summer holidays

As I write it seems that summer is well and truly over.  


It was my first ever summer holidays at home with my children and a thoroughly enjoyable one too. I learned so much just hanging out with them every day. The most important lesson: slow down. It's so important to take time just to be (as opposed to do).

We lay down on the floor face to face and chatted about nonsense.


We read stories. And made some up too.


We went camping and toasted marshmallows round the bonfire, made new friends and fed pigs.

We climbed St. Michael's Mount in Cornwall and imagined pirates coming to catch us.


We swam and sunbathed at the lido, the Frog perfected her diving and Rowdy and I rated her, Olympic style. Then we all pretended to be synchronised swimmers.


We saw Toy Story at the cinema and battled with the 3D specs.


We explored parts of Kew Gardens we'd never been to before and made camp under the branches of a tree while it poured with rain outside.


We ate a lot of picnics!


But mostly we didn't do much at all - just hung out together and enjoyed each other.  


Awe & Wonder at its most profound.

Perspectives

One of the wonderful things about having children is the way you are constantly forced to change your perspective on the world. Seeing things through their eyes is without doubt one of the best ways to ensure a daily dose of 'awe and wonder' in your life.

We had a wonderful day at Kew Gardens on Sunday where this idea of perspectives was something we (the grown ups) thought about a lot. 

The Treetop walk literally made us see things differently.  From 30m or so above the ground, walking through the leaves, how could it not.

After lunch we played wheelbarrow races, gave the children 'elephant' rides and generally romped on the floor. I haven't laughed so much for ages and the children truly loved it with us 'on their level'.

Kew Gardens is beautiful at this time of year and the children were exploring their independence as well as their surroundings, going on bear hunts and various other expeditions.  Simply observing the way they live so completely 'in the moment' was an interesting shift in my perspective. I'm going to try it more, it might well be one of the best ways to ensure a bit more wonder in my own life!

Breaking Bread

Food is always a source of great delight in our family and many wonderful weekends are spent with friends cooking, eating and drinking wine.

My first moment of awe and wonder this weekend was marvelling at how we have passed on the joy of breaking bread to our children. We were at a friends house house for 'tea' on Friday, and often these events are truly stressful tantrumfests. But not this week. The six children invited, aged from 2 to 8, sat around the table told stories and jokes to each other and ate a convival meal of pizza and salad, occassionally toasting each other (and each other's burps!) with French grenadine. It was brilliant: partly a glimpse into the future of their lives and partly a miniature mirror of our own.

Later that evening, my husband and I made fatayer for our picnic on Saturday, a delicious middle-eastern treat... a total faff to make. But we did it together, sharing a bottle of wine - stopping only to eat chicken barbecued with a harrissa marinade and to dance around the kitchen. Wonderful.

Saturday was a picnic at Kew Gardens with dear friends. We packed my granny shopping trolley with a feast and took the boat from Westminster Pier. Behaving like a tourist always reminds me of how awesome our capital city is: steeped in history, brimming with creativity and beautiful to look at from the Thames in the sunshine.

Kew Gardens itself is a magical place; there is always something new to see. Today there were giant sculptures of seed pods crafted from wicker. They were fantastic, the children loved them and so did we. (Last time we went, it was new born ducklings who wanted to share our picnic and the only place in London where the sun was shining).

We found a beautiful spot near the bottom of the lake to lay out our blanket and feast. We were joined by friends, opened some champagne and shared much laughter. Every now and then one of our group would wander off to look at something in the gardens: the treetop walk, the sackler crossing, the water lily house, where the lily pads are so enormous they would probably hold my five year old.

I spent much of the day thinking about my quest for awe and wonder and that whenever I think it doesn't exist I must just spend the day at Kew. It is an awe-inspiring place: from the beauty of the natural world, to man's desire to love and protect it. The best of it exists here.

Sunday was a lazy day, lounging with the papers at Brockwell Lido. London in the sunshine: awesome!

All in all a great weekend for awe and wonder. I'm enjoying the search; looking for the positive in things that surround me. After all it would have been very easy to feel extremely pissed off when: 1. my husband decided to get car insurance quotes just as we were about to leave the house on our way to Kew causing us to miss our boat, or 2. when my daughter refused to eat anything other than ice cream at our picnic on Saturday or 3. when I got a £120 fine for going into a box junction. Arse! Life can be as awful as awesome.