Sunny Hedonism.

The sun has come out to warm our cockles, and boy did we make the most of it:

Friends came over for a BBQ, and stayed over, initially for a night, turning into 3 nights. 

The children were very impressed with the projector too, which I popped on each evening to settle them down, while me and my friend sat in my garden to the early hours chattering and consuming a wee mouthful of cider...

 What is sunshine without bubbles?

 Trips to the fountain were mandatory!

And later to the beach, though by the evening that wind had a heck of a chill factor. 

 Returning from the beach we discovered the fountain lights were on - and indeed had been changed

for a far more colourful display.... suddenly the kids weren't cold and wanting to go home.

 There were visits to the local park.

And meeting more friends for yet more fountain frolicks.

Looking forward to Sunday!

Monday:

 Housework, hanging my wall hangings by Wendy Andrew's, baking and then delivering the 2nd crochet lesson that evening.

 Rye sampling the scones I made... he approved.

Tuesday:  a friend unwell, so I offered to take her kids off her hands so she could go to bed and rest. 

 Painting

Sandpit play - this is Rye's best friend :-) 

Wednesday:

My friend still wasn't feeling terribly well, so I took the kids down to the fountain at the harbour... 

And we met up with friends, and after the fountain, we bribed the kids with icecream so we could take a walk along the harbour to the sandy beach. 

Back to mine for more trampoline and sandpit play, and then pizza for tea

Finally taking the kids back home in time for baths and bed. 

Ooops - squeezed the tomato paste tube too hard and it splurted out of the other end.... sigh. 

 Thursday

A more leisurely start to the day - Rye slept till 10am!  It was then time to get ready for the party!

I painted my nails black, Rye wanted his red - 'cept I do not own red nail polish, so he used paint pens instead.

Rye had a fantastic time, adoring having so many other little boys to have sword fights with

Sigh - no matter that I've kept "weapon" type toys virtually out of the house, seems some things

are just gonna happen when boys get together.  Respect to them though, they were all very good and really rather restrained - there was only the odd yelp.

In between this very busy week, I've also been hooking away during spare moments:

working to complete this blanket by the end of the month:

A star commission  for a little boy's birthday:

And owl's safely arrive at their new home:

Tomorrow, I'm minding, and also taking the children to Manston Airport for an education day.

Saturday Minding again, taking mindee to swimming and then both children to football.  Afternoon probably take Rye down to the harbour again, for the Fish Festival.

Sunday - veg!

Sunny Mayhem.

Here down Firs Lane, we've been making good use of the sunshine.
Thursday was a day full of mayhem and fun.

Trip to a local Butterfly World with the Home Ed group.  Wow, it was sub tropical in there, everyone was visibly sweating buckets; it was quite a sight to behold!  ;-)

There were some real beauties, and so big!

The hatchery, a little distressing though, the hatchery is usually locked up, and when the lady showing us around, opened it up there were butterflies that had hatched and died because they couldn't get out.

This beauty was lucky though and escaped while it had the chance.

After that we went for a walk in Reinden Woods, which is also butts onto land used by the MOD.   Very pretty woods, and the blue bells were still out too.  I must make a confession here.  I was confused as to where the Butterfly World was, and was thinking it was right next to Lyminge Forest.   Ooops.  So very lucky this was nearby.  Quite a trek to where we had our picnic, a lovely open field in a bit of a valley. 

In the end we did the entire 2.5hr walk.  I confess for the last 20 minutes or so the thought of the air conditioning in the car is the only thing that kept me going!  Hot, hot, hot!  Phew.  It was lovely to see all the HE families tramping through the woods tho; there were about 7 or 8 families in total.  :D

After the woods, an impromptu bbq at mine, bit of squeeze to fit us all in the garden.  A good time was had, and a prodigious amount of food was eaten!

A familiar sight recently with all this enjoyment of the sunshine.

Ahhhhhhhhhhh the Science Museum Road Show.  This was yesterday, (Friday), and was utterly fabulous.  We both really enjoyed it.  The presenters were really good and the explosions very impressive.  The only slightly moan would be that the presenters seemed to bypass the very large home ed contingent (over 80 families I believe),  when selecting volunteers, and instead made a beeline for school children.

After the show, a friend came back to mine with her kids, and they played in the garden; on the trampoline (such a good purchase!), and with the waffles, building dens.

Ok, they weren't playing so harmoniously all the time; initially they were trying to each make their own structure, and there simply aren't enough waffles for that; so it took a wee bit of encouragement to get the kids to decided on a structure a work together........... we got there.. eventually.  LOL.

Today, (Saturday) another beautifully hot day, but very lazy.  I was utterly exhausted; partly the funpacked week in the sunshine and partly because I'm going through another episode of waking up around 3pm and then not being able to get back to sleep properly, so when it's time to get up I feel absolutely shattered still.

Today I've mostly snoozed on the sun lounger in the shade while Rye has played, built, and bounced :D  Eventually this evening I felt a bit more human, and as thanks for Rye for being so patient with me I took him down to the fountain.  We had a wee picnic there, and then we played in the water together for a bit.

 I do hope the council plans to reset the fountain so it changes height again.  This is fun, but it was so much better when it sprayed 8 foot or more into the air, and one could run through it.

Tomorrow will be another busy day; but this time busy with home stuff as the house etc has been neglected quite a bit this week as being outside has been so much more important!