it is taking me ages to blog the canada photos, in part because waiting for that day to be flickred. so i will do a quick post for coming home. dad met us at airport, and i was hugely surprised by the wave of emotions i had. i found out my sister died in baggage reclaim last time i went to canada, and it was all just a little bit much.
back and hugs with family, and delivery of presents 
stewart and the kids there too so a good family reunion, to take my mind off desires to emigrate
the next day we went home, a quick few hours before niece and nephew arrived to stay for the week. we had a great week with them staying, and having the 4 children is often easier than just 2 as they get on so well together. they generally played on the tues, wed was historyetc – which they both love, thurs dh took them to a film (cars 2). they did mostly loads of crazy playing, crafts and sidling off to watch sarah jane . enjoyed trampolining, climbing trees and just generally being happy. It is so great to see the kids blooming again after the loss of their mum last year.
weds was history etc, with a chinese theme. i mght blog separately. we made maps and made sugar cube great walls of china, we made fans, decorated willow pattern plates, origami fish and tangrams. one of the best things was the harvest and stirfry though. i went into the veg patch – full of harvestable food and a bit jungle like – and harvested different colour beans, chard, courgettes, carrots and it got chopped by assorted kids and then stirfried. v yummy
saturday SB went off to her PGL week activity holiday with her friend maddy. she was v much looking forward to it. bit of an eek moment for me tho! a whole week!!! i did some crafts with the 3 kids left, and then with stewart we went geocaching in the village. had a lovely walk along some fields and easily found the cache, as well as lots of blackberries, some sloes and some not quite ripe wild plums.
sunday stewart and the children set off home, and BB and i went swimming.