Strawberries and cream

A summer picnic in the park is not complete without strawberries and cream. This particular cream was Chantilly extra thick (reduced to 48p) and had a hint of vanilla and bourbon. Quite delicious.

The weather was lovely enough to sit on the grass in Wythenshaw park at 7pm!! We went out at around 3pm expecting to have just a couple of hours of warmth when actually the sun shone right up until we left for bedtime - the children's 'bedtime' not ours of course. ;-)

Carrots are scrummy

and very very small......

We made a little vegetable patch at the bottom of the garden earlier this spring and planted some lettuce and carrot seeds. The lettuce grew very quickly and successfully, so much so that we didn't even eat half of it! The children were excited to see the 'salad' grow but were less keen on eating it.

The carrots however caused significantly more excitement - especially because you can't really see them growing. This morning they rushed in from the garden "the carrots are growing and are really big." I went down to see what all the fuss was about and this was what I found. I pulled it up and before washing and chopping into three teeny chunks for them to taste, I took these shots.

This last one just gives an idea of the size, it's not actually a very good photo.

I used auto focus *sigh* silly me.

Day two of summer holidays

And today class we focus on developing our fine motor skills, creativity, concentration and determination......

I'm not sure if you've ever done this craft activity (I forget what it's actually called) but it is *really* fiddly and can go wrong very quickly! I sat and did one along with the kids and made a few mistakes myself. It took a good half hour for me to complete mine and one of the children put in an awful lot of effort to get his end product *exactly* as he wanted it.

We learned an unexpected lesson too or at least Big squish did - do not touch an iron when it is hot!

Our finished master pieces:

Water Fun!

We've been enjoying a fair amount of sunshine this past week, so on Wednesday I decided to take a trip into Manchester City Centre to make the most of it. The fountains in Piccadilly Gardens have become a popular attraction for parents with little toddlers.... and teenagers it seems!

Squishy was being particularly cute and the lighting was just perfect for photography. If only we'd been alone and there weren't so many horrid adverts and eye sores in the way! I got lots of lovely family snaps for our memory albums, but these few are some of my favourites. I was just starting to get into it trying out various compositions and angles when it was time to go.

Squish started off quite apprehensive but by the end of the afternoon she was running not only around the fountains but through them, in them and standing on top of them! she was quite desperate for me to get in there with her but I was quite persistent at staying dry. I did enjoy chasing her around with the camera though :-)

A lovely day was had by the both of us, only to be slightly ruined by the theft of our bike!!!

Windmill

Another couple of snap shots from our half term break in Bungay.

21st Century pre-schooler

21st Century motherhood at its best. Taking your 3 year old out for a coffee and giving them the ipod touch to entertain themselves whilst you play with your DSLR.

It's another one of those in focus/out of focus shots where it's hard to decide which works *best*. I like the second one most.

Beautiful Bees

'Bzzz bzzz bzzzzzz' is the predominant sound in my front garden at the moment. Yesterday whilst the sun shone brightly all afternoon, there was a hive of activity around my pretty little purple flowers. I have no idea what they are called, but they are definitely purple and they are very pretty; they smell nice too. I guess that's why the bees like them so much.

This calls for my camera and most importantly, my macro lens!!

I really love Bumble bees. They are so cute and fuzzy and I have fond memories of them as a child in my grandparents' garden. I recall they lived in the cracks in the dry stone wall rather than the hives that my grandfather cared for. At the time it was a little confusing to understand why only the honey bees made the honey that we ate...

Although the bumble bees are adorably cute, they are *very* busy active little things and consequently a complete pain to capture on camera and even harder to get in focus without movement blur. The above two pictures were the absolute best I got in my brief 15 mins. I did get a number of empty flowers with little bee legs sticking in at the corner having just flown off!

These two bees were much more camera friendly and stayed still, but the wind was blowing and I kept getting in the way casting a shadow over them so whilst they were easier to get in focus I still had movement and lighting problems! I absolutely love the intricacy of detail on their wings and legs and furry little bodies. The top picture the bee was just taking off!

Now I'd love to know if this following shot is actually of a bee or a fly pretending to be a wasp/bee or perhaps it is of the wasp family but not a 'bee'? Who knows. It was very different to the others, it buzzed differently and it moved differently and, most importantly, it stayed very still for a long time so was much easier to capture. It was also on the pink flowers not the purple ones....

Bee bottoms are particularly cute don't you think? I couldn't decide which of the following two photos I liked best and thought as I was putting far more on than normal I may as well show both and let you decide.

This last shot is by far my favourite. I know you can't see the bee very clearly but it's the most artistically satisfying for me.