The Norfolk Broads

Last week we went to Essex and visited my mum and dad and brother. Isla loved playing in the garden and especially doing some pond dipping with mum:

There was a beautiful borage field behind the house, which had been visible on t.v. during the tour de France coverage.

Ahh shark attack! at soft play in Essex.

We drove to Wroxham in Norfolk and boarded our vessel, Fair Sovereign I. Evie immediately became Admiral of the vessel from her seat of authority on the deck:

We ate dinner on the river Bure and then went on to Hoveton Little Broad for the night, where we mud weighted. Isla had a companion called Fair Bear for the week.

It was lovely watching the sun go down in the tranquil setting and then getting up in the morning to feed the geese and have breakfast on deck.

Andrew pulling up our mud weight anchor the next morning:

We went on down the river through Horning and found ourselves one of the first boats on the river as we were up so early.

We moored at Cockshoot Broad after some clever manoeuvring of the boat by Capt. Andrew and some expert tying up by myself!

We set off again with me multitasking (wearing a sleeping Evie and steering the boat) and then swapped around a bit.

We stopped for a walk and lunch at Ranworth where Evie enjoyed some crawling on the grass.

We had to negotiate a very low bridge (height of about 8'6" when our boat was 8'2" with our table collapsed) but emerged the other side on the picturesque river Ant with many windmills and sailing boats.

We moored up for the night at How Hill nature reserve, where Andrew and Isla got chased by an angry swan:

A cormorant and black headed gull on windmill sails:

We stopped at St Benet's abbey and mill ruins the next day. I was hoping to see the elusive swallowtail butterfly but was out of luck with that! We did see many dragonflies though.

Everyone on the other boats was very friendly, waving at us the whole time. Isla felt like a film star.

A cute stripey grebe with an adult grebe:

We stopped at a busier mooring for the next night, with loads of geese for feeding and people fishing from their boats. Overnight, Evie had gained two new teeth, her front top two.

We had a brilliant time at Ranworth Broad nature reserve the next day. They had a great children's area with giant bittern jigsaws and skulls of deer and birds to look at.

Isla found an amber snail. These can get parasitised giving them bright flashing green eyes so that they are easier to spot by foraging birds, although none of the ones we saw had the parasite.

Lunch at the Maltsters Arms! Spot the giant centipede......!

Some more crawling practice and running about:

Ranworth broad nature reserve from the water:

We moored up at Wroxham broad that evening and were the only boat there. We fed a swan family who later came and pecked at our boat in the early hours of the morning along with loads of geese.

The next morning, we dropped off our boat, said bye to Fair Bear and headed to a pub for breakfast. After that we went to BeWilderwood, a huge adventure park based on a series of fantasy children's books about boggles, twiggles and crocklebogs. It was a fun place to be and Isla enjoyed the swings, zip wire and den building as well as a high bridge adventure.

After visiting a friend at Acle, we spent the rest of our wedding anniversary having a meal at a little chef and a night in a travelodge.

The next day, we met up with my mum and dad at Duxford Imperial War Museum where we all enjoyed looking at the planes.

Sports day and mischief with woodlice

A couple of weeks ago we baked some banana and nutella swirl muffins which ended up being pretty tasty. Isla is an expert at baking now. She can weigh out ingredients with a helping hand and also can crack eggs. She also puts all the cases into the baking tin first (and chooses which cases to use). We share the important licking-the-spoon (and bowl and spatula and anything else with cake mix on) role.

Isla has been keeping lots of pets. She had 5 woodlice and 3 weevils as well as a snail.

Evie has been getting better at standing up on her own. Sometimes she just stands up in the middle of the room for the sheer fun of being able to do it. She has started to do some signing. She can sign for 'more' at dinner and 'bird' and also 'drink'. She does a weird sign where she puts her hand on her head but we don't know what that means yet!

Isla's been doing some painting while Evie has been washing up:

Isla and I made some salt dough shapes using a recipe from the imagination tree website. Isla made a monster, a bubble and another creature. We did a couple of hand prints too, while they have such small hands!

Andrew and I went along to Isla's sports day at preschool. Here is Isla in the egg and spoon race (with a bit of cheating going on!) and also with the cup after her team (the blue team) won.

Here is Isla preparing for a pirate adventure whilst Evie got into some cat-feeding mischief:

Ice cream parlour, noodles and discovering the garden

Isla has been spending a lot of time playing as a doctor and helping all her toys by fixing them this week. She says that when she is bigger she would like to be a builder, a doctor and a plane driver. 

Isla likes to do some drawing, or activity magazines with writing and stickers most days at her little table. She made a beehive and queen bee from a new 'Mister Maker' magazine this week.

At the weekend, it was great to see Isla and Evie's cousins for a play and some snacks. They enjoyed racing around in the garden oblivious to the rain.

Isla tried out the tractors after gobbling an ice cream at the ice cream parlour:

We all enjoyed a walk through a little 'forest'. Isla collects lots of treasures when we go out. We had lots of leaves and sticks to put in her collection box at home. 

Isla and Evie at the park. Isla was trying to feel for the butter left on  her chin from her buttercup! We found that Evie's foot likes butter too...

I tried some old meals out again this week. A Chinese stir fry went down surprisingly well with both girls enjoying the noodles.

Evie helping out with the housework:

Isla helping out at the garden centre:

We've had some brilliant weather over the last week, so we've been out in the garden a lot.  Evie discovered Jura Lodge for the first time and was very pleased at standing up herself..... and letting go occasionally too! She enjoys walking around the garden while holding onto both my hands. Crawling is getting very speedy with her discovering the stairs recently and looking in kitchen cupboards too.