It was scheduled to rain for the next couple of days, but it wasn’t supposed to hit until much later in the day, so my sister and I took the chance to head down to the beach. It’s an hour’s drive to Camber Sands but the traffic wasn’t too bad and the sun was shining. We decided to leave early and be packed up…
The weather was unusually kind to us, so we had plenty of time to lark about – we went swimming where Henry actually learned to swim properly (rather than just flailing) – Ella is a fully fledged dolphin already and there’s no stopping her, but it was really nice to see the boy graduate into the swimming camp rather than the sinking camp. Anyways,…
We went out for Pizza for lunch – my mum and dad’s idea – lots of kids, vigorous exercise and then a treat – can’t much argue with that. My dad sensibly peeled off from the park early to go back up to the town to book us a a table, but we were sufficiently early that we almost had the place to ourselves.
The weather was beautiful, so we made the most of the local parks and my parents garden (which has a teeny freshwater crayfish in the brook that runs through it), playing with the kids and generally having fun. We made good use of the village shop and bought all kinds of yummy treats – thats the one good thing about living in a village…
It was time to see the children in England. I’d booked the flights ages ago – but as the Olympics were on, they were massively expensive and only the less desirable flight times were available. I worked all day Friday and then caught the flight out at 2am *bleaugh* was a very long day. I got a bit of sleep, did the 2 hour…
And then it was the very last day – we packed up and I drove them back to their house. They were very pleased to see their mum of course – no matter how much fun we’re having, they always like to be back home. As luck would have it, Ella had a ballet lesson that afternoon, which meant I could (finally) watch her…
Time, as ever, is the mortal enemy and pretty soon we were down to the last full day together. It was very overcast and threatening to rain bit we decided on an outside adventure anyway. There’s a lovely old stately home only 15 minutes drive from my parents house that I last went to probably when I was Ella’s age. No, really, it was…
It was still freezing cold, but we refused to be couped up indoors – I only had a week and I wanted to get out and about with the kids as much as possible. We went off to the duck ponds for a wander around – there was still a little bit of snow around and the lakes were still frozen several cm thick…
So, we’ve been having a great time here – it’s been a relatively quiet one this time as it’s been freezing cold, most cool places are actually closed for the winter and we’re all too busy kicking back. We did go swimming which was cool. No, litterally, it was freezing. The poor boy (who has the physical appearance of the terminally malnourished) went blue…
And so the time has flown since last summer and it’s time for another trip to England. No flight photos this time as a) I had a middle centre seat out from Perth and then b) it was dark all the way into London. I went via Singapore which was cool – I like Changi airport, it’s big and clean and has lots of…