Picnics, chocolate cake and grannies

Isla out fishing in the paddling pool with puppy:

A trip to Dyrham Park where we saw loads and loads of deer:

A picnic at Dyrham park:

A caterpillar on the grass:

A waddler by the lake:

A tadpole in the lake:

Looking at all the baby frogs:

Granny chasing Isla about:

A HUGE chocolate tray bake we baked:

Our dining room with hot tub!

Kiwi flowers in our garden:

Isla painting stuff in the garden:

One of the roses flowering in our garden:

A picnic in the park with granny:

Scorchio

It's been quite hot here this weekend, with our thermometer in the garden reading 32 degrees C on Saturday. We went for a picnic down by the river near Lacock abbey:

During our picnic, we saw a kingfisher flying up and down the river, displaying itself with a bright blue flash. We also saw some fish in the river. Isla picked a buttercup and her dad helped her to set it sailing down the river. Our picnic was interrupted by a herd of cows coming to drink from the river. There were lots of people enjoying spending time at the river, including some people swimming there. On the way back to the car, Isla stung her finger on a stinging nettle but luckily an ice cream seemed to be a good temporary remedy.

We spent the rest of the weekend in our garden. We made some ice lollies and Andrew and Isla enjoyed the paddling pool!

Andrew built Isla a den in the corner of the living room. She played with her cuddly toys ('snugglers') in the den.

We watched the tennis yesterday and Isla enjoyed clapping a lot when Andy Murray won! We had our first BBQs at the weekend; it was great eating outside especially as our dining room table has been replaced by a birthing pool. This also came in handy for cooling down.

Here is a photo of Isla conked out on the sofa after a busy morning of baking chocolate chip banana cake and tumble tots. This afternoon she's been sailing things on her paddling pool and having picnics with her snugglers in the garden.

Granny's birthday

On Sunday, it was granny's birthday and we were lucky enough to have her staying and could help her celebrate! We went out for lunch:

 ...then went to the park:

....we had a nice lemon birthday cake:

The rest of the weekend, Isla helped her dad wash the cars:

....and had fun in the garden

This week, Isla has recovered from her chicken pox, after getting really spotty with them. Calamine lotion didn't really work for us, we found that aftersun cream, sudocreme and a cooling virasoothe gel worked better along with piriton medicine. 

On Monday, Isla and I went back to Tumble Tots, which was really good fun. She climbed up steep tunnels, and played with hula hoops. At the end of the session, we all had to hold onto a big piece of pink lycra fabric and stretch it out between us as we pressed our toes under it and then pinged it back into the centre! That made Isla smile a lot! In the afternoon we visited a friend with a lovely black labrador that Isla kept telling us was making 'snort' piggy noises like Peppa pig. After a little while of Isla and her friend racing around pushing toy prams about and giggling after having licks from the dog, we went home and had a nice rest. On Tuesday, Isla had fun at pre-school with her friends and then we had some visitors in the afternoon for a little while. On Wednesday, we had a trip into Bath where we were very greedy and enjoyed cakes at Patisserie Valerie as well as a wander around the shops. 

Today we visited one of Isla's friends and saw all of her pets: her rabbit, guinea pigs, chickens and baby chicks and Isla enjoyed riding around on their toy pedal tractor. In the afternoon, we had great fun together doing puzzles and playing catch in the garden. We shared our second home-grown strawberry, which was delicious, and we had our own dressing up party, with Isla dressed as a fairy mouse and me as a cat!