I'm drinking my coffee nicely

A couple of weeks ago Jackie went to London to become a British citizen.

Theo and I held the fort here in Hamilton New Zealand. In the mornings Theo went to preschool while I went to work. In the afternoons we had fun.

Something we did quite a bit of was visiting cafes. Theo enjoyed this and was very good at drinking his coffee nicely...

Some other stuff we did included...

Saying goodbye to mum at the airport

Doing the vacuuming, dishes and cooking dinner

Having coffees with marshmallows

Falling asleep at lunch

Cycling around the lake

Having a well earned smoothie after some off road biking

Running around the wide open spaces of Hamilton Gardens with bike helmet

Playing in the Hamilton Gardens playground with bike helmet

Crashing out yoga styles

Eating home made chicken and chips

Drinking my coffee nicely

Watching uncle Zane play hockey... while eating a sausage roll

Eating daddy's ice cream to celebrate being a good boy all week.

The weekend after mum got home we went to the Balloons Over Waikato nightglow

Back on the blog wagon

It's been a long time between blogs, we keep meaning to get back in to it to tidy up a few stories from London and to document our transition to Hamilton but we've been so busy it just hasn't happened.

So today Jackie flew back to London to pick up her British Citizenship. It was a big decision to go through the process of applying for citizenship for Jackie and to fly her back to do the ceremony but it give us so many more options for our future.

Of course, with Jackie being away for ten days I'm a solo dad. Day one has gone well, Theo seemed to understand that mummy has gone away but will be back soon. This afternoon, after we'd got back to Hamilton Theo would point at planes that flew past as say that mummy is in there. He's also been saying that mummy is going to visit Jo and Marsh and Fi and Baby Ally.

We had home made fish and chips for dinner and Theo went through his normal routine of bath, teeth, books and bed, he was asleep before 8.30 and is still asleep a couple of hours later. Let's hope he has a good night sleep because I'm under the weather and could do with a rest.

Herne Hill market and Brockwell Park

Brockwell Park is a bit of a walk from our neighbourhood but it's good to visit for a change. It featured in a 2011 post, An Anniversary of Sorts.

I've had two relatively recent trips, one to the Lambeth Country Fair with Theo and another with Jackie and Theo.

At the Fair, Theo rushed to sit down to watch the choir, clapping along.

Theo really enjoyed the fair, particularly watching the fair rides with their bright lights, however, by the time the camel racing started he was getting a little restless. 

I enjoyed the Camel racing though, it was a bit lame but a novelty all the same. 

The next, and last trip to Brockwell Park started with a visit to Herne Hill market which is across the road from the park.

We picked up lots of yummy food for lunch and spent a little time listening to the live band

We took a walk around Herne Hill which was recently flooded. Many shops were empty as they fixed flood damage.

Not even the gingerbread men could escape the flooding. 

This bottle top in concrete footpath survived

On to the park. Theo is the tiny person to the left of Jackie. He didn't want to be seen out with his parents. 

Bye bye Brockwell Park.

Jackie's birthday 2013

Another long overdue post...

A card and present for you mummy

In to the city on the way to the Summer exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, photo op in front of B palace.

No photos inside the exhibition.

A surprise for all of us was an impromptu lunch at Fortnum and Mason. It was very nice. 

Walking through St James Park to get coffee. Another beautiful summer day in London.

Coffees and smoothies all round at Strutton Ground Market

Train home

That evening Jo babysat and we went to Meza for dinner. This is a very popular, 15 seat Lebanese restaurant. I booked over a week in advance and we had to take a 9pm sitting. We're so pleased we got to go here before we left London. It lived up to expectations. 

As it was Jackie's birthday we went to Afters for an ice cream on the way home. 

Farewell highlights - Greenwich

I've been a bit slack and posting about our farewell adventures so I'm going to try and do a few rapid fire, picture and caption only posts while Theo is sleeping and it is raining out side.

Shortly after I returned from NZ in June and deciding that we would move back to NZ for good, we went for one last trip to Greenwich (30th June - it was a hot sunny day, in stark contrast to the weather we have at the moment).

Catching the tube

Think the train is coming

The Shard, at London Bridge

Theo loves a train journey

The markets

Picnic in the park

Theo likes sitting on park benches

The Royal Observatory at Greenwich Park

Royal Naval College buildings

The recently restored Cutty Sark. In the time we've lived in London this historic ship has been burnt to the ground and rebuilt

Hartington

For the second August bank holiday weekend we rented a car and drove to Yorkshire. We had booked a cottage in a small village but before we get ahead of ourselves we have to explain the drive first of all.

The drive strarted out OK, we drove south to get on the m25. From there pretty much nothing went right. The m25 was a parking lot, it took us about 3 hours just to get out of London. Fortunately Theo had been reasonably well behaved to this point.

I can't remember the exact route but once off the m25 we were on to the next motorway which was moving better although still had its moments. Theo was still behaving well, eating his way through all his snacks.

And then the traffic was the least of our problems. Theo vomited up all of his considerable afternoon tea. We were stuck in the middle lane of a motorway with traffic that wasn't moving so we had no way of getting out of the car. After two big spews, Theo had filled his car seat with vomit but fortunately not on Jackie or the rental car.

Promptly after the spew, Theo was quite content to go to sleep, literally in a pool of his own vomit.

So we didn't bother pulling over to clean him up, we enjoyed the peace and focussed on getting to our cottage as quickly as possible. Eventually off the motorway we were now relying on the driving directions we'd printed off. It was now dark and the rain was coming down in sheets, I could barely see out the windscreen.

So even if we could read the driving directions, we couldn't see the road signs we were supposed to be following. We did pull off one road only to decide it was the wrong one. Ten minutes later on we realised we'd missed our turn off, and eventually realised the road we'd originally turned down was where we were supposed to be.

We got there in the end, it was a hell of a trip, the weekend was going to have to be a good one to make up for the drive up.

When we arrived at the cottage we were pretty sure it was going to be a great weekend.

The next morning confirmed this.

Hartington is a picture perfect English village

This was our red car, out cottage door to the left of the car.

The general store next door, they had all the stuff a general store should have and had delicious home made cakes at very reasonable prices - we had a few. 

Theo and I went for a little walk on the first morning

On the Monday, Jackie joined us and we went a bit further, Theo confidently striding out in front the whole time. 

The following are views and the surroundings of our cottage....

And some pics of the village we stayed in...

As well as enjoying the cottage and the village, we drove in to Sheffield for a bbq lunch with friends. They are renovating their house at the moment and so there were lots of things for the children to explore, Theo loved it.

We had a great weekend, if you ever have the chance to go visit Hartington I strongly suggest you do.

You'll be pleased to know our journey home was much less eventful.