Summer Thus Far

The summer holidays from school are short here in the UK.  I think we have 6 weeks break before school starts up again and we are finding plenty to do in our "off" time.

Amy did two weeks of tennis camp.  She seems to have a natural talent for it and also enjoys it quite a lot.  Amy was awarded the "Player of the Day" trophy twice during camp and intends to continue with tennis lessons this fall. 

 Emily was such a good ball-picker-upper for the players that the coach invited her to attend a day of tennis camp free of charge.

4-year-olds don't have the same physical coordination that 7-year-olds do, but Emily enjoyed playing with the big girls anyway.  The coach, Anita, was very kind and helpful to both girls.

Back at home we found some new creative outlets as well. 

We made candles in a variety of shapes/containers.  Pictured below are a few of our early attempts.  We have since experimented with other shapes, colour-schemes and wick widths.

We made worms with the sewing machine:

We have also enjoyed outings to new sites close to home.  Some friends of ours invited us to "Hills and Holes" - a nature reserve near the village of Barnack.  Built on top of an old gravel pit, it is just as the name implies.  We also saw plenty of interesting wildflowers, insects, and even a few of the local farmer's sheep.

We found a really great climbing tree too:

Once the weekend arrives, Dad gets to join in our adventures.  All together, we visited Normanton Church Museum which is half submerged into the nearby Rutland Water reservoir.  It also houses an Anglo-Saxon skeleton and some other interesting archaeological finds.

Summer is the prime season for visiting English Gardens and there is nowhere more famous (locally, anyway...) than Barnsdale Gardens:

Created by Geoff Hamilton for BBC Gardeners' World, Barnsdale is Britain's largest collection of individually designed gardens.  Our favourites were the Knot Garden (pictured above), the playhouses, and of course, the Kitchen Gardens.