Land of a thousand steps

Between the half-term holiday and the nephew-visiting-from-Australia, there has been lots of tourist activity recently. Today's item was St Paul's Cathedral - David & I went with the girls (Alex off to play at a friend's house for the day). No photos from inside the cathedral, as you aren't allowed, but here's some views from up above. Not the very top part you can get to, but the middle level (first outside level). We climbed a LOT of steps - something like 500 total. A bit more, but I can't remember precisely. The view is fairly spectacular, though...

Brooklands

A trip to Brooklands Transport Museum today, always a successful way to entertain boys during half term.



Alex and I went with my nephew David, who is visiting at the moment, and also took along Keir, a friend who lives near us. Here are Keir and Alex sitting on Concorde.




And Alex posing as a racing driver...




...and Alex driving a plane (Keir was in the other seat - there appeared to be lots of crash landing going on).



And we even had a ride in an old car. A nice day out!

Hallowe'enish

My seasonal windowsill (only occasionally - mostly, it's just got some candles and stuff on it).



We went looking for pumpkins - and no, I've no idea what the black bags are for - at our local Pick-your-own place. Which also has a farm shop, with lots of lovely cheese, including this amusing one:



We didn't buy any of this one, but we were amused nonetheless.



We also stopped by a supermarket to pick up a few other things, including a quick visit to a certain coffee concession.



And rounded off the day with a little seasonal crafting. We haven't carved the pumpkins yet - didn't have the energy to face that, also wanted them to be quite fresh for the Big Day...

Birthday day out

For her birthday, Olivia wanted to spend the day with me doing stuff like bowling, eat & shopping, so we headed to Kingston. First to do some bowling (neither of us did well, but I did manage to beat her - so I don't have to suffer the stigma of being beating by an 11YO)...



We then walked over to some shops to do some shopping - passing this mosaic (it continues all the way through the motions of the forward flip, until the figure is standing again - it keeps changing colour as well) on the way.



Another one of my favourite sites in Kingston is the tipped over phone boxes - these have been here as long as I can remember (though I think they moved them slightly at one point) - which is about 20 years.



We had a break in the shopping to have some sushi for lunch...





And even found time to watch a few street performers. A good day out!

Kingston Music & Arts open day

We went along to the open day today - you can try out a lot of instruments to see which one you might like to play. Alex tried pretty much everything going (though I didn't take any photos of the brass, even though he really liked them)...





Olivia had a go at a few things as well, even though she of course already has chosen her instrument - at least for the time being!





I nixed the drums, as fun as they were - we have neither the space nor the deafness required for a drummer.

His favourites at the moment are bassoon, violin and French horn (I think - though it might have been trombone or trumpet).

Zip Wire

Tried to post this with the still photos, but for whatever reason, that failed. Anyway, here's Sarah going down one of the zip wires - not even the longest one...

Go Ape!

Sarah chose to go to Go Ape with a friend as a birthday treat (in lieu of a party, etc). Go Ape is a high ropes course with a variety of obstacles or challenges, most of which are quite high up in the trees. It's all very safe and professional, so any grandmas reading this don't need to worry. Under 18s have to be accompanied by an adult, and 15s & under can only have 2 kids to one adult, so Sarah and her friend Jess went; I went with them. I have to say, it was great fun, especially the Tarzan swings and the zipwires. I could have easily done just those sections several more times...








I love the way the course is laid out in the treetops, so that you really feel you are part of the forest while doing it. At Alice Holt, the forest that our local(ish) course is in, there are walking and cycling paths which run beneath the course in places, so you often get folks watching as you navigate a particular challenge or wait on a platform for your turn to go.











It really was a lovely choice of things to do - we all had a great time.

Weekend of cooking...

Made these this afternoon - miniature pumpkin pies (and some jam tarts). School is having an international day tomorrow, complete with food tasting and I said I'd bring a pumpkin pie - then I got to thinking that actually it would be quite hard to cut into small pieces for sharing, so I decided to use the Pampered Chef miniature tart thingy and go for individual pumpkin pies, which actually, worked very well. I did use some of the second piece of pastry (I just used bought on this occasion) for some jam tarts - raspberry, plum (from jam made by a friend from her own plum trees) and lemon curd on the end. Mmm.




This morning, pancakes were the order of the day, as I had two extra girls in the house from Sarah's Birthday Sleepover, Part I (Part 2 next weekend - two different groups of friends, so she wanted two sleepovers - ok with me as I'd rather have two lots of two extra 12 & 13-yr-olds than one lot of 4 extra. Not to mention, easier to find space to sleep).




Last night it was homemade pizza for the girls. And the rest of us, too. Next weekend, pizza is on the menu as well, but as we are out all afternoon, Domino's is going to be cooking it!

Spotted outside a charity shop

...so we did...



...apple crumble with walnuts. Mmm.

Cousins...

Our nephew David is visiting with us again between stops on his whirlwind world tour - the kids have a blast because he's essentially just a big kid...





Olivia took this one...

Hever Castle

Hever Castle in Kent is the childhood home of Anne Boleyn, and a fine example of Tudor architecture. It also has a hedge maze, a wooden maze, a water maze, an adventure playground, and one weekend in early September, a small but really lovely quilt show. We try to make an annual event of it. Especially because the weather in early September is almost always sunny and lovely. We missed the show last year, but this year, we managed to make it.



We had a picnic lunch on a bench by the lake, looking across to the edge of the Italian Gardens. Some ducks came to join us...






...and later a swan.



There was a lovely border of every kind of dahlia under the sun - this is only a small selection.



We found our way through the hedge maze to the middle...





...admired the topiary...



...swung on some swings, ate ice cream,



and finally, made our way through the water maze - we even remembered to take swimsuits and a towel this year (it is, I can vouch, entirely possible to make it through the maze staying completely dry, but if you are a 7 year old boy or a 10 year old girl (Sarah not being with us on this occasion), that's not really the point...).



And here's Olivia at the top of the tower in the middle of the maze.