Charlotte Comes to Stay

Hello - sorry for my prolonged absence, August has nearly disappeared without me finding any time to catch up on my blog.
It's been an absolutely manic month, an emotional roller-coaster and an awful lot's happened, including; the worst riots in London in a generation, turning 42 on the 12th, Kate and Dan's wedding, a week's holiday at Andy's place in South Wales, visits from my sisters and their families and we've also had our dear friend Christophe's daughter, Charlotte, staying with us.
Charlotte is a naturally gifted and very brilliant photographer so it was fantastic to be able to turn my camera over to her for a couple of weekends. So my next few entries are mostly her photos. I really enjoyed a camera break and seeing myself in some pictures for a change. I'm sure you'll like her work too! These are from Saturday 5th August.

Lucas, last weekend

Lucas Walks!

We've just had an absolutely wonderful summer weekend at home. The weather has been perfect for hanging out in the garden, cutting the hedge (a long put off chore), paddling in the paddling pool, bbqing and eating and drinking outside, until late.
It's also been absolutely incredible watching Lucas enjoying his newly acquired walking skills and Ibolya and I are making this weekend, his official first weekend of walking,
more than crawling. He's pretty much been doing the same circuit of the house you can see in this film, bless him.
He's also been babbling away like crazy and it's wonderful to hear him mastery his communication skills. There's definitely been a few 'Daddys' and I even heard him say 'Peppa Pig' a couple of times too. Peppa is a big part of all our lives thanks to Ruby.

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.