Making the most of the final few days of school holiday

At last, the weather has picked up!  For BM and crew this means daily trips to parks near and far to get lots of exercise, catch up with friends before school starts again and generally enjoy the sunshine as much as possible.

First up (and this will convince anyone not living in London how poor weather conditions really were) I give you this...

A giant plane tree felled by the wind in Spa Gardens over the weekend!  Photo taken by junior newshouund who is already thinking of stories for his Autumn school newsletter and plans to pursue this one further by interviewing the manager of the play centre.

There was no evidence of damage to any of the lovely trees in Dulwich park which we visited on Tuesday; in fact it turned out to be much warmer than anticipated and friends re-united, the children hired bikes from here

(photo via www.londonrecumbents.co.uk  -  I promise you it was not raining!)

Wednesday we were back in familiar territory in Southwark Park and running all the usual pre-school errands. 

Thursday to a Bloomsbury private garden square to play tennis with Granny and today, a visit to Broadstairs, one of BM's favourite seaside places.  The signs were not good as we arrived...greeted by grey skies and spots of rain but it brightened up and so did we.  It's got such a lovely Victorian feel to it,

There are of course beach huts but I especially like the built-in changing cubicles, accessed via central and side stone stairways (which look like 1930s additions) from the promenade or...the lift!  Isn't this just gorgeous?  I didn't find out whether it is still in use.

Lovely sandy horseshoe-shaped beach and up on the promenade the most charming houses with regency-style (I think) railings and balconies

Dickens called Broadstairs his favourite watering hole in Kent and you can see why on a sunny day at least.

Didn't take a photo of the wonderful well known ice-cream shop - noticed the name had changed again though and it seemed to me that the range of flavours was less than I remembered.  Had to leave by 3 so that B husband could make it back for the England game at Wembley but no complaints from the children who slept all the way home!