Home again home again, jiggedy jig

Had a nice trip up to see Grandma Lucy last week - not entirely relaxing, because it's always hard having kids away from home in a house that's not completely geared towards kids, but they were very good and they do love visiting Grandma. Luckily, the weather was very nice so we were able to go out and do lots of stuff. On the way up, we went the slow route, past Oxford up to Coventry. We stopped at the Oxfordshire museum in Woodstock - a small, local museum with a nice sculpture garden, where we ate our picnic. Then we stopped again at the Rollright Stones, which the kids really enjoyed. I like Stonehenge, don't get me wrong, but I think I prefer some of the smaller stone circles, which are dotted all over - there's a really nice feel to them, plonked in the middle of a field, just kind of there. And of course, hardly any tourists, unlike Stonehenge, which gets a bit insane sometimes.

Thursday we mainly stayed at Grandma's, but Friday, she treated us to a local amusement park, Twinlakes Park, which was exactly right for the kids - for older kids, there wouldn't be as much of interest, but it was great this year, and will probably suit them well for two more years before Sarah starts getting bored. I'm sure we'll visit again next year - either Easter or summer.

Saturday we took Grandma and Auntie Mary (Geoff's Aunt - his dad's brother's widow) to lunch, and Sunday we headed back home, again by the meandering route, this time via Wellplace Zoo, where we had our picnic - we had a lovely run down some of the kinds of country roads you only get in England - really great and SO much better than the wretched M1... But it's nice to be home - and much easier on the kids as they have all their stuff to get into and amuse themselves with - and easier on me, as I don't have to keep an eye on them all the time...

One advantage (?) of being at Grandma Lucy's house is there is no internet access, so in the evenings once the kids go to bed, I mainly just read. (Helped by the fact that there is never anything on telly in the summer). We were there for 4 nights; I read three books - ok, none of the was A Suitable Boy (though one was by the same author), but neither were they picture books - I was glad I thought to take 3!

Oh, and of course there are lots of photos in our yahoo album.