Lots of water play in July!

July has been such a fab month. Yes I realise it is not yet over but I had a spare half hour so thought I would crack on...

LOVING the sunshine. Don't seem to remember it being predicted which makes it all the better (nothing worse than to expect a summer and get just a another milder version of winter...like last year). And we have had some really great weekends.

Seeing our Scottish rellies again a few weeks ago was a real treat. The whole family met up for hot dogs, ginger beer and eton mess in the sunshine. And 'Uncle Al' had created a mud kitchen in the garden. You have never seen anything so exciting for a child, in fact I would have happily had a few hours playing myself (for more photos of exactly what a mud kitchen involves see http://abcdoes.typepad.com/abc-does-a-blog/2013/07/make-a-mud-kitchen-its-a-must.html)

We also had a trip to The Lakes with our lovely friends, The Miltons. On previous trips Mabel has been slightly nervous of their huge dog Daisy, who although friendly is a little boisterous. Not so this time (check out baby Monty taking a dive in the background!)

Pretty much the entire three days was spent in or around water whether paddling at the lake, in the paddling pool or the small stream that runs through their garden.

We had a really lovely break including days out on a boat, an open top bus ride and fish and chips in the park. Not to mention evening barbeques, some girls' free time shopping/drinking wine in the sun and even a game of Cluedo! We picked up some ginger and rhubarb jam (mmmm) from a little cottage opposite this quaint village hall...

The bus was much faster than we realised and shortly after this picture we had a near miss from a passing tree which nearly whipped Monty in the face. Adrenalin loving Mabes was in her element:

The weather also made for a lovely day at Greenhead Park in Huddersfield with our NCT friends. You have to love a well maintained and managed park space. Greenhead Park was renovated a couple of years ago and now has an huge open paddling pool, great play areas (including den making materials and water pipes etc), a lovely cafe and miniature train rides. Since all being back at work we haven't met up as a group for a long time so it was great to see our now big girls playing together and generally catching up on everyone's news. 

Aside from that we continue to fit as much as possible into our lives. G Kisby has been busy doing his last assignment of the year for his masters course and we have been viewing houses as much as possible since working out that we can (just about) afford to rent our house out rather than sell (since we can't find a buyer). We did get an offer but it was low and they hadn't sold their house so I guess it was pointless. Curses to the slow housing market. We are both a bit unsure of the whole renting thing but since neither of us have a pension perhaps it will turn out to the best option. We'll see.  

August is likely to be just as busy if we manage to find a house but very exciting....