Berry tasty

Sometimes (like nearly closing time on a busy summer Sunday) we've found fruit pickings to be a bit thin at Indian Ladder Farms. 

Not today - there were plenty of blueberry bushes bursting with perfect ripe berries.  I soon had a punnet full to the brim.

Blueberries for breakfast, lunch and dinner, yum yum.

Good clean fun

We were quite tickled by this informative sign at the Mystic Aquarium the other day (you might have to click on the photo for the full fun):

Recovery

It certainly was a long night, but we did (just about) manage to survive it.  Due to a "crackling of thunder" the boys abandoned the tent and came indoors about 1am.  Otherwise everything pretty much went to plan, i.e. the kids ate way too much candy and had hardly any sleep at all. 

Today has been given over to recovery - the dragging of weary bodies from one couch to another, the fizz and pop of short fuses, that sort of thing. 

In all sorts of ways, I've been reminded of this day - and who'd have thought Murray's "next time" on Centre Court would come so soon and with such a golden result?  I enjoyed watching the match online this morning.

The Man was also involved in some different recovery action today - a spot of roadside rescue for friends who'd come a-cropper.  Nobody was hurt, thankfully, though they'll have to wait and see if the vehicle they were in will make a full recovery.

Intent to party

Well, plenty of Olympic excitement in London for Team GB! We've been watching it all live on NBC online (oddly enough with mainly Australian commentary - the BBC is blocked of course), while keeping half a teary eye on the almost equally wild excitement going on in our pool and backyard.

A bunch of about ten kids have been here since 1 o'clock, but as far as the fun goes we're barely started yet.  It's 6pm as I write, and the party is due to go on until - yikes - noon tomorrow.  It's likely to be a long and noisy night, with girls in the "three season" room, and boys out the back in (oh my!) our new tent (a modest little thing about the size of our back garden in Linton).

I'll report back tomorrow - possibly a paler, blearier version of my former self...

Smartie-pants phone

I took the kids food shopping for their party, and lo the cupboard is now bulging with a variety of edible non-foodstuffs.  Ho hum.  I'm sure it'll all go down well (and let's just hope not too much of it comes up again in the middle of the night).

The entire surface of the pool is now covered in inflatables and no water is visible.  It gives me an idea for a new Olympic swimming event - the 200m obstacle crawl.

Meanwhile the Girl has been quizzing Siri, the smart-aleck voice of the Man's iPhone, on the meaning of Life the Universe and Everything.  Selected answers include:

• I Kant answer that. Ha-ha.
• It's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya.
• I can't answer that right now, but give me some time to write a long play in which nothing happens.
• All evidence to date suggests it's chocolate.
• Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try to live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.
• 42

Has anyone got anything else to offer on the subject?

Breathless with excitement

The kids have a party scheduled for the weekend (hang on, didn't I say "never again"?), and of course half the fun of a party is in the planning and preparations.  Today they've been choosing DVDs from the library for the evening entertainment, and picking out a couple of new inflatables for the pool-party side of things (and guess w-h-h-h-o's been blowing them up?).

Tomorrow we'll be working on the menu.  They couldn't possibly be expecting a festival of salt, fat and sugar...could they?

Watch the birdie

So, back at the aquarium...

We listened in on a couple of presentations about seals and sea-lions which managed to be fun and educational at the same time.  We learnt that seals are "opportunistic feeders" - just like someone (beginning with G) in our family.  And we attended the "Sea-lion Show", which was pretty low key and mostly demonstrated how the animals are taught to do tricks that make it easier for the trainers to keep them healthy and active.  As far as the show went, the sea-lions had the last say.  A couple of them didn't feel much like performing, wandered on stage and got fed a fish or two then wandered off again.  We rather admired their nonchalance.

A surprise extra for a venue concerned with aquatic life was the summer special "Birds of the Outback" exhibit.  Basically, a big tent full of budgerigars.  For $3 each we got to go in with a bit of millet stuck on a stick to see how many budgies we could tempt down from their perches.  It was a lot of feathery fun.  I'd forgotten how much I like budgies.

But the highlight of the visit for me was a 10 year-old beluga whale called Juneau.  He kept coming right up to the glass viewing wall to look at the crowd.  He seemed especially interested in very small children, and would press his nose against the glass and squeak at them, and stay with them for minutes at a time.  Who knows, maybe he was asking them to get him out of there?  But it seemed more like he was just being friendly and trying to play.  It was entrancing to watch.  I quite lost my heart to that pudgy white whale.