At Home with my Mum and Dad

We had an absolutely wonderful time at my Mum and Dad's this weekend and loved seeing Ruby and Lucas spending time with their grand parents. It was the first time I'd heard Ruby address my Mum and Dad as 'Granny' and 'Grandpa' and it felt very special. It's still an unusual feeling being at my childhood home with my own children. Even playing badminton in the garden, as we did every summer growing up, with my Mum and Dad and now with Ruby, Lucas and Ibolya, joining in, felt quite profound.
We were determined not to pack too much into this trip so we could maximize being with Mum and Dad but did squeeze in a quick nip to the Watersports Centre and the car boot sale at Nottingham Racecourse on Sunday morning. It's also really good to see how my old neighborhood of Lady Bay has become so prosperous and is absolutely thriving. It's become even more an incredibly attractive and fortuitous place to live.

Weekend

Ibolya was away at Kate's hen weekend, at the Latitude festival, this weekend while I stayed at home and looked after the Ruby and Lucas. But, we all had a pretty good time together. We went to Bramley's indoor playcentre on Saturday morning, went round to see Dan, Dixie and Maisie in the afternoon and went to St Mark's playgroup on Sunday morning. Ruby, in particular, was wonderful company and a very, very good and caring little girl. They both let me sleep in a lot longer than normal and I even managed to squeeze in a couple of afternoon snoozes and a bit of time reading Stephen's book!
And what's more, the house was even in very good shape for Ibolya's return on Sunday evening.
I didn't get time to take any pictures but tried out this vintage film app on my iphone, called 8mm, to film Ruby scooting to Kate and Dan's on Saturday afternoon.

Lounging on the Farm

It was Dan's stag weekend, last weekend, at the Lounging on the Farm Festival, just outside Canterbury. As festival experiences go, this was an exceptionally good one. Good company, fine music, in beautiful countryside and I didn't feel too worse for ware afterwards.
My personal highlights were spending the very early hours of Saturday morning at a silent disco; a few hundred people, in a tent, all wearing headphones, tuned in to two DJ's, playing at the same BPM. Amongst the deep, electro, dance grooves an occasional classic track would emerge, like Kiss by Prince, and the whole tent erupted. A slightly odd morning ended with the DJ's playing Dueling Banjos, from the soundtrack to Deliverence and the final track of the set was Zorba the Greek.
My other highlights were hearing Annie Mac playing Return of the Mac by Mark Morrison (sounds so good) and Adamski's incredible set which he ended by playing his track NRG, which is probably my 3rd favorite track of all time.

Weekend

Ibolya and I are away for the next two weekends on stag and hen festival weekends so this weekend was entirely family focused. Starting with peanut butter and toast, while watching more Glastonbury highlights. Followed by a big breakfast at Canteen on Baker Street, followed by a couple of hours at the Princess of Wales playground at Kensington Gardens. Back home for lunch, a family snooze then more play time at Roundwood Park.
Bathtime then a delivery curry dinner with Denis and Thomas, who stayed the night. We caught up with chores on Sunday and a bit of DIY.
It was all together an utterly lovely weekend.