Our recent highlights from yet another rainy ‘Summer’ week!
Brabyns Park
Before the rain really set in this week, we managed to spend a lovely sunny morning at Brabyns Park in Marple. We love this park – it has just about everything we need. A free car park, playground, duck pond, a heron at the pond, and a huge flat grassy field which is perfect for kicking a ball around on.
Annabelle always impresses me with how fast her strength and agility develops, and her latest achievement at this park is that she has learnt how to cross a section of climbing frame joined by chain-link; Brave girl! She loves comming here to climb, swing, drive, see-saw, bounce and spin!
Boing boing ‘boinging’
“Driving like Daddy”
Whee!
After exploring all the play equipment, we went to feed the ducks, watch the heron, and check on the tadpoles we have been watching grow. (They are very fat, but no legs yet!) we also saw some moorhen chicks wading about on top of the lilly pads but my photos didn’t show them very well.
“Lets find the ducks!”
Watching the tadpoles
Rainy Day Picnics
As usual, we have refused to let the weather stop us! Thursday was pretty rainy, but we saw a gap in the weather and took our lunch out into the garden to get some fresh air. We put blankets over the benches to keep us dry, and wrapped up warm, but it was lovely to sit out and enjoy that special kind of fresh clean air that comes after rain. The dampness provided fantastic conditions for a snail hunt after lunch, and Annabelle had a great time rooting through the wet grass and leaves looking for bugs.
Wrapped up warm!
Daddy came home to join in too!
Friday was a day of torrential rain, so it was definitely too wet to be outside but we just took the picnic rug into the lounge. Perfect!
Picnic #2!
Hoovering fun
Big news – we have made a breakthrough! Annabelle has been playing with her birthday Hoover…and enjoying it. After a shaky start, we left her to explore this at her own pace and suddenly she loves it! I was hoovering one day, and Annabelle just asked if she could get her hoover and join in (there have been plenty of times when she wouldn’t even walk past it!) and before I knew it, she was whizzing up and down the hall hoovering with delight, switching it on and off, and emptying the dust collection box.
Helping Mummy hoover
It just proves that children will make their own discoveries at their own pace, in their own time. Even if it is just playing with a new toy!
Recycling truck ride
Now, as we know, Annabelle loves all things ‘bin’ related. She loves sorting the recycling into the right bins, she tells us off profusely if a piece of paper or card finds it’s way into a general bin, she counts recycling trucks while we are out in the car and she knows that in Stockport the recycling trucks are white, red in Tameside, and blue in Preston. Monday is Annabelle’s favourite day of the week because of course the ‘bin men’ come on Monday (I think ‘recycling opperative’ is probably a bit of a mouthful just yet!)
Anyway, after watching the Olympic Torch Relay we walked through the local shopping centre and came across this ride. Annabelle doesn’t often ask to go on these rides (yet!) but this one was a bit special – A Recycling truck!
Little Miss Recycle coming through!
This is one happy little lady!
Love the hover,hope Annabelle did a good job.