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We’re using up the last 10 days of the school holidays in a Grand Tour of Britain.
Then we return to London the night before Laurie returns to school. Photos here. Indie made it to TWO. We had a little party at home on Wednesday, and went to a splash park in Bexley with some of her friends on the Saturday. Let the terrible twos commence.
Photos on Flickr. The final camping trip of the summer was to the Yorkshire Dales National Park, 12-15 August. We camped with the Griffiths/Prentons and the Peppes and Kitty (Scotland) and the Hendriks (Amsterdam), so it seemed fairly central. The campsite (Mason’s at Appletreewick) was brilliant – on the river, just a couple of minutes from two pubs, and nowhere near anything else. The rivers were too swollen with all the rain to launch the kayaks, and the weather was a bit showery – but it was dry at most of the important times, including bathtime.
We spent a day driving round the Dales, planning to buy nearly every pub (they are all for sale). We spent another day at Bolton Abbey, especially at the stepping stones, which were an inch or two under water. The last day we Mosses went to Brimham Rocks to relive my childhood memories. The drive back down the A1 with tea at a Little Chef was also a highlight.
Photos on Flickr. Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.We spent the last weekend of July camping in Norfolk. We stayed in the back garden of the Duke pub in Bacton. Nick, Nadege and Noe camped with us, and my Mum & Dad (in their motorhome) and sister (in our tent) stayed on the Saturday night.
Pip, Liz, the girls and I went to Merivale Model Village in Great Yarmouth on Saturday afternoon, which was everything I hoped for!
On the Sunday we spent the morning on Cromer beach where Indie had an early birthday party. Then the Suffolk Mosses returned home and the rest of us searched out some prime kayaking grounds.
We ended up at Blakeney, which is a beautiful little coastal village. Well, it’s not quite coastal – it’s separated from the sea by a mile or so of salt marsh, with a narrow channel connecting the harbour to the sea at high tide. We were there at low tide, but as the kayaks only draw around 6″ I thought we’d be able to make it. After an hour of wading along the mud, pulling the boats through the 3″ trickle, we gave up waiting for the promised incoming tide, turned round and waded back to the cars. The trip was beautiful, and we met a surprising number of mud-dwelling Norfolk people in the middle of the marsh, but it wasn’t really what we expected. Monday was spent hiding from the sun in Norwich castle, which is brilliant for kids. Although they’re not allowed in the dungeons or battlements, which limits the enjoyment for not-kids.
All the photos are on Flickr as usual. Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.
Pip bought me a wildlife photography course for Christmas. I went to Port Lympne in Kent, with Photographers On Safari. We spent most of the day with the gorillas. There were special feedings arranged for our group, and we were able to stand inside the outer walls – the same access as the keepers. Port Lympne’s special feature is that most of the herbivores roam free on a large hillside park and you take safari drives through it, on off-road trucks. You won’t get much of a shot from these as they don’t stop very long at any point. We had an open-sided land rover which didn’t have to stick to the regular route or schedule, so we got closer to the animals and more time with them. I still didn’t get any good shots from any of the drives though. If you get the right angle, you can photograph a large African herbivore (rhino, giraffe, zebra, gnu etc.) with a thatched cottage, two nuclear power stations, a small-gauge steam railway, a lighthouse and the English Channel in the background. I don’t know why they don’t make more of a feature of this possibly unique possibility.
Anyway, the day was good – I went because of the tuition, but others went because of the privileged access, and both groups were satisfied. The only disappointed customer was the woman whose batteries died. Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video. Photos on Flickr.
We’ve just got back from a week in Majorca. We went with the Griffiths/Prentons, the Hendriks, the Derbys, the Silkys and Dr Duncan. That makes 11 adults and 10 kids under five. Very relaxing! We stayed in a huge old farmhouse villa outside Soller, near the hillside village of Fornalutx.
The villa was great – set in the mountains, it had its own vineyard (we drank a case and a bit of the fruits), two donkeys and a hammock.
Driving was a little hairy – we were in the mountainous quarter of the island so there were plenty of hairpins in every direction. Plus some idiosyncratic automatic gates which ate Fiona’s car a few times.
Pip made team t-shirts for our Los Locos kids, in birth order, and every night was party night. All ten kids fitted in the bath at the same time.
Most of the rest of the time, we were on various beaches.
All my Majorca photos are on Flickr. Clare P’s are on Facebook. The Darby’s are on Dropbox. I guess everyone else was too busy looking after children. Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video. Pip has a new website, with some of her poems. Please visit! We drove over to Fi & Wim in Amsterdam for the late May Bank Holiday this year. We went to an amazing adventure playground at a rejuvenated gas-works, Wester Gasfabriek, which was basically a swamp. You could commandeer a raft, or build a bridge.
As it wasn’t snowing this time, we finally spent a day at their local beach. Full set on Flickr. Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.We took the girls to the farm to see the lambs and goat kids. Indie got very attached to one of the kids.
We couldn’t separate them so we left her to it. When we came back, the goat was wearing Indie’s glasses.
We went to Kent for this year’s six-day Easter. It was gorgeous weather, the bluebells and the paddling pool were out, we even barbecued a couple of chickens. I cooked lunch for 22, we had St George’s Day bacon and eggs at Tilmanstone Village Hall and managed a walk to the pub. My Mum and Dad stayed for a few days en route to the continent for their annual expedition. Mum & Lucy came with us to the new Turner Contemporary Gallery in Margate, and to the slightly older Shell Grotto. A much better Margate experience than my last one! We came back on Wednesday afternoon in time for Laurie’s St George’s Day fair at her school – she and I had to run through the woods this morning (the alarm clocks didn’t go off!). As she was wearing her Cinderella dress we picked up quite a few comments.
Photos here. Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video. |
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