Mary Poppins

Well, not exactly, but I've certainly been doing the mothering thing the last few days!!

Yesterday I had planned for us to go to Vi's barbecue after our Sunday swimming session, but after an hour of "floating fun" in our local pool (where there were only about 14 other people in the whole pool!), both my kids were sniping and grumpy, and I was in no mood to inflict them on innocent people I didn't know. (Sorry Vi). Instead we came home, and after lunch went around the park area at the back of my house and picked blackberries for an hour. Yes, a whole mixing bowl of them!* I then cooked a roast chicken dinner at X's request and peace seemed to be restored for the evening.

Today, I woke about ten (after not getting to sleep until 4.30am) and decided on a whim to head to the seaside. So, after eventually getting everything organised, followed by a trip to the bank to raid X's bank account due to skintage, and a couple of hours drive, we arrived at Sunny Hunny, which although a bit of a small and crappy seaside resort has a lovely beach and some beautiful town and is perfect for sun, sea and sand. The weather held quite nicely, though it could have been hotter, and much sand castle building commenced, along with some sea paddling for me, sea splashing for Y, and sea swimming for X! The water was surprisingly warm actually. Finished the day with a fish and chip tea on the seafront and an ice cream and finally arrived home about 8.30pm. More baths, and now X is snoring, Y is boxing on his Wii and I am attempting to ignore the state of my house (including yesterday's roast dinner washing up!)

Tomorrow... Warwick Castle awaits!

*Unfortunately, being the non-Nigella that I am, and in a rush to get out of the house this morning, I thought I would quickly stew the blackberries down to then fridge/freeze for crumble making. However, I forgot that stewing requires a cup of water, sugar, and the fruit, and instead put enough water in to sink a tank. The end result - boiled blackberries. Erm, yum!