A learning experience

Today Tryfan [hopefully] learned a lesson.
This morning he did something bad: he took Rhiannon's day pass and acted like it was his, and then lied about it.  After having to get his pass replaced yesterday, he didn't want to get in trouble for ruining his pass again today so tried this other tactic. Bad idea.

So as the punishment, Tryfan had to stay in the trailer by himself while the rest of us went to the beach. Cris was there for awhile but then left to join the rest of us at the beach. I left the beach early to go make lunch for everyone before they got back, so I passed Cris en route. When I got back to the trailer, Tryfan was busy cleaning. He made all the 4 kids beds and neatly laid out each person's jammies.
Hopefully Tryfan learned a big lesson today. He was pretty shaken up by the whole episode and even confided that he was thinking of running away. We are glad he didn't do this, and we told him so. but he has just been a bit too cavalier lately and we needed to get the message through.

Weekend in Poole!

This was a long weekend with a Monday bank holiday, and we rented a static caravan in Poole with Nia, Cris, Gabi and Val. It was a really fun weekend! This is the place we stayed: https://www.haven.com/parks/dorset/rockley-park/

We arrived Friday night around 8 pm. Today we rode the bus into Poole and walked around town for a couple of hours.

The kids weren't really supposed to, but they did a bit of playing soccer in the road just by our caravan. They had a great time together.

 They discovered the arcade and had a blast together playing video games and doing the penny shuffle thingy.

Pirates of the Curry Bean

Tryfan's class performed their play today for all the parents. Tryfan played "Captain Cod". One funny thing is that we parents had to furnish the captain's jacket, but we were a bit disorganized and the performance date snuck up on us... so Rhiannon and I went thrift store (charity shop) shopping and found this ladies blazer with stylish buttons. We cut up a Greek fishing hat and used the tassels as shoulder decoration.

A couple of the kids were out sick this day so their teacher, Mr. D, stepped in and even wore a hula skirt to fit into character!

Here is a little video of them performing one of the songs.

 Plays sure take on a professional edge with James playing the piano as the musical accompaniment. 

Deck coming along

Rhodri and I have been working hard on the deck and it is coming along!

 

Funny vegetables

I bought a pack of misshapen parsnips today

Easter

Easter morning! After discovering the clues and prizes that the Easter Bunny left for the kids, we had a nice breakfast and then Rhodri took Rhiannon to the emergency room at the East Grinstead hospital to get an x-ray of her ankle. Not a great way to spend Easter morning, but it seemed like the right thing to do. And it was, because we established that she didn't break anything and just needed crutches for a few days. 

In the meantime, Tryfan and I met Lou, Steve and Arnie for a dog walk in the forest on their side of the forest. It was a glorious morning for us and the dogs were very happy too!

Easter Egg Hunting

Easter isn't Easter without a massive egg hunt! So we invited several families to the Jubilee Green this morning and I hid all the eggs before people arrived. Everyone brought food and drink contributions and we had a brunch of sorts.

 The only sad part - and it was a really sad part - is that Rhiannon sprained her ankle just before the hunt when everyone was running around playing tag on the green. So she didn't get to do much hunting, although Rhodri carried her around on his back for a bit.

So then we went back home where there was another set of eggs hidden round the garden, but this time only for our kids and Sophie & Oscar. In this hunt, we set up a little nest for Rhiannon in the wheelbarrow and she got wheeled round the garden with a keen assistant egg spotter pushing her.

The Easter Rug

We have this tradition of decorating Easter eggs and then using the leftover egg dye to refresh our dining table rug. Somehow we missed it last year but we made up for it this year! First, the decorating...

 Then, the decorating...

Now we are all set for a fresh year of dining over the happy and beautiful rug!

Extra hours

In fact, we got back with enough daylight left in the day from our outing in London that we could do a bit more work on the deck. You can see the excitement in their little faces!

Day out in London

Today we had to get Rhiannon's US passport renewed, so we had to all venture into the big city together for the day. We left the house at 06:30 to catch the 07:02 train to London Victoria, arrive at 08:05 and then make our way to the Embassy without stress for our 09:00 appointment. All went according to plan, and we even got the top front seats on Bus 71 from Victoria to Hyde Park. Awesome start!

In fact, we got there closer to 08:30 and were out of there by 09:15 with the whole day to play with!
First we had breakfast at a nearby cafe in Mayfair, then went into a few shops on Oxford Street. London was pretty empty at this time with fair skies. Ideal!
We took the Tube to London Bridge and went to Borough Market which is ideal for a lunch time visit, but it wasn't quite lunchtime and none of us were hungry, so we just walked around. We crossed the London Bridge at sat on a bench by the river for awhile.

After all this walking, we were starting to get quite hungry but as it was a nice day, many of the desirable looking cafes were full with long wait times. We stumbled upon the Gourmet Burger Kitchen, which totally completely perfectly hit the spot! We sat in a row by the windows and thoroughly enjoyed our meal.


Then we were going to take the water taxi from the Tower of London back to Westminster and then London Victoria to get the train back home, but the wait time was so long we decided to hop on a bus instead. Hurrah for bus journeys! We crept along in traffic on the top deck of a double decker bus and enjoyed the slowness of it. Then we made our train back to East Grinstead and called it a day. It's always exhausting doing a "day out" in London but its cool to be able to do it, especially on a gorgeous spring day in April.

Flat Pack Queen

We finally bought Rhiannon a chest of drawers from Argos, and it arrived in a flat pack!

I had planned to building this for her, but she wanted to do it herself.
She ended up delegating some tasks to Tryfan, but he didn't seem to mind. So the two of them were upstairs banging and then using the powerdrill to put in screws, music blaring the whole time. It did take a couple of days in the end, and there is one section that might need to be painted over because it got installed backwards so looks a bit funny, but it was Rhiannon's project and she saw it through. Hopefully the pride and satisfaction that she must feel now will be enough to use it to keep her clothes nicely folded and put away every day :-).

More deck, then some playtime

We worked all day on the deck, then went to the Coach and Horses for a drink with Bettina, Ole, Casper and Anna Louisa. It was a really hot day today (around 75 F in a sheltered sun lit spot, probably more like 65 F in the wind or shade) and we spent it digging holes for the beam posts and then starting to drill out the old concrete/ brick steps. Hard work!

 Casper came over and 3 of them went to play football at the village green, then Bettina came round and offered to take them all down to the Coach and we could meet them there. Great idea! It was just coming to the end of the day and starting to cool off a bit, and it felt so indulgent to ride our bikes down the lane to the pub and enjoy the garden with our friends.

 Meanwhile the kids were drawn to the sand box, as always! We rode bikes home, which is always a bit of a struggle since it is uphill going home. So there was a bit of grumbling but we made it.

A great day, all in all.

Long lost friends

My long lost friend Polly and her two kids came to visit us this afternoon on their way to a ski holiday in France! They fly out early tomorrow morning so will stay at a hotel in Gatwick tonight, but they made time to stay a few hours with us and it was sooo good to see them. Its been 5 years since the last time we saw them!

 Joe (7) was especially keen to use the hammer to help out on the deck while Rhiannon was in her element looking after Florence (4).

 They stayed for dinner and then headed off in their awesome van.

I really hope its not another 5 years before we see them again!

Day 4 of Operation Deck

Today we got a lot done in the morning under gorgeous sunny skies.

Football camp

Rhiannon has been working every day at Burnt Wood, and then yesterday and today Tryfan has gone to a football camp at Uckfield College which was hosted by the Brighton football team. It has been gorgeous weather - perfect for deck building, horse work and football! Now its the weekend and I don't have to juggle work and decking for a couple of days. Nice.

Operation Deck

We decided to not going anywhere interesting or fun, and instead to Build a Deck at home! And when I say "we", I mean actually all of us 4 Lewises in the house. Work started yesterday when Rhodri and the kids did the measuring of the space and then Rhodri ordered a bunch of supplies. Then today a load of wood arrived, the kids transported it all around to the rear of the house, Rhodri went out and bought a new tool (referred to now as his "new best friend" but which is actually a Makita SDS drill), I did some sweeping and prep work, and then the first bits of ledger board went up against the house.

The way it is supposed to go is that you just put one big long piece of wood and that becomes the ledger board, but in our case there are quite a few complexities - like the air vents, the breeze blocks, and the water outlet - which mean that we have to do several small ledger boards and they all need to be level with each other. A good start to the project, anyway!

18 years

Today was our 18 year wedding anniversary!
It was a fairly normal Monday except that Rhodri was up north in the Peak District all of yesterday afternoon and also all day today. We picked him up from Gatwick airport (where he was returning the rental car) and then drove straight out to dinner to celebrate our anniversary.

We went to the Old House Inn, where I have been a few times before but none of the rest of us have. Decent food, cozy atmosphere, a bit pricey but it was a special occasion after all.

Burnt Wood Farm

A couple weeks ago I met a lady called Jacqui who runs a livery / farm down Tanyard Lane near us, and she said that Rhiannon could come and "muck out" on weekend mornings and through the holidays, so we will be taking her up on that!

Yesterday and today she went down there by herself on her bike (J and I texting each other to confirm arrivals and departures of Rhi). So far so good! 

G-Buck at the rodeo

Right now Grandma Bucky (G-Buck) is visiting Aunt Judy in Arizona for a little change of scene, and I received this great photo of her sitting in the bleachers watching Uncle Joe and cousin Molly compete in a rodeo event!

Apparently Molly won $100 at this event - well done, Cousin.