sunday sunday

Scorcher Sunday - 27 degrees, which is about as hot as we can hope for on this grey little island - and a rare day without plans, so we decided to hit the nearest beach. Left it too late to go anywhere famously lovely like Southwold or Whitstable, but felt brave enough for a trip to Southend-on-Sea, and despite the horror movie traffic on arrival it was worth the hot car journey. The beach down by Thorpe Bay was lined with a pretty rainbow of beach huts which provided convenient shade, and not at all crowded with big sunburned bodies. Pablo quickly made friends and found an impressive haul of big crabs and little jellyfish to net and bucket. After we'd had all the sun, sea & strawberries we needed, a scuttle back up the coast brought the pier and it's impressive funfair (Pablo's first roller coaster, which he loved), plus some compulsory fresh fish and chips. 

oranges and lemons

After being very dramatic  for the past year about my absolute need for some extreme exposure to the sun, we finally got a mega-hit when we made a long overdue visit to my mama's idyllic little farm in Spain at the end of April. We must have picked the perfect time of year because wildflowers were everywhere (even in our salads) and the air was warm, full of bees and the scent of orange blossoms. The kiddos were in heaven, pottering about semi (or totally) nude, picking and eating oranges from the trees and catching frogs by day, stargazing and sleeping SO soundly by night. There was no TV to turn to and it wasn't missed, and with my mum and her partner Quinto about I got some very luxurious rooftop sunbathing spells and finished an entire book! 

The hippies who live down on the riverbed through a Children's festival that perfectly coincided with our visit - think Shamanic drumming lessons, Geodesic domes, Kids trapezing at dusk and lots of daal. On other days we made home made strawberry granita with berries so naturally sweet they made me dizzy, or paddled with the tadpoles in my mum's pool, filled with river water. Pablo fell in love with his first ever pet, a snail, and got his first kiss from the neighbour's two year old daughter, Umi, by the festival campfire. Dreamy days...