Small Houses, Tall Towers and Old Friends

After any kind of break or holiday I relish that point when I sit down on a Sunday night and go through all my photos. Inevitably I take too many and - lucky for you - delete about 95% of them, but I like to reflect on all that has happened, all that we did and saw and experienced. 

We had such a wonderful half term break! We really did. The main part of the week was spent at home pottering, doing chores, getting stuff done, but in a relaxed way. After two months in our house (is it really only that long?) a large part of our free time is still spent doing house and garden related tasks. The garden is really starting to take shape now and I'll show you more soon. On Friday morning, our friends from Yorkshire came to stay with us for the weekend. We were pretty excited (GUESTS! Guests in our HOUSE!) as these are old, old friends - from university - and there is always a lot of laughter and reminiscing when we get together. They have two boys similar in age to Bella and Angus which makes planning what to do easier.

Once they'd arrived, after bacon sandwiches and as soon as the rain stopped, we visited Bosham, a nearby village on the Sussex coast. 

It's a very quaint and charming little village, and picturesque too. 

There's a gentle, meandering walk you can take around the harbour and I like to amuse myself by admiring the houses and having "if we won the lottery" type conversations.

It was breezy, but the sun shone and all the wildflowers were out. 

The other past time I like to indulge in here is Garden Admiring. Many of the cottages have large front gardens, some walled, and all beautifully planted. Look at this border!

Plus it's the kind of place where kids can eat ice creams and find crabs and you can finish the day in a pub beer garden, so it's something for everyone really.

Saturday - mercifully - was warm and sunny which was just as well as I was intent on showing off our local area. So much has changed since I grew up here and it's fun to rediscover it. We headed down to Southsea, a quirky, touristy neighbourhood on the south coast of Portsmouth. I dragged everyone into the Model Village which hasn't change one bit since I went there as a child - read into that what you will - but was thoroughly enjoyed by each small person present.

We had a nice time wandering around Southsea and looking in the vintage shops.

There is only so much of this wandering/browsing you can do with four children though, so we moved on to our next destination: Spinnaker Tower. (You might just be able to make out some figures abseiling down the tower in the photo below.)

Should you ever find yourself in Portsmouth on a clear day, do go up because the views over the Solent from the top are just fantastic. 

You can see the boats come in and out and it's really like looking down on another kind of model village.

A section of the tower floor is made from glass and you can walk on it. I'm afraid I just couldn't do it. Even though I know that it's as safe as the floor I was standing on, and I don't think I am especially afraid of heights, I just couldn't walk on that glass floor.

Bella could though. I was surprised by my reaction too - every part of me wanted to take her arm and lead her off that glass. The rational part of my brain knew that she was probably safer there than walking along a main road, but the mother part of my brain wanted her safe and next to me.  

Do you think you could have walked on the glass floor? 

So, a good weekend all in all, and I am now gearing myself up for the week ahead. It's going to be a busy one.