Monday 30 July 2012

Playing with my cousin

One of the most fun things about our holiday was Marisca enjoying playing with Elliot, her 3-week-older cousin.  Of course, being 2 year olds, there were also disagreements and tantrums but when they were getting on it was lovely.



Usefully, when it came to playing with the ride-on tractor, Marisca's favourite thing was riding and Elliot's was pushing.



Probably the favourite game, reprised many times, was hiding behind the curtain together and then rushing out and over to whichever people happened to be hanging around.  On this occasion they both decided to crawl instead!


A round up of the week wouldn't be complete without a picture of the ball.  Number one favourite toy I think, which became much more fun when a second ball appered so they could have one each (thank you Grandma).

Tuesday 24 July 2012

The Mosedale et al family

I'm not sure I'd not miss somebody's surname out, so I'll stick with Mosedale in the title of this post, since we were celebrating the 40th anniversary of the two Mosedales at the bottom of the frame.

We spent a great week with the family in Devon, and particularly enjoyed the weekend with the ruby wedding celebrations.  I think I got a photo of everyone here with my papparazzi lens: if you managed to escape, congratulations.  I think that's Dad, Sarah, and me but we're all in the main shot!






















Olympic torch

A little bit chronologically suspect, but for posterity I'm recording our trip to Lister Park in Bradford to see the Olympic torch.  It was a lovely day, we walked all the way to the park, hung around for a bit, had quite a grumpy girl when the torch actually went past, and had ice cream.  And the best bit is that we can tell Marisca that she saw it.



Monday 23 July 2012

A day out with butterflies, a maze, and mini golf

We had a lovely day out at Symond's Yat exploring a tropical butterfly house (butterflies!  butterflies! butterflies!), experiencing a hedge maze, and even playing mini golf.  A great day.





Playing football on the campsite

One of the especial pleasures I get from camping is being outside so much, and having all of the time in between other things just being out.  The weather was good enough mostly to do this - I think we were only conifned to our tent twice due to rain.  With Marisca, it's no longer about sitting with the radio burbling quietly while we read books and sip tea, but it is about playing chase, running about, and learning new skills.  Football, in this case, is something we discovered that she really likes at the moment.  She absolutely adored the big inflatable we bought her (best £1 spent for a long time) and I loved playing with her, too.





Wye Valley holiday

We're just back from a fortnight of holiday, firstly camping for a week in the Wye Valley and then spending a week with family and a roof over our heads in Devon. 

We had a good holiday, definitely.  We did all suffer a little from lack of sleep - Marisca's finding sleep difficult at present and particularly in a light tent in the middle of summer; she rarely went to sleep any earlier than we did.  We avoided getting washed away, although it was borderline at times, most mornings were lovely and bright and we got out and about. 

More posts to follow as time presents itself, so here are a few random shots.


Marisca indulges her artistic side


and her literary side.


Marisca shows that she's a chip off her mother's block - reading the information and listening to the audio guide at Goodrich castle.


Exploring Tintern abbey and, below, finding a mushroom on a walk in the Forest of Dean.

Sunday 1 July 2012

Sunshine and showers

One of the benefits of moving to Yorkshire is the beautiful countryside right on our doorstep.  This weekend we drove all of 40 minutes from home to go camping in the middle of the Dales.  The forecast was for sunshine and showers, which sounded better than it had for the last little while.

Our friends Pippa and Ian joined us, so on the Saturday we had a lovely walk up the side of the dale.  Marisca climbed the last bit to the top:


And found a trig point to sit on:

Then utilised Daddy-transport for the rest of the walk, including a small detour to the top of Conistone Pie:


If you look at the left of the above photo you will see slightly greyer sky: this very rapidly turned into an almightly thunderstorm, complete with hail.  We were wet through in seconds and had nowhere to shelter from the rather painful hail, the largest of which was over 1 cm in diameter.  Ouch!  Thankfully, we got Marisca into her full rain cover in time so she was protected, and we made very rapid and squelchy progress back down the hill to the car and the campsite for a full change of clothes followed by tea and cake in Grassington. Everything is better after tea and cake.

The rest of the weekend was definitely sunshine and showers, so there are no more photos.  But we had a lovely time away and are now re-sorting all the camping gear for another holiday next week!