Wow, August was LOTS of fun!

With this batch of photos they can be enlarged by clicking on them.

What a month August was!  There was a massive family reunion at Wallmead.  The family gathered to see off Chrissie, Chris and Lucy as they embark on a two year working placement in South Africa.  Chrissie will be working with AIDS sufferers and studying foetal transmission of AIDS.  It was lovely to see Mark and Stacey back from Japan too. We had Helen, Alex and Lucy to stay. We went on a long walk along the Strawberry line. And we watched the Eastaugh's barn take shape. We took one or two (hundred) photos along the way too.

Here's Emma admiring her new growing chart.  She is now 88cm tall - nearly 3 foot!

This is Cabot Circus being built.  It's a new shopping centre in Bristol.

Emma and I had a good explore of Bristol and found John Wesley's chapel in the centre of Broadmead.  Very interesting.  We bought Mummy a bookmark!

Here's Emma in the bath having water tipped over her head and trying to smile for the camera.

She loves her bath  these days and doesn't mind getting her ears wet!

She's getting used to a wider range of food too and will share ours as long as its not too spicy.  She enjoys most parts of a roast dinner.

Here she is posting in some broccolli.  We were impressed.  We call broccolli little trees, runner beans snakes and carrots tortoises in an attempt to make dinner time more interesting.

Emma is very much into drawing now.  Her spirals make excellent snail shells.  Unfortunately she is also fond of body art.

Here is Wallmead getting glitzed up to host the reunion.  I think we had 34 relatives crammed in.

Here's the star of the show, little Lucy, my cousin Chrissie's daughter.  It was the first time we had met her and she was very sweet.

Emma spent a lot of time running around with Ria.

Granny did a lot of toddler bouncing.

And here's Granny B joining in too.

Lucy had a good maul of Grandad's chin.

And Emma enjoyed having a hold of Lucy too under some very watchful eyes.

Here's Mike and Lin's barn conversion.  It's going to be very luxurious when its finished.

The builders has just gone bankrupt so I took some pictures of incompete doors and woodwork for Mike so he had proof of unfinished work.  Somehow two little imps kept creeping into my pictures!

There is a secret walled garden around the back.  This is the hole that has been dug for a swimming pool.

Here's Ria doing a very impressive jump.

Ria's room is extremely pink.

I love this binocular shot.

Mark and Stacey had brought some rice paper sweets from Japan.  Emma got stuck in.

We went to Old Wardour Castle the next day.  Here's Emma and Ria looking out of a window rather high up.

This is the very top of the castle.

Emma did some hilarious poses in one of the statue alcoves.

Stretch high!

Shrug your shoulders!

Stand on one leg!  Gotta love that dress (thank you Ria!)

Ria showed she could do some good poses too.

Get the girl a horse, quick!

Here we are in the grotto.

The youngest three climbed up to the top step.

Back in Clevedon now Emma's slowly getting the hang of putting socks on.

Nanna came up and had a game of football with Emma.

Becky's bought a wonderfully colourful new bike.  Emma was entranced.

Here's Tigger prowling the garden

One of my better photography efforts.  I'm proud of this bee in flight amongst the lavender.

Emma's started taking an interest in the toilet flush and were encouraging her to use the potty.  Without much success so far.

She does enjoy playing on the computer though.  This alphabet game with animals is one of her favourites.

Wow, bubbles!

We went a walk from Axminster to Yatton along the Strawberry Line, an old train route that fell into disuse. Emma walked some of it but it was 8 miles in all so we were glad of the push chair.

We found a pub with an excellent beer garden.  It had a swing and other children so Emma was happy.

Emma had a good nap after we left the pub.

We left a car at Yatton and ended leaving Emma at Rob and Becky's whilst we collected the other car.  Emma had a good time especially when introduced to teletubby songs on youtube.  She came away asking for "Hours and Hours of Teletubbies"

Here's Emma in bed. She loves the silky edge of her blanket.  

Alex has landed!

Bouncy bed fun.

Noah's Ark Zoo Farm let the children hold chicks.  Emma wanted to keep hers.

Alex fell in love with his too.

Apart from the chicks though the children had more interest in playing with each other rather than the animals.  Emma loved Lucy.

And playing with Alex in the Wendy House.

Emma sings a lot now.  You can bet below she is singing "See-saw Marjery Daw etc"

Emma is extremely favoured being allowed to play with Alex's doggy, his bedtime companion.

Here's Lucy making a grab for Emma's nose.