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.

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!

Just in case anyone'd missed the news

I've little idea who reads this blog that might not already know, but here you are:

20 weeks so half way there.  Marisca sat watching the monitor and pointing out the baby, which was really lovely.  Not quite as often as she pointed out Percy's smile in the book she had with her, but for a first real interaction with her new brother or sister, it's pretty good going.

PS I think the bright shiny bit is Elspeth's phone's flash as she takes a picture of the photo we have.  Rather than a star on its way to being born.  The star is the baby shaped thing just about the white blob.

S(w)inging

A trip to the park today and I remembered that my new phone does video as well as pictures.  So you can admire Marisca's swinging while she sings a little song for you.  We think it's easy to work out which nursery rhyme she's singing, but you have the disadvantage of not having her doing the actions this time...

A big girl bedroom

Yesterday morning was spent in IKEA, spending a small fortune to equip Marisca's room as befits a big girl with lots of clothes and lots of toys.  Marisca enjoyed trying out all the beds and was definitley keen on one in particular, so that's the one we bought her.  Once we got it home she helped Daddy put it together:

And then tried it out:

Here's the room with all its new furniture: plenty of storage, a nice big bed and still room for playing.  The cot is still there, in the corner, in case we have nights where Marisca will not stay in the big bed, but the aim is that by the time we need the cot for its new occupant Marisca will happily stay in her bed.

Based on one night, Risky is happy to sleep in the bed but wants someone there while she falls asleep - at least you can lie next to her rather than lean over the side of the cot!  She fell out once and had to be cuddled back to sleep, but all in all it could have been worse.  Let's hope the transition goes smoothly...