We managed to pack ourselves and our stuff into the car and make it to the park day only about an hour late (which is a good showing for us pack of slackers). Knowing that we were going to one of the parks on the riverside where they usually end up playing in the water, K packed a bag with a towel and swimmers for both of them, without being asked. We picked up some picnic food on the way through Hoonville and then had a lovely time at the park with friends. K distributed verbal invitations to her birthday tea party, because Mr Bat hasn’t set up the colour printer for me so I can print out the ones we’ve made. After we’d played and eaten, the kids got changed and went down to the water, which would have been much more fun had it not been very low tide with the water an awful long way away across mud, shells and rocks. They made sand castles instead of paddling, and at least having their bathers on meant they weren’t wearing damp sandy clothes for the rest of the day so it wasn’t entirely pointless.

Eventually I got bored with watching them build sandcastles and chivvied them back into the car so we could head off to the tip shop, since we were only two minutes away. I really wish I’d though things through a bit better, because I would have taken the back seat out of the car, and then I could have put two cast iron lawn chairs and/or a large pile of recycled bricks into the back. Instead, I settled for an old, wobbly and slightly rusty sit-on sandpit digger for the eventual Mechanical Gardens, a book-rack thing for the learning room, and some old china and silver for the tea party. Then we headed off to Kingston, and ducked into the Vinnies there in search of more tea party stuff. Didn’t find any, but I did find two really good quality jigsaw puzzles for the kids (as well as an antique ironstone basin for me!).

Kids were melting down a bit and the supermarket was quite crowded with people picking up stuff for dinner after picking up their kids from school, so instead of doing the fortnightly shop I just did enough so that we can eat for the next two days. When we got home, we did the two jigsaw puzzles – this one with H and this one* with K – and then they amused themselves on the computer while I flumped. After Mr Bat got home, he and Dylan cleaned the kitchen, then he sat down with K and did some more programming. H drew a rectangle outline on a piece of paper, folded it in half, and asked me to draw in the rest of a computer for him! By the time we’d finished dinner it was quite late, so Baron Bernie’s blog, and bed.

* I really like these Usborne jigsaw puzzles – we also have a Christmas one – because of the  way they encourage sorting and grouping the pieces. This one is even better than the Christmas one, because each season picture has a different border, so I showed K how after sorting the border pieces from the insides, she could sort them by pattern into each picture, which made it much easier and quicker to put the whole puzzle together.