Reptiles, Robin Hood, Pirate Treasure and C

We have been LOVING this summer.

Things are hotting up in preparation for my little (taller is irrelevant) brother's wedding. Pickle is going to be a Flower Girl. I thought I was unsentimental, but she did a little twirl when she tried the dress on and it brought a tear to my eye. The day may be very emotional. It will be the first wedding I've been to since my own and I hope I have what it takes to read the words Jake and Stacey have asked me to. Meanwhile, Pickle has been getting into the theme with her cousin, making good use of my mum's old chemo wig.

We have been to field parties. Here Pickle is wearing pirate trousers, a flamenco dress, a train engineer tabard and a hard hat.

We went to Chagstock, the festival with the most amazing views, and discovered that if you get right to the front and stand right in the centre, you miss a lot of the amplification which is too much for Pickle's ears, so there we stayed and had a brilliant dance to reggae and ska bands. Earlier, Pickle had been very enthusiastic to hold all the snakes and reptiles she could get her gentle hands on.

She was even unafraid of the T-Rex we met in The Eden Project. I was a bit scared, though, so she cuddled me tight. Turns out dinosars are hard to photograph.

We have gloried in the longtime sun,

 found shade when it got too hot

and water just when we needed it.

Although we have mostly been about dinosaurs lately, we did make time for some interactive theatre sword and bow training with Robin Hood himself at Powderham Castle.

We have had cooler days, but they have just been an opportunity to make fashion history. (Read that whichever way you like.)

Even at home there have been adventures. We have, over the course of many hours, tunnelled through the unexpected raspberries and totally expected brambles to reach Thomas's shed and found many wonders therein. And only last night, Kwazi (a pirate cat Octonaut) gave me a real pirate treasure map for Pickle.

 

She started hunting straight after breakfast and found real treasure! THEN she discovered it was made of chocolate. I think she was pleased.

Meanwhile, Thomas's work is accruing in my Etsy shop. I might do some mini-posts when I put up a new artwork, but here's his C picture for now. How many can you spot?