A busy few months

It’s been a busy few months since I last wrote. We had summer holidays in Cornwall and Italy. Stella and I went to Berlin together to see our good friends Aino, Hubert, Alvar and Ingmar and we’ve all had a couple of trips to the Lake District.

Stella absolutely loved staying in a caravan in St Ives, even though it rained every day. She especially liked the fact that she could see out of her bedroom window!! She loved playing in the sea and bravely came swimming with me one day in an unheated lido in Penzance, which was really quite chilly.

Italy was much warmer and Stella learnt how to swim in the Cergallina pool. This seemed like a really big milestone and was very exciting for all of us. She also really enjoyed just spending time in the garden in her own little world. Most fun of all was playing with cousins Rafael and Joy for the first few days and then Molly for another few days. She also had some time playing with Fabio and Massimo and their cousin Luca, who she loves!

Stella is now the biggest girl at nursery as the final few of her friends of her age went to school. She still seems happy enough but she is looking forward to school immensely. I’m much more nervous about the big city school Millfields which she’s going to which has 650 pupils! Quite different from my own school experience in Poulton-le-Fylde. I’ve met a couple of the children who will be starting in January and heard of a few more. They all seem nice so hopefully it will be fine. For now I’m enjoying the fact that Stella is home on Wednesdays and Fridays to do lots of fun things together that will be much more difficult once we’re tied to school holidays.

We’ve been visiting a lovely farm in Essex which only takes about 35 minutes to get to. And we’ve been doing a few nice walks. Last weekend we went to Epping Forest, also in Essex. Also taking the opportunity to visit friends outside London. Stella seems keen to play with almost anyone whose house we turn up at, which makes it very easy for me to go and see old friends. Flying to Berlin just the two of us was a real treat though and Stella was just brilliant. It was so easy to travel with her and I look forward to more of that in the future.

Here are a few photos from the last few months as it’s taken me so long to get around to blogging: