Thursday photo #215

Every now and then, the pace of life slows down a little. It’s never for long, especially not at this time of year. In fact, things picked back up today with an early start for me and Lia to head to London. But while it lasted, I enjoyed taking things a little slower.

The Cotswolds

We live a short distance from the Cotswolds and it’s one of my favourite parts of the country. Even the buildings are beautiful, built from Cotswold Stone which has a very distinctive yellowy colour. And yet, it’s quite rare for us to head over that way.

The one thing we never can turn down though is good food. So with father’s day on Sunday, we decided Saturday was a good time to head to the Cotswolds and have lunch at the Swan at Southrop. I’d agreed to an Instagram post for them in return for lunch, so I was snapping away with my camera as usual. And for the first time ever, I wasn’t the only one.

After receiving a camera for her birthday last week, Libby was keen to join in with the photography. She’s getting quite good at it, I look forward to her being able to take over that job from me. I’ve never really had the eye for it that she’s got.

Finally swimming

After lunch, we spent the evening at a small local music festival in Malvern. We never really know any of the bands, but the girls love getting up for a dance. For us, there’s nothing more relaxing than sitting on a picnic blanket drinking cider and listening to music. Plus, it’s all done for charity so we like to show our support.

We didn’t stay too late though, because the following day was father’s day and we had biscuits to make. There are two things my dad loves – whiskey and biscuits. With his birthday this weekend (it’s as if he planned it just to be awkward), we went with biscuits for father’s day. Luckily he loved them, but I think we all know what he’ll be getting for his birthday!

Before making our biscuit delivery, there was the small matter of swimming lessons. It’s week three for Lia and after her lesson, she played in the pool with us. And much to our shock, started swimming on her own. Only a few metres but she had no float and wasn’t panicking about going underwater. The change in her in three weeks has been remarkable and we’re all so impressed.

Thursday photo #215

The other thing we’ve been doing this week is making elderflower champagne. I love this time of year where you can make pretty amazing tasting booze easily and for free. We adapted this recipe and made around 16 litres.

The girls have loved running on the hills, which admittedly was mainly so I could take some photos. You may have noticed my new blog header, and this is the original photo. I’m so happy with it, I love the colours and think it captures their characters well.