Two Weeks in August

Holiday and London postings will continue but for now:
It has been Soul-in-the-City time again - my small part here was to find old or disabled people in the neighbourhood who were unable to manage their gardens

and to help surround the local park in prayer and be available to pray with and/or talk with people while the young people organised family fun stuff and BBQ (all free)

The young people from around the borough were accommodated and cared for at our school where they spent the mornings in praise, worship, prayer and Bible study while working in the community in the afternoons and organising family fun in the evenings

Having said in my last post that I found August a boring time in the garden I remedied this by digging out the 11 Lavender bushes that were past their best in this part of the garden (correction  - I cut back and Alan dug)

My plan is to fill this border with this beautiful new rose (Strawberry Hill by David Austin) that I have at the front(seen below) and also replace the climbing (seen above) with a climbing version of this same rose. An eye catching mass of pink should result

While in this mood I dug out a number of other Lavenders around the garden and have begun another Lavender plot at the bottom. I often find it hard to get into garden tasks but once I do I am

'on a roll'

Managed to slip in the making of a birthday card for a friend where we will be helping her to celebrate her 60th tomorrow

Because I knew that once Oliver arrived for his first holiday with Grandma and Grand Dad  that my time would be given to him

We did many fun things during the week and record just a few here

The bit I was not too keen on was being woken a lot earlier than usual with " Come on Grandma get up, there is a little bit of blue sky outside" 

Visiting the chickens and sheep while collecting pine cones at Pilgrims Hall before joining the adults at an evening social gathering with the team from Israel who had just finished teaching at the Torah Summer School 

Getting with Grand Dad to play with lego

Flying a kite for the first time

And getting it stuck in the top of a tree

Took Grand Dad 20 minutes to get it down

Then it was time for a simple picnic

Before picking Blackberries

and enjoying the outdoor gym

Helping with the crossword

It was fun splashing around in the sea but far too windy to swim

We abandoned erecting the beach tent when it almost blew away

We walked along the longest pleasure pier in the world

One and one third miles

and rode the pier train back after visiting the life boat station followed by tea for us and ice-cream for Oliver

To see what this pier is like click on this link from a much earlier post

http://ramblingsfromanenglishgarden.blogspot.com/search/label/Essex?updated-max=2007-08-20T21%3A08%3A00%2B01%3A00&max-results=20

Yes, I was tired by we came to take him home last night but it was an enjoyable and fun time which we will be repeating at the end of the month

Before that though we are having a little holiday from next Monday till Thursday which will of course add to my mountain of photos waiting to be posted!

and on a more serious note

Lo*ndon's Bu*rning - not quite

but this was smoke from one of the fires in North London quite some miles away

Will finish this long post on a less serious note

On the day Oliver arrived 2 years and 4 months old Rebekah was with us for the day. She made her presence known by dismantling the vacuum cleaner and emptying the cylinder over the floor.

This paled in comparison when she climbed to the top of the

 'big guys' climbing frame in the park. I did not have my camera but would have been too busy anyhow watching her every move.