Boys mountain weekend in North Wales

Rhodri took some of the guys from the village up to North Wales to climb a few mountains. The group of them consisted of Adrian, Mark DF, Jules, Phil M, Dave P, Mac, Tim and Rhods.

They had amazing weather by the looks of it!

This was the same weekend that we had Rachel visiting, so it all worked out fine. Really glad they had a good time and nobody got hurt!

Here are 6 of the 8 of them - Rhods and Dave P are missing.

One Day Heatwave

What a treat to have a warm, sunny Saturday to wake up to! We started with waffles outside for breakfast.

Then we lounged around until 12:30 ish to then walk down to the Coach & Horses pub to meet up with our Danish friends. All the boys hung out together while we ladies sat in the shade chatting.

Then we came home and the kids set up a Slip-n-Slide on the lawn with 2 tarps and an outdoor table cloth

We made dinner and watched The Greatest Showman and went to bed! Meanwhile Rhods is out climbing mountains in North Wales with the guys from the village. Hopefully he will send some photos so i can update this blog as well.

Russian visa and Rachel

After saying goodbye to Lilly, I took the train into London (Farringdon) to go pick up my visa to be able to visit Russia. I submitted all the paperwork on June 11th, and it take 15 calendar days to process the visa, so I was told to come back after June 26th. I managed to talk cousin Rachel into coming to stay the weekend with us so I met her after I got my visa and we traveled home together. Rhodri is away in Wales taking the men from the village up (and down) some of the mountains in Snowdonia.  Rachel and I met at a Spanish restaurant, had some food and drink, and headed off. What a great feeling to reunite with a family member!

Bye Bye, Lilly

This afternoon I said goodbye to Lilly, who has been an intern with me since November 2018. She is Bulgarian and its been fun working with her, since the work we've been doing together has been really challenging and we've made it up as we went along. I'll miss her...

Sports Day

Today was our last Sports Day at Danehill school. It was a low key event with 'blegh' weather and not much hype or energy. But it was nice to be there and chat with other parents.

Blythe, Oscar and Tryfan - the 3 Amigos

Here are some action shots taken by our friend Gabi.

Rugby Club Summer Ball

Easy Saturday

Last night Rhiannon and Sophie stayed over here at our house, and Tryfan and Oscar stayed over at their house. It was a beautiful day, and we worked in the garden pulling weeds and so forth in the morning.

Tonight Rhods and I are going to the annual summer Rugby ball, which we have never been to but should be fun.

Winnie

We have all gotten quite fond of little Winnie.
She can be soooo annoying with the ball, but in a funny and endearing way. She likes to strategically position the ball (any ball, really) in the place where someone is most likely to pick it up or kick it so she can go chase it. If one is reading the paper on the couch, she will drop it just under the paper near one's leg; if one is cooking dinner in the kitchen, she will drop it in the middle of the kitchen near the stove; if one is mowing the lawn, she will wait for one to start a new strip of grass and position the ball just within a leg's distance from where the mower will go... and so on. She is relentless! It is pretty impressive, actually, just how obsessed she is about chasing balls. In this photo she has positioned the ball near my lap (I'm seated on the couch) and is trying to persuade me with her eyes to throw the ball for her.

Friday afternoon at A&E

We got a call from the school today saying that Tryfan had been accidentally stabbed in the foot with a pitchfork. What is a pitchfork doing out in the playground at a primary school, you ask? Well, quite.

Apparently the Year 6 kids are allowed to play in the garden part of the playground, which happened to have a pitchfork laying around. And one of the troublesome kids in the class (there is always one!) got hold of it and ended up stabbing Tryfs. It went through his shoe and sock and edge of foot. Ouch! Rhodri was on his way to an appointment so I got to take Tryfs to the emergency room in East Grinstead and then Rhodri joined us later. 

Tryfs ended up getting an X-ray (no damage to bone or tendon) and a tetanus shot, and of course spent quite a bit of time waiting around in the meanwhile.  Here he is saying, "Don't you take a picture of me here!". Ha. Too late.

Tall

This girl is now officially taller than me!

Riding lessons continue

Rhiannon has been having riding lessons every Sunday morning and sometimes on Saturday too. Here she is in action on Romeo...

Boys to France, Girls at home

After a full week where Rhodri was in London for a day and I was up in Edinburgh for 2 days, Rhodri and Tryfs left early on Friday to drive to France for a football (soccer) tournament.

Naturally we ladies have taken this opportunity to get takeaway for dinner, watch some girlie movies, go shopping, and meet up with friends! We've had a great weekend!




The boys left Friday morning really early and get back tomorrow night, so Tryfan will miss 2 days of school.  They've gone to France because the football (soccer) team that Tryfan plays for in Forest Row goes every year to play in a tournament with the town that Forest Row is twinned with, Milly-le-Foret.

 

All the kids plus Rhodri, Gordon and the other coach Mark slept on the floor of the school gymnasium while the other parents who came along stayed in hotels. 

Half term holiday

It has been a pretty quiet week here during half term. We did go out to dinner with Evie and her family at a nice pub in Chiddingly. Rhiannon, Evie, and their respective younger siblings had a fun time on the kid end of the table giggling about various things and looking at photos on phones. Then we left Rhiannon with them for a couple of nights and saw her again on Friday.

 During the time that Tryfan was home alone with us, I hatched a plan to paint a dead bush. Rhodri hates this particular bush and has been threatening to dig up the stump, but I quite like the artistic sticks that pop up from behind the little ex-pond feature. One day while Rhods was out, Tryfan and I busted out the paints and made these look a little bit happier.

Tryfan wasn't that stoked to be out here doing this, but too bad!