Old friends, new babies

We are 2 days into our trip, and so far we've had a great time. First we flew to London on Wed midday, rented a car, and drove to Bristol to stay with old friends Gareth and Rachel and their new baby "JJ". Here are the troops on the play airplane at Oslo airport - they had it to themselves for the first time ever and made full use of the cockpit.
It was very rainy and stormy during our 1.5 hour drive to Bristol, but once we got there we had lovely weather - perfect for sitting outside. We gave presents to the Baby JJ and then let the kids run wild in the grassy back garden, trying to chase the resident kitty cat.
Rhodri and Gareth's longtime friend Huw came over for dinner and the 3 Welshmen were happily chatting away in cymraeg for the evening while Rachel and I talked about babies :-)
On Thursday morning we visited my longtime friend Polly and her 5-day-old baby boy (as yet unnamed). The last time I saw her was 5 years ago when we ran the 2-day KIMM mountain orienteering marathon as partners. Since then we have both become Mamas, and it was so wonderful to reunite. No photos unfortunately, except for those in my memory.

From Polly's house, we went on to the very small village of Rudge less than an hour's drive from Bristol and we stayed at the Full Moon Inn for the rest of the afternoon and all night. Our longtime friends David and Jen drove up from Southampton (~1.5 hrs drive) to meet us for playtime in the beer garden and then dinner. Their two kids Katherine (4.5) and Jonathon (2) played with our two while we adults hid under the cover of umbrellas and took turns mediating conflicts.
After a hugely successful and delicious dinner in a dining room we had all to ourselves, we put all the kids in the bath and started the bedtime routine.
Everyone got into their jammies and bounced on the bed for awhile, then we gave kisses and hugs all around and said goodbye. Thank you so much Dave and Jen for coming up to Rudge to meet us!