Magic Crystal Grotto

We went out this afternoon to Painshill Park to have a wander around - it's one of those places I keep meaning to go to, and just haven't got around to it yet. But as we had to go pick up Sarah from Guide camp at Heyswood, which is right next door to Painshill it seemed like a good time to check it out. It's a fun place - during the 18th century the grounds were extensively developed, full of interesting follies, like this crystal grotto. Lots more photos over here on flickr.

Today

Here's a small slice of our day - starting with one of those photos you find mysteriously on your camera, which you haven't taken yourself - in this instance, there were about ten of them. But that's ok - the nice thing about digital cameras is that it doesn't matter. Doesn't she look glamourous today? I'm sure that's what she thought, too!



First order of business this morning was the Farmer's Market in Wimbledon Park - well, not quite the first order as I did some sewing first while Olivia and Alex watched telly and Geoff did a bit of work (Sarah is away at Guide camp this weekend). Wimbledon Park is having its 100th anniversary celebrations at the moment, so today there was a carousel there (the market is held at a school) in the playground as part of the celebrations. The girl in the green jacket shown in the picture is Olivia - amazingly enough, I managed to catch her as she went around - Alex is more towards the inside of the carousel, so it wasn't possible to get him.

And here is a basket of tomatoes - we really liked the colours, though the ones we bought were simply red.



After lunch, we went to another local primary school (not the one the kids go to) to check out their school fair - here is Alex on the bouncy castle - he adores bouncy castles.

Later in the afternoon, we went over to our local park for their annual open day - they have the park associations AGM, and then free mini golf and usually a nature trail or something like that. No photos from that, but it was a lovely time anyway - the kids love having the park so close by (as do their parents!).

Picnic with tree climbing

We went up to Juniper Top, our favourite picnic spot, today with some friends - and then for a long walk in the woods beyond Juniper Top. In April, these woods are full of bluebells, but this time of year, they are mostly just full of climbing trees - the kids have a blast. Lots more photos of them climbing and a few picnic pictures too can be found in my flickr album.

Gardening

Here's Alex the gardener watering our tomato plants, which we were given by friends. So far, we have managed not to kill them, which is fairly impressive for us. And here's our garden - looks quite nice this time of year!