Clearwater caves & the secret woods

May and I went on a bit of a camping road trip this week.
On Monday we went to clearwell caves, which is an ore mine with beautiful clear pools of water as well as some interesting stalactites and stalagmites made from calcium deposits.

After the caves we had a yummy cream tea and then walked around the secret woods.
They had some rather interesting fairies.
Barbie and ken.
Heehee.
They also had some replica round houses which were cool. And a composting toilet that was an experience.

Getting to the caves was a bit of a nightmare as we got lost and drove into wales 3 times. Thankfully we only had to pay the toll once. Getting to the campsite was a lot easier!

Taro coconut drink

Trying new things! I've Been umming over buying this since the Philippines festival in bedfordshire.
Finally bought it in.Oxford yesterday.
Bottoms up!
Smells yummy and it made pretty good ice cream.before too.
Purple drink!

Yarn bombing snails

Oxford with Tats and Ray

Today we took a trip to Oxford today, Tats needed to get a bus back to Bedford so we thought we'd break the journey up.

We went to g&ds for 11ses then to my favourite museum -the pitt rivers- for a mooch about.
After the museum we went to the sheldonian theatre, bodlian library, radcliffe camera, church, christchurch meadows, the asian supermarkets and then for korean bbq at bamboo.
Busy day!

Craft loft is set up! Yaay!

Tats helped me to set  the loft as acraft space. So, 'i have my mattress on one side for chilling and my sewing machine set up on the other side of the stairs. We put patterns books and half finished projects on the book case and unpacked all the fabric and wool. I have all the beanbags and my cd player and old laptop too.
Tats then hung fairy lights and it looks awesome!
All I need now is the Xbox set up with crunchy roll and you'll never see me again!

Banana bread take 2

This time it didn't rise monstrously or take 3 hours to cook! Winner!
I substituted one egg for milk and it seems less cakey and more like bread.
Dare I tempt fate and say I think I have this now?

Lydiard park, house and geocashing

Drastic haircut 😨

Today I decided to get a haircut. My choppy Sebastian from.black butler hair looked less sleek and cool all tangled in my cardigan because it was longer than my shoulders.
I even took a copy of the blackbutler book with me to show the hairdresser what it was supposed to be like.
But apparently we've made our own interpretation.
I sort of have a mullet not an inverted bob with choppy lengths.
Dammit.
Maybe I should just wear a hat for a while.

More mermaid hair

New dress for Rosie and Tim's wedding

So chuffed with this find from the quays in Gloucester! Ray and I were just mooching about waiting for traff to finish at wrestling training and we saw that white stuff had a sale.
This dress is from the sample sale. £15 bargain. And it's a size 10... admittedly a very big 10.

Gloucester with Ray, katie and Josh

Paddling pool!

As you can see, my long suffering wife has begun the padding pool reparations.
So excited!
Gin in the pool later

Banana bread

Tea and banana bread!

Bbq upgrade!

My parents came for bbq bacon sandwiches for lunch.
And they bought us a new bbq!

It's awesome.

Bbq bacon sarnies

Genius!

London pack holiday day 3

Today we went to see the cutty sark, Greenwich meridian line and took the  thames clipper up to parliament.  We made it back to Victoria for 2.30 to collect our luggage on time too!

We met scouts from Belgium and from Switzerland too- they're in London on an international Camp.
Looks like everyone was in London!

London Pack holiday Day 2

We decided to have a more chilled out day- We went to the Natural History museum, then had lunch in Hyde park.
We watched the Gorilla Circus rehearsals  in the park, and then we went to the princess Diana memorial play ground- which is a huge pirate ship surrounded by sand, and swings and other things to play on.
we could honestly have stayed there all day.
The sun was out, it was awesome.

In the evening we had dominoes pizza for dinner  and the girls watched the first  Harry potter potter movie.
Sunburn all round.

Early birthday surprise

London Pack Holiday Day 1

We met Tats and Kelly and allll the Brownies ate Kings cross at 10am- This would have been soooo much easier if we still lived on the east of the country. This was pretty epic day.
We left the house at 6:30am so I was ready for bed by lunchtime.

We went to GGHQ in Victoria to drop off our luggage and eat our lunch then we went on a sight seeing walking tour.
We say the pelicans in the park! they like it on the rock by the duck keepers cottage if you're looking for them.
We went to the place, the mall, Green park, Parliament and big ben, number 10 then on to Trafalgar square.
20,000 steps! We're all super fit now.

Followed by an extremely well earned dinner in Frankie and Bennies.
Then back to make our camp beds up, eat cookies and drink tea.

Sleep was pretty thin on the ground, between the girls being way too excited to sleep and the underground running under the building it was "patchy at best" (Kelly's fitbit said she'd had 1 hour of REM sleep. I think even that was pretty generous!). Topped off by the cleaner arriving to hoover above us at 5am. At which point I got up and gave up on sleeping.