Messing about on the river

A beautiful bright and sunny Sunday in July. As a little birthday treat (...for me!) we rented a little motor boat from the local skiff and boat hire in nearby Thames Ditton. We took along some friends and Olive's mate Nathan who both looked very fetching in their life vests!

Bless that Nathan, he always wants to hold Olive's hand!

Skipper T G Pilgrim setting course for Kingston!

Mummy and Melony in the back enjoying the leisurely life.

Olive didn't have the best sea-legs...

But for most part had a pretty cheeky good time...!

Nice.

Boys BBQ

These two chiefs are two of my best mates, Ben & Scott:

An invitation to a Sunday BBQ became a minor union of three old school fellas. The two chaps pictured here I have known since meeting at Chiswick secondary school age 12 so, 24 years and counting!




We are missing one other from this group and that is [big] Dave and which made me think i must have a few old snaps of the boys together...hang on!

Scott's stag weekender in Budapest, 2008 (age 33)

And then here's a classic:

Boys Summer Holiday in Crete, 1994 (age 19)

Not much has changed that is apart from Ben's long neck and a fashion for wearing waistcoats (and oddly we always seem to order ourselves the same way for group photographs!). Time moves on you grow, you change, you do some stuff, you get married, you have your own family and there is always more to come. The passage of life even at this stage often feels surreal in retrospect. Where does the time go? ok, who hasn't said that before yet somehow it is all so completely natural, improbable and impossible at the same time yet -and for want of a better word -exactly how it should be.

Scott enjoying a moment with his daughter Charlotte.

Mummy and her Olive.

"Uncle Ben" with Olive.

Hang on, is that Uncle Ben encouraging underage drinking...what?

Don't worry that's Kellye's non-alcoholic beer!

Charlotte and Olive hanging out in the paddling pool.

Kate and Scott share a laugh...

Ickworth House

Last week we drove out to Suffolk to spend 3 days holiday at a rather knockout stately home Ickworth House. To say it was amazing does not do it justice it was majestic and otherworldly.

Ickworth house was originally the home of the 1st Earl of Bristol,
the main building 'the Rotunda' pictured here was commissioned by the 4th Earl inspired by his travels through Italy and Rome. Building begun in 1795 and completed after his death in 1803.

The hotel accommodates the East wing of the property renovated and converted to a grand luxury style family hotel. Here is the entrance....

The view from our bathroom window with a panorama of the estate parkland beyond...

This view shows the conservatory (left side) where we would eat our meals -not bad eh!

A striking old Cedar tree.

As one can imagine we all had a brilliant time, living like aristocrats but the best thing was how great a time Olive had. The facilities were superb with loads of stuff to do from swimming, riding bikes around the estate and 2 playgrounds -and that was just for the dad's!

Olive got involved....clambering through tunnels...

...Driving lessons!

Cheeky little thing!

Although the biggest hit for Olive without a doubt was the trampoline. Olive got stuck right-in with the bouncing and could not get enough of it! A brilliant piece of apparatus inducing euphoric screams of excitement, great exercise and get's them good and worn out for bed time! The Smalls got herself some air and impressed us greatly with her natural bouncing skills!

Tried to post a nice video of my monkey bouncing about but it would not upload -argh! However, I did manage to upload a little video of Olive signing her ABC's and a nice rendition of Bah, Bah, Black Sheep (need to turn up the volume a bit):

The fun continuous with Mummy and Smols workin' the "death slide"!

Short and sweet, all-in-all we really had a great family holiday.

(had to get that macro bee shot in there!)