spot and we made the most of the dry weather to explore as much of the farm as possible:

It’s right in the middle of the lambing season and we were lucky enough to meet (and cuddle) lots of the tiny newborn lambs!

The children got stuck in, going into the orphan lamb ben and stroking as many as they could reach.

We were unbelievably lucky and got to witness a lamb bring born from this first time mum! The children were not at all phased by the blood (although Alex did comment that it looked a bit sore for the mummy sheep!). We were super impressed by Muriel – who spotted the ewe in labour, stripped off her coat, calmly delivered the lamb, administered worming medication, washed her arms and then continued our farm tour! We’re a little bit in awe!

After the lambing sheds, we visited the herds of cattle – and got to meet two beautiful calves who were less than 24 hours old. We didn’t get very close to them as their mums were very protective!

After a quick stop off visiting the chickens (and collecting eggs which we enjoyed for our breakfast today!), we were introduced to the farm machinery. After the mini diggers at Folly Farm, Alex couldn’t believe his luck when he got to drive a real one with Ian! They attempted, thankfully unsuccessfully, to scoop up a chicken and hammered some rocks into the mud.

Matt and Sophie kept their distance!

We thought Ian and Muriel were joking when they suggested we got into a trailer behind their quad bike – but they were completely serious, wanting to show us the fields where the older lambs were. So off we went, bumping around the estate and getting seriously muddy!

Alex and Sophie even got turns on the quad bike driving with Ian, who enjoyed pretending we’d broken down while crossing the river, encouraging Alex to get out and push!

When we stopped to meet Sid and Martha, the resident donkeys, and the children had a good clamber on the quad – I think they’ll be wanting to spend their school holidays at Godor as well!

After all the excitement outside, and a delicious salmon lunch cooked by superwoman Muriel, we snuggled up by the fire and she and her youngest son – William – introduced Alex to jenga! We caught up with Matt’s Auntie Margaret (one of my top blog visitors!) and other cousin, Sue, who’d popped in to say hello and deliver Easter eggs to the children.

It was a truly wonderful day. We don’t get to Nantgaredig often enough – but when we make it, we never fail to enjoy every minute with this incredibly warm and welcoming family. We won’t wait another three years to return.

Here’s a very happy family Agar!

A quiet Mother’s Day weekend

Posted on March 20, 2015 by Pamela Agar

Just catching up on last weekend before this one gets underway properly!

We had a very chilled out weekend for Mother’s Day. We started the weekend at a couple of local clubs. I took Alex to the BMX club in Burgess Park for their track session. I think he was the youngest there, and certainly the only one there with spokey dokeys on his wheels – but he held his own for the first half of the 90 minute session. He got a bit too cold and tired to carry on, so we snuck away for a warm drink in the cafe and a quick stop in the playground, before heading to pick up Matt and Sophie who were enjoying toddler gymnastics in Camberwell!

We then spent a brilliant couple of hours at a 3rd birthday party – with a Sri Lankan dad, we enjoyed a wonderful curry lunch while the children played with their friends. Win!

With the weather a bit brighter and warmer, we spent most of the rest of the weekend pottering around the house and garden. Alex and Sophie whiled away half an hour playing with a cardboard box – best toy over:

And we got the bubbles out and hit the garden. Sophie’s finally learning how to actually blow bubbles rather than just tip the mixture all over the floor.

And we made lots of mud pies and “hot chocolate” – in my baking bowl 😦

Mother’s Day was lovely. I got some very nice handmade and handpicked cards – with a handwritten note inside the robot one from Alex!

We had a pancake breakfast, family trip swimming and absolutely delicious tapas and cava lunch in Brixton before heading home for a vague attempt at a family picture in the garden. Not entirely sure what Alex was doing!

The kids had lots of fun playing with waterbeads making a marine world for their Octonaut toys. I’m still finding (and standing on) the rubbery beads all over my kitchen floor!

We ended Mother’s Day at The Little Disco Company in East Dulwich. We met one of Sophie’s friends, Anna, there and it was hysterical watching the pair of ladies dancing wildly to a Frozen dance mix (yes, odd I know).

I shall close with my fave pictures of the week. My little star posing on her way to Jacqui’s, and my lovely siblings sharing the morning walk.

Siblings #3 {March}

Posted on March 17, 2015 by Pamela Agar

Alex and Sophie’s relationship is certainly becoming more emotional this month! We’re seeing much more bickering over toys, a strong sense of competition between them, and occasionally downright rage (particularly from Sophie) if Alex won’t share something with her! It’s quite something to watch. But we’re also seeing much more affection between our siblings.

They are becoming such a team, racing around together – Sophie usually pursuing her big brother. Here they are racing around City Hall with each other having the best time.

My favourite new thing this month is how they comfort each other. If Sophie is sad (or cross with me), Alex has spontaneously cuddled her and taken her hand to make her feel better. They often walk to our childminder’s house hand-in-hand in the morning, chatting away. My heart melts every time they do it. He’s starting to really look out for her and it makes me so proud to be their mummy.

Spring on the Southbank

Posted on March 8, 2015 by Pamela Agar

Finally, Spring feels like it’s nearly here. The weather yesterday was glorious – beautiful blue skies, light breeze and a warm sun that meant for the first time I didn’t feel an urge to wrap up in multiple layers!

We had a bit of a false start with me having to pop into work for a few hours this morning and Matt deciding to the kids to an indoor gymnastics session. But we made up for it after lunch with one of our favourite activities – wandering along the Southbank. My mum joined us just in time for our jaunt into town.

We started at London Bridge and headed straight to the river to start our walk east. It took us forever to make any progress and the children kept being distracted by the view and various things along the river, including a lovely London Bridge mural.

But we didn’t mind the slow pace – we just meandered along the Thames taking in the atmosphere. As usual, there were a few surprises along the way, particularly at City Hall where there’s a big Mexico tourism installation. The children were thrilled with the huge, colourful dragon that greeted them!

Here they are exploring the art (and ignoring the “do not touch” sign – whoops). I look at these pictures and can’t quite believe how quickly tehy are growing up!

With grandma with us, we even managed to attempt a family photo (note the lack of heavy coats and scarves – yay!)

The children love it around City Hall – the amphitheatre style area offers a brilliant place to run and climb. They raced around after each other, and had a great time clambering back up the many different levels. Here’s Sophie exploring:

Once we’d persuaded the children to leave the Mexico exhibition, we wander over Tower Bridge to the Tower of London. Alex was fascinated by Traitors’ Gate and wondering what naughty things he’d have to have done to be taken to the Tower!

We hopped on the Thames Clipper River Bus and whizzed down the river to Greenwich – the best way to travel to get an ice cream! We paid another visit to our favourite Gelateria there (yum) before heading home for a quiet evening with parents.

Our feet were tired and the children were exhausted, but it was so so nice to get back out in the fresh air and exploring the city. Bring on the Summer!

Siblings #2 {February}

Posted on February 28, 2015 by Pamela Agar

I can’t believe we’re already at the end of February. I haven’t managed to take a family portrait – but I have taken a few more snaps of my crazy siblings to share.

We’ve noticed Sophie getting more confident this month – particularly with deciding what toys she wants to play with. Now she’s getting older, she’s keen on Alex’s toys, so we are increasingly getting little squabbles when they both want to play with the same thing. And invariably when they seem to be playing nicely with their own toys, Sophie decides Alex’s looks much more exciting. Cue tears and screaming!

But on the whole, they are firm allies! Here they are today at the Discover Centre in Stratford enjoying some rough and tumble. One day I will remember to video them as the sound of their hysterical giggles is so uplifting!

Sophie in particular finds Alex completely hilarious (which is clearly perfect for my boy who loves being the centre of attention!). I think my favourite sibling moment this month was last weekend when Matt and Sophie collected Alex and I from a birthday party. Sophie was fast asleep in the car so didn’t notice Alex sit in his seat next to her, proudly sporting his Spiderman face paint. She woke with a start a few minutes later, which would normally result in tears. But she took one look at Alex and burst out laughing. Here’s a sibling selfie just afterwards:

Imagining Spring

Posted on February 22, 2015 by Pamela Agar

We enjoyed an glimpse of Spring this weekend – sadly indoors through the medium of music rather than outside in the sunshine! But it was lovely nevertheless!

We headed up to King’s Place to enjoy a family performance called “Far far away” by members of the Aurora Orchestra – the ensemble I sang with in the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall last year. Playing beautiful Chopin waltzes, the performers moved amongst the children in the audience as they acted out a story about a dragonfly at the beginning of Spring.

There was so much audience participation that Sophie and Alex loved it – they hopped like chicks, made lots of noise to wake up a hibernating tortoise and waved like reeds in a breeze. It was absolutely gorgeous – stunning music, really clever story telling and so, so engaging for little ones. You can see more and watch a little video here. It was a bit tricky to take photos – but here are a couple to remind myself how lovely it was. I love my pair stretched out on the cushions as the performance started.

The peace and calm of the performance passed very quickly, with both my duo having major tantrums in King’s Place foyer – nice! So we abandoned plans to spend the day pottering around the South Bank, and headed back to South London. Thankfully they were both on better form when we stopped for a Mexican lunch in Brixton. Sophie loved her quesadilla platter, and spent a large proportion of the meal dramatically lifting the lid and shouting “Ta-Da!”

After a play in Brixton softplay, we went for a walk in Brockwell Park to enjoy the last rays of sunshine. Sophie sat longingly on the miniature railway platform, hopefully waiting for a train. She’s got about 3 weeks to go till it starts running again…

She soon gave up, and went for an explore around the trees and bushes with her stick!

Today was a very exciting day for Alex – his little friend Rosita’s birthday party! Dressed in his brilliant, caped Superman top, he and I headed to the party after swimming. Alex was delighted to see a bouncy castle in the garden and got stuck in immediately, despite the cold.

Once the rain started, we headed in doors for some brilliant face painting, games, craft and cakes. Here is Alex (or should I say Spiderman) with his girlfriend Rosita.

They are such a pair. They weren’t really separated all party – and Rosita even let Alex help her blow out her mermaid birthday cake! They made quite a couple – Superman and Elsa!

Meanwhile, Sophie was enjoying a cinema trip with her daddy, loving the Peppa Pig feature and behaving brilliantly in the theatre. She’s growing up so fast – I can’t quite believe my youngest is now old enough to go to the movies. We’re contemplating a family trip to see a film next week.

Sea and stars

Posted on February 14, 2015 by Pamela Agar

After a series of pretty quiet, local weekends – we woke up this Valentine’s Day determined to have a special day. We’re don’t really celebrate Valentine’s Day (although I did have fun buying cards for my three special people, and enjoyed carefully writing a message for Alex that he could read himself – what a treat seeing my boy read my message of love to him!). So instead of doing anything romantic, we went on a family adventure to find out about the sea and stars in Greenwich!

After stopping for a quick fry up in the cafe on Peckham Rye, we got to the London Planetarium just in time for their children’s Space Safari Show. I was a bit nervous about taking Sophie in – but both children had a fantastic time. They loved watching the teddy in the film visit the planets of the solar system, and Alex seemed proud to show off his space knowledge answering all the questions posed by the astronomer leading the show! I love Sophie’s face in this picture (and her tummy!)

After exploring some of the space exhibits, we scooted down through Greenwich Park to the National Maritime Museum – a favourite place of ours and a great place for children. We went straight to the Children’s Gallery where Alex and Sophie tried morse code and radio operations, and clambered all over boats and cannons!

Alex loved operating the crane to load his boat – and was careful to balance it so it didn’t tip over!

About the only time the children stopped running and playing today was a brief ten minute art interlude in the gallery where they had a bit of a sketch and colour! Sophie mostly just emptied all of the coloured pencils out everywhere – ooops.

Alex was very proud to display his “art” on the gallery wall!

After a picnic lunch, the children had a run around on the “Great Map” in the middle of the museum. Sophie rolled and rolled all the way over the map of the world, loving the space and freedom to play

She even did rolly-pollys all across Africa and Australia!

She’s so gorgeous. At the moment, she’s really going through a period of “terrible twos” – throwing regular tantrums, saying “no” to almost everything and generally being quite contrary – but when I look at her like this, I can forgive everything. She’s so precious!

Once we’d exhausted the museum, we wandered into Greenwich centre for a cheeky ice cream in the fabulous “Black Vanilla” gelato shop. I sampled some amazing strawberry and champagne flavour – we’ll definitely be back there!

To top off our lovely family day out, we stopped in at the Goose Green playground for an explore before driving back for a peaceful evening of cooking

and breadmaking!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Parties and a toddler rave

Posted on February 11, 2015 by Pamela Agar

2015 is already rushing by. We’ve had a lovely few weeks since our busy Christmas holiday. With the weather cold and damp, we’ve stayed local and enjoyed a series of fun weekends.

We’ve had some quieter times snuggled up at home, doing puzzles and watching moves – Alex’s current favourites being Arthur Christmas (which we had to watch bits of every day for quite some time after the festive season was long gone), West Side Story and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (my musical theatre education is going well). We’ve done lots of swimming trips and Alex even went on a climbing lesson in Crystal Palace.

And we’ve spent an extraordinary amount of time making marble runs with one of Alex’s top Christmas presents (thanks Michele!)

The long, cold January was broken up by some wonderful children’s parties. We all had a great time at Alex and Sophie’s friend Jake’s 3rd birthday party. He’d taken over the Brixton Rec softplay – and my fearless children took great pleasure in taking their friends all over the play structure. Sophie’s not at all phased and I could barely drag her away form the highest helter skelter in the place!

Here they are with some of their friends, with the birthday boy bottom left observing the noisy chaos and his baby sister top right! Sophie’s little friend Anna is bottom right. They’re all so cute!

We also celebrated Sophie’s friend Una’s 2nd birthday. Alex and Sophie enjoyed pinning the tail on the donkey, pass the parcel and lots of dancing and eating. And Una enjoyed her bunny rabbit cake:

Instead of party bags, their mum Caroline decided to do a lucky dip. I think she’ll be finding bits of it for months all over her house as the highlight of the party (certainly from my children’s perspective) was when they got their hands on the shredded paper. it was hard to be cross when they were all clearly having a BRILLIANT time!

Probably the highlight of the year so far for me was going to my first Little Disco with the children. I’d heard talk of a day time disco in Dulwich, and imagined it was probably a lot of fun for children with nursery rhymes and toddler songs and dances. So we turned up on Sunday afternoon at 3.30pm ready for lots of renditions of The Wheels on the Bus.

We couldn’t have been more wrong. It was a fabulous rave-style disco. The room was dark with disco lights everywhere, there was a proper disco ball, foam machine and even glow sticks for the kids. The music was loud and there wasn’t a nursery rhyme in sight – instead proper dance tunes and classic disco tracks.

I danced and danced and laughed and laughed all afternoon. Matt enjoyed a pint or two and the children had a blast. They boogied the afternoon away, loving the foam spray and bubbles. Alex even did his first locomotion. It’s a genius idea and we will definitely be back. Our photos are rubbish as it was so dark and we were laughing so much – but just so I don’t forget, here are a few moments:

Love the “Warning: Dad Dancing” poster.

Siblings #1 {January}

Posted on February 10, 2015 by Pamela Agar

I started this year with a personal aim of being a bit more focused with my blogging. Of course, my grand plans have been foiled by the complete craziness of my life! But I have made a start. I’m participating in a #project365 initiative where I take a photo every day for a year and have managed 40 days so far without missing one – and I’ll share those pics on the blog every month.

Something else I’ve been keen to try are some of the family blogging projects which challenge bloggers to capture a theme each month. I read a lot of blogs, and particularly enjoy two theme projects:

Siblings – capturing in a photo each month a developing sibling relationship
Me and Mine – snapping a family portrait every month

I didn’t manage to get a full family portrait in January, but I did capture some sibling moments, so I thought I’d start with that!

I’ve talked to Matt quite a bit this year about how I feel in the last few weeks we’ve seen a real difference in Sophie and Alex’s relationship with each other. Until very recently, they played well in the vicinity of each other and got on well. But suddenly they have started playing together properly. I regularly hear giggles coming from the other room or from Alex’s play tent, and find the pair of them engrossed in a game together.

Sophie follows Alex everywhere, copying him and really looking up to him (not sure he’s the best role model…), and they have really started showing each other affection and care. It is such an enormous pleasure to watch and I’m really looking forward to seeing their budding relationship develop. I am sure there will be many fights, but I hope I keep hearing mischievous giggles for many years to come.

Here they are visiting our local ducks and geese:

They had a brilliant time together at Baby Booters, a local football group:

And, my favourite pictures of January – my duo crammed into a cardboard box enjoying a cuddle and kiss:

City museums and an urban skate park

Posted on January 18, 2015 by Pamela Agar

After our busy Christmas, we’ve had a peaceful couple of weeks getting back into our normal routine. Sophie is starting to drop her nap (for me anyway), so it’s been nice not to be following too rigid a routine anymore.

We made the most to this during a day trip up to South Kensington for a weekend museum blitz. We started at the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition. We had hoped the children would be interested in the amazing pictures of creatures and landscapes, but it wasn’t really their cup of tea, so it was a bit of whistle stop tour for Matt and I. Our troublesome duo perked up a bit in the dinosaur and bug galleries, and Sophie followed Alex around exploring the exhibits.

We soon headed next door to the Science Museum (or rather the “Rocket Museum”) for a picnic and play. I took the children to see a bubble show which they loved, although Alex was disappointed not to be picked to go inside a big bubble!

We spent our final hour up in the launchpad space and the kids were soon engrossed in all the interactives. Alex loved the dry ice demonstration, tracing the swirling trails around as it fizzed and bubbled:

And Sophie and Alex experimented with the optics demo, making each other appear upside down. Here they are hard at work – you can just about see Alex at the other end.

Most of the time, we’ve been having fun at home – having playdates with friends and visiting the local parks. Alex even sat still long enough to start his new dot-to-dot book! We’ve also finished Alex’s primary school applications – can’t believe he starts school this year!

This weekend, things started off rather messily. We left the children in the playroom for about 5 minutes while we tidied up after breakfast, only to find that they had taken every single puzzle and jigsaw we own and emptied them on the floor. They were very proud of themselves, although were less than thrilled when we made them help us put them all away again!

Once the house was tidy, we headed over to the Horniman for the first of, what I imagine, will be many trips in 2015. I enjoyed being able to go round with out a buggy and changing bag for the first time – life is so much simpler now Sophie is happy walking everywhere and they don’t need so much stuff!

We had fun in the little aquarium spotting fish, lobster and frogs.

And even more fun in the gardens – Sophie loved doing some drumming with her daddy.

Today, we got back into our usual Sunday morning activity – swimming in Brixton. Alex seemed to do well at his swimming lesson, actually listening to his teacher for most of the lesson! And, our water baby, Sophie spent 30 minutes swimming around happily in her swim fin, leaving Matt and I the chance to take it in turns swimming lengths in the main pool.

Had to snap these pics of Sophie after I’d dried her hair – it’s getting so long, light and wavy. Just love it.

On the way home, we stopped in at the Stockwell Skate Park (not really on the way home, but Matt was keen to try our pair out on their scooters!). Thankfully it was empty, so the children had a tentative explore. Such an urban pair!

Clinging on to Christmas

Posted on January 4, 2015 by Pamela Agar

As twelfth night approaches, we’ve been clinging on to Christmas for as long as we could – and we’ve saved some real festive treats until last!

We’ve crammed in as many friends and family as possible, including a quick visit from Katharine and Emilia, and a trip to Woking to see Marie, Pete and Harry for a delicious pub lunch. In between courses, Matt and Pete took the children out into the sunny pub garden for a spot of hide and seek to give us ladies time t catch up properly! Alex and Harry searched hard in the bushes…

And Sophie just ran around like a wild thing looking thoroughly vibrant and gorgeous!

On Saturday morning we hosted an Agar brothers reunion at our place for a couple of hours for a bit more Christmas gift exchange and a lot of playing! For the first time we managed to get all eight of the Agar cousins in one room together. It was quite a sight seeing then cousins, aged from 1-13 years old playing together. Our house suddenly felt very small (especially considering the two eldest are taller than me!)

Alex got on particularly well with his 7 year old cousin, Max. Here they are in a rare moment of stillness together, Alex engrossed in Max’s game!

We made a vague attempt at a group picture, but the two littlest weren’t keen at all – but here’s the best we managed to get (Sophie wouldn’t go in the picture at all unless I was with her!). Here’s Sophie, Oliver, Max, Jessica, Alex, Thomas, William and Edward Agar:

As soon as the Agars departed, my friend Jo arrived from Newcastle for the evening. She was greeted by Dinosaur Sophie, who was modelling one of her favourite Christmas presents from her Auntie Margaret!

After a quiet afternoon of movies and naps, we headed out in the cold to our festive finale – Christmas at Kew Gardens. I’ve been wanting to go to this for ages, and was so excited to finally make it – and I wasn’t disappointed. The one-mile trail of lights and music through the gardens was wonderful. The paths were lit by a range of gorgeous light installations, and at key points, beautiful light and music shows brought the buildings and unusual trees to life.

The children were completely dazzled by it! They loved watching performers dance with fire!

And had a great time at the quaint Victorian funfair that marked the midway point:

Sophie particularly liked the lightshow on the massive greenhouse which was accompanied by ballet music, and I liked the chandeliers hanging from the great old trees!

It was such a wonderful way to end our Christmas holiday – we’ll definitely go again – and are inspired to visit Kew Gardens again in the daylight to see more.

2014 draws to a close

Posted on January 1, 2015 by Pamela Agar

After a quiet family Christmas, our final days of 2014 were packed full of celebrations, fun and and friends.

We headed up to Northamptonshire for a second Christmas celebration with my side of the family on Boxing Day. It was lovely getting out of London for a couple of days, especially when the weather was so clear, cold and sunny – it’s a gorgeous part of the country. We enjoyed a trip into Towcester’s excellent leisure centre for a fun swimming trip. The kids loved the big waves!

When we got back to my parents’ house, my brother and his family had arrived. We spent a relaxing afternoon catching up, exchanging gifts, eating vast quantities of food and playing with the children.

Grandma and Grandpa certainly enjoyed being surrounded by their brood!

Here’s Sophie having fun with baby Rose. Sophie and Alex were both fascinated by their twin cousins – and haven’t stopped talking about them since!

They are growing up so fast – and keeping my brother and sister-in-law on their toes!

After a lazy Sunday morning, we headed back into London, stopping off for our first family trip ten pin bowling in Elephant and Castle. Both children were enthusiastic to begin with, but I must admit it wasn’t hugely successful. Alex enjoyed the first few games, but got bored pretty quickly! Sophie got distressed about losing her bowling ball with every go, and ended up with her bottom lip out for much of the time. But she did look very glam in her new tutu!!
On Monday and Tuesday we had a couple of quiet days in London. Christmas is one of my favourite times in the city as its so quiet. We usually hit the museums and see some exhibitions while most people are out of town – and this year was no exception. We decided to visit the newly refurbished Imperial War Museum together. It was really impressive and I’ll definitely go back on my own to explore the exhibits properly, but the kid seemed to enjoy a whistle stop tour around the amazing space. They loved the planes hanging from the ceiling. Its a challenging museum for little ones though – pretty tough to explain some of the exhibits to a four year old.

After an all day breakfast in a great little cafe, we parted ways for a couple of hours. I hired a Boris Bike and cycled along the river to do a spot of sale shopping (and cake shopping) while Matt took the kids home for naptime / movie time. By amazing coincidence, they bumped into one of Alex’s best friends, Rosita, on the bus home. She’s lived in the USA for 6 months and literally just arrived home in the country for good! Their reunion was very very cute!

On Tuesday, we headed East to the Olympic Park. This time Matt had a break and went swimming in the Olympic Park while I took the children for a couple of hours. We went to the brilliant Discover Story Centre. We’ve been a few times, but this was the first time where Sophie could really experience it all – and she loved it. The children ran around the story trail together exploring and climbing everywhere, Sophie hot on Alex’s heels wherever he went. She’s like his shadow.

The centre always has an interactive experience in their basement, and this year, it features the beautiful books of author, Oliver Jeffers. We read a lot of his books at bedtime, and the children weren’t disappointed with the immersive experience. They tried to catch stars, sailed in a boat with a penguin, helped fix a spare rocket and dressed up as some of the characters. It was such fun!

Once they were tired out, we met daddy for lunch before driving home to run errands around Dulwich to prepare for New Year’s Eve and get the kids into bed before our friends Caroline and Paul came over for a curry!

We had a very busy New Year’s Eve, starting early with a 40 minute queue in our local fishmonger for ingredients for our planned evening extravaganza! The children were not impressed!

I made up for it with a playdate for them and their friend Anna, and then another reunion with old friends for lunch. Our friends Catherine and Charlie have been living in Zurich for two years, and it’s been at least a year since we’ve all been together. So it was a real treat to have a long, leisurely lunch with them all in Herne Hill. It wasn’t long before Alex and Henry remembered they were firm friends and they were getting up to mischief in the restaurant:

And Sophie made a new friend in Phoebe, who is looking ridiculously grown up at nearly seven years old!

It was wonderful to have our brood together again – we must get to Zurich this year to visit.

When we finally got the children to say goodbye to each other, we had a busy couple of hours getting dinner prepped for New Year’s Eve. We saw the new year in with friends Caroline and Dave, and their children Sam and Una. Alex and Sam were very excited about sleeping in the same room, and after the craziness of bathtime with four little ones in the tub, I wasn’t sure we’d get them to sleep at all. But they were all exhausted, and they all passed out quickly. Phew!

That left us lots of time to enjoy a great evening of amazing food, wine and conversation – including Matt’s first homemade pasta. Yum.

We watched the fireworks and then made a hasty retreat to bed. Glad I did too, as Sophie chose the first day of the year to break her brilliant run of 8am wake-ups with a 6am rise 😦

I can’t quite believe it’s 2015 already – 2014 has flown by. It is amazing to me that my little baby boy will be starting school this year. How is that possible?!

Got lots of new year’s resolutions to break

Less time on my phone – especially when the children are about
More time with Matt – sort out a regular babysitter so we can go to the cinema again and get away from our laptops!
Less time working – I don’t want every single evening to be dominated by my work inbox
And of course the usual – taking better care of myself – less coca-cola and chocolate and much more exercise! We’ll see how that turns out (as I type this, I have both within arms reach!!)

Happy new year everyone!

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