Blackberries

When we came home, Nikki had a purple face and between our baskets were 2lbs of berries. The next day we made lots of lovely apple and blackberry jam. Yum.

Summer Heat

We've been suffering through this infernal heat wave for weeks and I just haven't been up to much of anything, so despite having several posts planned this blog has been ignored because it has been too hot to bother.

Sorry about that.

Nikki and I have been struggling with a temper-clash, too. He seems to have inherited my quick temper and with the combination of EVERYTHING stopping for the summer (nursery, playgroups, Sunday school...) and staying in out of the sun as much as possible (I really really can't cope with the heat and I burn within minutes - literally!) we have had to re-learn how to get along with one another. Slow progress, but essential for the new school year as I have taken the plunge and not registered Nikki with a preschool for September. I like to think of it as a homeschooling trial - if I am still sane when school registration opens in November, my dream of homeschooling might become a reality...

In the meantime, here is some of the mischief Nikki has been up to this month:

Felt-tip Nail Varnish

Chilling in the sun on Grandad's Lawnmower

Mischief with his favourite cousin

Too Many DVDs!!!

A New Space Bed!

An Olympic Day Out

I applied for tickets to the Olympics when they first came out, but wasn't given any. Once it was possible to actually buy any tickets, the prices had tripled and the cheapest (about £60/seat if I remember rightly) were gone in a flash. When I looked to buy for events that I would have enjoyed watching, the cheapest available tickets were £170! Not a chance!

It turns out that it was probably for the best - security checks meant you had to be there 2 hours before the time slot for your ticket. It would have been a very long and expensive day out.

We decided to go to one of the free events - the women's marathon swim in Hyde Park. For the cost of the train fare and a picnic lunch, we got to experience a little bit of the atmosphere and see GB miss out on a medal by less than a second. 

The night before, I made Nikki a new cape. The old felt one is going to be recycled, since it is really too hot and heavy to wear for the designed purpose of running around in. So, in a fit of patriotism, I made this:

Team GB Cape

What made it a peaceful and enjoyable day out for all is that Nicholas was not confined to a seat for the 2 hour race - my mum kept our spot and watched the race and we ran in the park with Uncle Harry until the swimmers were getting near, returning to watch them go past (the only bit Nikki was interested in).

Chasing Uncle Harry in Hyde Park

We went into the venue shop in the park and met one of the mascots.

 We also got to see a gold medal, as one of our rowers was doing a photo signing - unfortunately we were just behind the last people allowed to actually meet him.

Before we went home, we had to check out the gold post box in Westminster. 

 

Superhero Cape

For the street party on Saturday, I decided Nikki needed something patriotic to wear... on Friday night!

This is what I whipped up for him:

I wrote in more detail about how I made it here.

Jubilee

It's been a bit hectic this week - we've been preparing for a Jubilee street party in our village.



The street party was great fun - there were around 1500 seats booked at the hundreds of tables along the high street, and goodness knows how many more turned up to picnic on the green or eat at one of the pubs!



You can see a couple of musicians in the picture above - they serenaded us for a while. There was also a brass band and a loudspeaker playing classics from the war (but not at the same time!).

Which Jubilee, I hear you ask...

Nikki knows what Jubilee it is!

 Diamond, of course! Though my brother seems of the opinion that it is kaleidoscope! 

My brother decorated this hat for a school celebration

There were a couple of free face-painting stands, but Nikki ruled against them - he doesn't like face paints at the moment. There was also lots of food, which we managed to avoid! Despite the fact that two of the pubs were doing hog roasts! Financially speaking, that is great - my total food spending today was 68p on lemonade; I was expecting to spend at least 200 times that!

Our table full of yummy treats.

Instead, we had a lovely tea, with china plates and my mum's best teacups! Some of the things on the table were: sandwiches (yes, including cucumber ones); pork pies, scotch eggs and other incredibly-unhealthy savoury treats that I normally resist buying; jubilee cupcakes, courtesy of my mother; eton mess; cream tea; tea and PIMMS! I love Pimms - it is the only time you can mix mint, strawberries, citrus and cucumber and not be called crazy.

The weather was wonderful - the morning started with almost-drizzle that looked to turn it into a washout, but amazingly it stayed dry. The sun even made a short (but hot!) appearance at around 3pm and due to the cool-grey-miserable outlook of the morning I had not even considered packing sun cream. More fool me - my face now resembles a tomato. Nikki will probably have tan lines. Is that even fair?

Me, Nikki and My Brother at our table

There was a lovely atmosphere - children were running all over the place and everyone was happy. Two boys even got away with hijacking a mobility scooter...

Nikki and his cousin look for the 'start' button...

Of course, the most exciting part of the day was watching the tractor collecting all the tables up as we were leaving...

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I've been away for a little while. Sorry about that! Before Christmas Nikki's father visited for a week (a 12/10 on my stressometer) and left days before the chaos that is Christmas. Then we've both been ill with nasty coughs for the last week and with the couple of hours that I'm sleeping (rather than coughing/caring for sick baby) I've not really been up to blogging.