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| It's not quite as cold as it looks ;-) but it wasn't very warm on this occasion! |
Well, this is the last week of the summer school holidays - which means it's back to lessons next week! I always keep the same term days and holidays as the local schools, so this year they got just over 7 weeks of holidays, which I've enjoyed every minute of! To make things even better, we've had more sunshine & warm weather than we've had in years, and it's been sooooo nice!
We managed a second trip to the beach this year, tho the 2nd time wasn't as warm & sunny as the day in Rosemarkie. We went to nearby Portmahomack with friends, which was good fun. And we managed a picnic and the kids had fun in the sand & water before a heavy downpour came! lol
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| Benjamin, Abigail & friends in the water |
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| Eating lunch - out of the sand! ;-) |
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| Me and my lovely husband :) |
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| Clement decided he wanted to have his lunch all on his own - or maybe he just wanted to get a bit further away from the smell of seaweed? ;-) |
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| A very quiet beach - especially on a day without the sun. But, as you'll see a few photos below - the population on the beach changed very quickly ... |
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| That's better - mama finally puts me down in the sand! |
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| But when you do this with the sand ... it's not long before it's in your eyes. :-/ |
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| Me and my dear Elijah :-) |
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| Oh yes, I said the beach population changed suddenly! ;-) It's not like the sun came out or anything. But unknown to us, the local "gala" in Portmahomack was on that week and they were having a sand castle building competition that afternoon. So suddenly it looked like the whole village descended on us! :-P Not sure how well it went for them, as they didn't get *that* much time down there before the rain came. |
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| Benjamin having a "picnic" with Elijah - with everything lined up very orderly, of course! ;-) |
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| Football, or something like that! |
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| I'm very pleased with the results of a £1 box of "shake & rake" seeds I bought from a pound store earlier this year! I dumped some in these window boxes and they have flourished! It's been quite fun to see what comes up, since it was a mix of lots of different things. |
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| My first poppy! Yes, I'm rather fond of poppies. |
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| Deborah wanted her photo taken with a drawing of hers. She's always creating some work of art! :-) |
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| Best of friends, though Elijah does get a bit frustrated sometimes when she wants to treat him like a baby! |
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| On Tuesday this week Peter suggested we went out for a drive/day trip up north. We had one in the winter, but the ice on the back roads (and getting dark so early) meant we didn't get to explore much, so we promised the children we'd try to do it again in the summer. We didn't end up leaving the house until 11am (so didn't have a *ton* of time) but we still had a lovely day. We had a picnic in the car along the way (it was raining), and then we visited the Grey Cairns of Campster after lunch. I love old stone structures (even tho this one has been reconstructed), but I thought the kids would enjoy being able to actually go inside. |
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| Peter and the children heading out to see the round one. The red & pink dot near it is Benjamin and Deborah - ahead of everyone else! :-) |
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| The Round Cairn |
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| Deborah feeling unsure about venturing inside |
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| And eventually being brave, of course! |
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| Heading off to see the long one |
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| Coming out! Ouch - watch your head! |
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| The whole family inside! Yes, I crawled inside too! :-) Short and narrow passage, but very spacious once you're inside! |
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| Benjamin :-) |
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| Then we stopped by to see the Hill O' Many Staines - since we were already nearby. |
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| Deborah wanted her picture taken with the lovely purple heather! :-) |
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| Benjamin & Elijah reading the sign! :-) |
After this we phoned up our friends Flora & David to see if we could drop in to see them. Was lovely to see them, their children, and their farm! :-) I've known Flora since I was just turned 16, so was great to have a wee visit to theirs. And apologies to other friends in the area who we didn't get to see - but one short afternoon in Caithness doesn't give time to see everyone! :-/ I guess next time we go north, we'll have to leave the house earlier than 11am! lol
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| Then we went to Thurso for a yummy fish & chip takeaway for dinner - eating in a lovely park/square. The children love pretty flower gardens - so all enjoyed the evening meal eaten outside. |
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| I let Elijah out of his pushchair to stretch his legs, but he loves to climb back in (and up & down again). |
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| My lovely girls! :-) |
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| And yes, it was IMPOSSIBLE to get a decent photo of all 5 of them! I guess when it gets to about 7pm, they're well beyond their best (even after 5 can be bad enough). So yeah, Benjamin *wanted* to ruin the photo, and Elijah just didn't want to sit long enough - but there you have it - all 5 looking very true to life - chaos & all! :-) |
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| Latheronwheel harbour. We had a lovely clear evening going home - and the sun even came out for part of the drive. |
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| Latheronwheel harbour |
Well, this is most of what we've been up to these last weeks of the school holidays! I've not included photos of our amazing day to Fort George, for their "Celebration of the Centuries" event. It was only about a week ago we were there. But there are too many photos to include in this blog post, so watch out for another post sometime soon (I hope!) with lots of photos from our day out there. It was great fun and the kids will be talking about it for a long time yet! :-)
