Devon Holiday

We got back home on Friday from a weeks holiday in Devon (south west England) with grandma, grandpa and Auntie Jane. We were super lucky that the weather was perfect all week and our only gripe was that the pollen count was really high so we all suffered with hayfever.

We had rented a holiday cottage just outside of a little village called Appledore. It looked a little bland from the outside but was really lovely inside as it had been all refitted and was just very family-friendly. The cottage was less than five minutes walk to a little beach. It wasn't particularly sandy but had loads of shells and rocks and enough sand to make lots of pies! You could actually see the cottage from the beach - overlooked by horses, hens and lots of rabbits (and there was a great area for flying kites).

During the week we visited three other beaches. Westward Ho! was the big sandy beach only a short drive (or long walk as grandma found out) from the cottage. We went there on one of the first days. It was massive and when the tide was out it was pretty hard to actually see the sea. Unfortunately with it being so flat, when the tide came in, the beach totally disappeared. We got an hour or so playing before that happened and Beth tried her hand at bodyboarding. I think she liked the idea more than the reality but I think she'll be happy to try it again on our next beach holiday. Toby was happy just paddling around and of course did his trademark fall in fully clothed; something that was repeated at least twice more during the week!

The next day we ventured a little further to Croyde (sorry, no decent pics), a beach well known for the surfing. It was a proper sandy beach with sand dunes behind and a little river perfect for paddling and splashing. The surf did look pretty good but as Jane pointed out, it's horrible to actually surf in as there are so many people. At one point there were seven surf school groups each with about ten people in them then all the individual surfers too - even worse than round Huntington Pier!

On Wednesday we took a break from beaches to visit the Royal Horticultural Society garden at Rosemoor. All of it was beautiful and made me want to race home and plant something. We only explored a fraction of it but did get to see their fruit and vegetable gardens, the orchard, formal gardens and the play area. Beth took time to smell the roses and Toby the opportunity to escape and get himself lost. It was lovely though I suspect it could be appreciated more fully as the designers intended without the delight of chasing the kids. Perhaps when they leave home I'll venture back there to explore on my own.

Our last day was spent at Bucks Mills Beach at the bottom of a rather steep cliff (that we manoeuvred down complete with picnic, blankets and all the other accoutrements needed for a day out at the beach!). It was beautiful and I think our favourite beach of the week. There were plenty of rock pools to fish in (Steve caught a shrimp), sand for pies and lots of opportunity for Toby to fall in, which he did, twice, in spectacular fashion - if I had been holding my camera I would have snapped a pic before extracting him. :)

It was a great week, the kids have tons of fun and got to know Auntie Jane (and her big red van) a bit better, and we all enjoyed a week of overindulgence, sun and good company.

Half Term Summer Fun

Today is the first day back at school for Beth after a week off for half term. It seemed to fly by, probably because the weather was nice and we had lots of plans.

A lot of the time was spent in the garden in the new paddling pool (Beth wearing her new swimming cossie), eating ice creams and playing on the Fifi sprinkler mat.

We got in visits to both sets of grandparents. At grandma and grandpa's a digger turned up, much to Toby's delight, to fill the hole outside their house. The rest of the day was spent in the sandpit and paddling pool. Unfortunately they both burnt their bums since we lotioned them up before they decided to totally strip off and it never occurred to us to reapply! At gran and grandad's the paddling pool was broken out along with the bubbles.

We had a couple of days catching up with friends we hadn't seen for ages. On Wednesday we met up with Carl and his family at Clumber Park and had a lovely picnic in the sun. Even though Beth and Carl haven't seen each other for a long while, it only took a couple of minutes before they were off together with Toby and Mo tagging along joining in the fun.

On Friday we met up with Maisie and her family at Thrybergh County Park and Reservoir. Again it was a beautiful day and the kids had great fun in the two playgrounds chasing each other around. We found a quiet spot to eat our picnic and blow some bubbles before continuing at break-neck speed around the park.

Back at home we are a little late with our planting. Our kind neighbour gave us some of his spare tomato plants, six went into a newly cleared bed in the back garden and Beth planted two tumblers in Toby's old wellie boots. Hopefully we'll get around to planting our sunflowers this week though I'm not quite sure where they will go - our garden is a little wild at the moment!

All Sorts

All sorts of stuff has been going on but none of them eventful enough to warrant an entire post so I thought I'd bung them all together to make this one.

On Friday night Beth (with a little help from daddy) made dinner for us all. Chicken quesadillas from the Annabel Karmel cookbook she got Steve for his birthday. They were pretty good and we enjoyed them even though neither of the kids were overly keen and only picked. I think we'll have to try them again but limit the filling to cheese and ham!

After dinner Steve took them both outside to have a play with the new soakers we got from Costco.** Beth got the hang of them pretty quickly and was more than happy causing havoc watering the windows and Steve; she wasn't so happy being got (must take after her mum), I stayed inside clearing up and watched from a distance.

**The "can't get out of Costco without parting with $100" has made it over here too (but in £s) and Steve sits and wonders how on earth we can spend that much on the 'essentials' . . . ;)

We seem to have had a bit of time to spend with Toby on his own

recently - Beth stayed with grandma and grandpa at the weekend. On Sunday morning

we went to Clumber Park to attempt to fly a kite since

his favourite song (that he sings ALL the time) is "Lets Go Fly a Kite" from Mary Poppins. It was semi successful as the wind was not very steady but Toby enjoyed it.

Toby is also very much into bubble blowing and takes a bottle of bubbles (empty and closed) to bed with him. He must have spent an hour chasing them around the garden last week; I'll have to go out and buy a couple of gallons to keep us in stock!

Village Fête

Today was the village May Day fête. As expected on these days the weather was pretty awful - heavy rain followed by two minutes of blazing sun then hail (it's May, what's going on?!) and a bit more sun just to give you hope, but no, more rain.

It didn't deter people as many came out to see the floats, one from Beth's preschool - she did not want to go on it as she couldn't be a princess (the theme was books and that float was 101 Dalmatians). The other float was the church Sunday school one, they did the Mr. Men and there was also the May Queen/Princess float.

Grandma and grandad came down to spend the day and help with 'crowd control' as Steve is off doing the Trans Pennine Trail for charity. Due to the weather we didn't stay for too long but we did get to see the birds of prey rescue charity 'display' with an enormous owl (you can't really tell from the photo but it was about the same size as Toby!). We also had a go on the lucky dip, looked at the fire engine and had a poke around the stalls. One of the stalls was a specialty cheese company who made cheese wedding cakes - can't say that I would want one, brings a whole new meaning to nightmare weddings! It was a nice afternoon just a shame about the weather.

Happy 4th Birthday Princess Aurora Tigerlily Rose (a.k.a. Beth)

On Sunday it was Beth's fourth birthday. We spent the weekend with grandma and grandad and had lots of fun. Given the chance Beth's ideal day would be spent on the beach and her favourite person to spend it with is Adam so that's pretty much what we did Sunday morning. The weather was fab (for April) and the kids all loved running along the beach, digging and in Toby's case, falling in (an easy one to predict!). The beach we went to (Saltburn) is the traditional British beach resort with a pier, donkey rides and a 'lift' from the cliff-top to the beach.

Just before lunch the weather began to change so we had a wander along the beach back to the car with a stop at the playground on the way. Back at grandma and grandad's we were just in time for Beth's party with all the family. Both kids got spoiled with attention, Beth spoiled with some great presents and the rest of us spoiled with great food. Unfortunately it started to rain so we couldn't turn under 5's out into the garden but they weren't too boisterous.

Today (Tuesday) we had a party at home with a few new friends from the village. Beth was very excited though thankfully she didn't ask what had happened to all her old friends who she requested me to invite . . . I was inspired by two things to bake her a cake; first was that I couldn't find a Princess Aurora one and second a friend who is much busier than I managed to find time to bake her daughter one so I thought that really I didn't have much of an excuse. Thankfully it didn't take too long but it was a bit fiddly and looked rather dicey at one point. The end piece doesn't look bad for a first attempt at birthday cake baking though as you can see, I believe the Princess had one too many birthday cocktails as she started to lean rather alarmingly! I think Beth liked it and she loved the rest of the party so birthday number four can be classed a success. :) One last thing, here's Toby making a new friend.

Goodbye Sweet Mog

Poor Mog fell ill last Monday and spent the week at the vet. They had problems finding what was wrong with her but eventually narrowed it down to her intestines (all rather vague!). By the end of the week she wasn't looking good and we were getting rather worried about her but thankfully she 'rallied' and got to come home on Saturday morning for the weekend - spending her time lolling in the sun and keeping us company in the garden.

Unfortunately when we took her back to the vet on Monday for a check up her breathing was poor. During an x-ray it got worse and they couldn't sort her out. It seems she probably has had cancer for quite a while without us knowing and it finally got too much and her body just couldn't cope.

We're going to miss our little Californian friend who adopted us back in 2004. Originally she was found by our neighbours having been dumped in Signal Hill. They named her Dumpling but we thought that she suited Mog much better as she looked so like Mog from the series of books by Judith Kerr.

She made herself known by coming and sitting on the tailgate of the truck with Steve while he was taking a break from clearing out the garage. She started coming in to the house to see us and always seemed to make herself comfy! It got to the point where she didn't leave.

We thought that perhaps with the arrival of Beth she might have second thoughts about her chosen home but it turns out that they got on pretty well together and Mog 'joined in' many games, most involving dressing up!

When we decided to move back to England it wasn't too hard a choice to bring her with us. Getting her passport was rather a labourious task involving test after test and rather more money than we'd have liked but thankfully everything was sorted before we moved and she got to fly cattle-class back with British Airways. It seems Mog was rather laid back and suited to traveling as she behaved impeccably and staff at the London handling centre had only praise for her.

Again with the arrival of Toby and the challenge of British weather we thought Mog might have had enough but still she appeared to love being part of the family though did give Toby a wide berth.

With this last house move we were looking forward to being settled and in the same place for a long time, glad that Mog along with us could relax and get to know the area without being whisked off again. Unfortunately in her case it wasn't to be and she did indeed get whisked off far sooner than we were ready for.

We're glad that she adopted us as her family as she brought a lot to it and we're thankful she had a relatively peaceful end, we all loved her dearly. It's sad to think that Beth probably won't really remember her little friend, and strange that she doesn't seem to miss her much (yet) - the reality of death thankfully isn't fully understood yet but I suppose we should be grateful for that. Mog was definitely a positive presence in all of our lives, something that Beth knows since she is already asking if we can go and get a new cat!