Family visits...

I'm fortunate to live in a wonderful place for friends and family to visit for a pleasant bit of down time.  This week which just happens to coincide with summer I'm spending a lovely week with my daughter, her partner, and my two gorgeous grandchildren.... Its a reminder that I am the matriarch and while defo the oldest it seems I can still build fab sandcastles

queen of the castle

and make great dens in the garden and thats what counts.. we also managed a good experiment on the beach - a sandcastle every two metres to see how quickly the sea came in -

experimental sandcastles

work in progress

A great idea for keeping a lively 7 yr old entertained on a sunny day after 4 hours on the beach and a walk round the fields - we got an old double sheet from the charity shop - I wanted white but settled for pale pink and we put it over the garden table and tied knots at each corner to make it nice and tight right over to the floor - then we cut a door in it and some windows and then set about decorating it inside and out with the trusty felt tips.... it has flowers, trees, owls and apples all over the walls and then an airline landing strip on the roof complete with landing jungle jet and a hang glider just about land next to a flock of birds carrying cherries...  it has its own outdoor swimming pool Its a work in progress and will be added to over the next few days- very much a work of art and when its finished and the occupants have gone home it will pack up go live in the loft until next time.  Both the baby and my eldest grand daughter love it... however a minor problem.. because we pegged the sheet to the ground with tent pegs to keep it anchored and firm we left it out overnight and the felt tip pens 'ran' creating an interesting merged look which (thankfully)  all of us agreed is quite effective and gives us an psychedelic canvas to continue to work on.. and then tomorrow that will have merged and so on - last night we were able to pop a tablecloth on it to stop any planes landing and we could eat our dinner on it... multi purpose...

The good weather extends the living space which is very useful as an extra four people (some which are rather messy) makes our little cottage very small and the extras you need to contain an active smiley 9 month baby take up so much room... it will feel like a huge house and very quiet this time next week...