A crafty week - 5th october

After last week's fun with Betsy, this week started rather wobbly too. My turn this time - I had a bit of a cold and was miserable with it. I cancelled my rearranged date with the home edder I should have met last Monday. Unsurprisingly she isn't returning my emails - I think I've been written off as unreliable. I will contact her again though, and see if I can persuade her to give me another go!

We went off to the library again - my knee jerk reaction when I have no plans and no energy to make one. It's a 10 minute walk and has got me out of a hole so many times.

The day improved. I printed off some mazes for Freddie to do, and made them more challenging this time as he really is good at them.
Inspired by Cbeebies, Freddie asked if he could make a raincatcher (in fact, he asked last week, and said that he wanted to do it after 4 sleeps. So that's what we did!). He put glitter glue on the bottle, and marked (sort-of) centimetres on the wooden spoon. He gave the spoon and lovely smiley face, and finished it off with googly eyes and feathers for hair.Once the glitter glue has dried we'll find a place for it in the garden.

He had so enjoyed sticking that we carried on, making Naughty Grandad (my dad) a birthday card.
Cue lots of glue and bobbles.

On Tuesday we went to the High Wycombe HE group for the first time. They meet in a hall in the best place for kids - next to a large playing field, a playground and some woods. I would have liked to have chatted more with some parents but as soon as the kids realised there was a playground that was it. We'll definately go again. We were the youngest by miles but I think we might get quite a lot from it.

Wednesday was a relief - Rob was off having worked the weekend before. We went to Waddesdon, a favourite Fielding family destination.

The kids found a big puddle to play in.

We saw some beautiful autumn colours. The last couple of years have been spectacular, and this year is pretty good too.


We walked through the 'jungle' - a short path planted up with lots of enormous tree ferns - and spotted snakes and a tiger hiding in the bushes.
The kids ran/cycled wildly down the hill, over and over again.


We stopped for a *delicious* piece of cake - chocolate and almond, it's so good - and a cuppa, before going to the woodland playground. We virtually had the place to ourselves, which is delightful after the last few visits over the summer.

Then we waited for the land train to take us back up the hill, to the car and home for lunch.

In the afternoon Freddie helped Rob to paint the bench in the front garden. It's something of a family heirloom, having belonged to Rob's mum's parents for a number of years.


Freddie had his swimming lesson later. Rob took him for the first time in a while and was impressed with how well he's doing.

On Friday we saw Sarah, Ben and Sam again. We had a very enjoyable afternoon at their house, and freddie had his first try on a Wii. He didn't seem that bothered luckily, so I don't think he'll be pestering us for one just yet...sighs of relief all round!

And hurrah - we are finally up to date :-)