After the rain

It may have been the last day of term this Friday, and it may have rained rather a lot, but that didn't stop us having a day packed with activities.

Granny was staying and, after attending Ferdy's school assembly, we headed out to Ilam.

This is how you cope with rain

There was a lot of moaning and complaining on the journey and although it was partially drowned out by our new book, How to Seize a Dragon's Jewel, it started up again when we arrived in a torrential downpour.

Rain doesn't deter us (me) though so we covered ourselves with rain clothes, ignored the moaning and off we went.

We climbed rocks:

 

We balanced on walls:








We played poohsticks:

We even got lost in the rainforest:

And when your hands are so cold so you can't feel them, there is a special Granny hand hold which means 'none of your hand skin goes near the cold or wet'.

Everything looked so green and beautiful, and, to quote Eeyore (because we played poohsticks), 'the nicest thing about the rain is that it stops. Eventually', which it did. 

And after the rain comes jumping in puddles, and brownies for lunch, and reading books to Gil in the cafe, and supper in the pub, and ice cream, and late nights and late mornings.

And the long, long summer holidays. Whoop whoop!

A Wild Still Life

Having been ill at the beginning of the week, Ferdy went into school this Friday, hence no proper blog. However, he came to my art class with me on Tuesday afternoon and did this, rather beautiful still life drawing of a vase of wild flowers.

My favourite bit is the 3D glass which, when he had nearly finished and I was pondering how to start my own drawing, he showed me how to do.

This is the boy who, a year ago, could barely hold a pencil.

All good days begin with a story...

And ours began with the Secret of Black Rock, read by Ferdy.

We love this modern tale, which is about a little girl who discovers the truth about the legend of the spiky Black Rock in the sea near her fishing village.

Then it was out to Pickfords House Museum, a Georgian town house showing how a professional Georgian family lived. I never know whether a museum is going to be interesting for a 4 and 6 year old, but they really loved exploring this house, especially when they realised that two boys aged 6 and 10 had lived there.

tl clockwise: the dining room; down the the servants' quarters and kitchen;
looking at the model theatres; playing in the playroom; trying on costumes.

We read a story about A Special Day at Pickford's house, from the point of view of Joseph Pickford and we discussed their life and the fact that they didn't even have a telly on which to watch PJ Masks. Ferdy took pictures of all the rooms and was intrigued by the pineapple taking centre stage on the dining room table.

Upstairs is a room full of model theatres showing traditional tales, and I was treated to my weekly show:

Even the small garden was the perfect place to play tag.

Later on and as it was a hot day, we decided to get the sprinkler out in the garden and to learn a little about volume. Ferdy had to guess how many 200ml cup fulls of water filled a small bucket, and a watering can, before he measured them out.

x7 cups fill the red bucket

And the day ended by writing a book review.