In a secret garden

How do you keep a little boy happy? Take him to see his cousins and Bam Bam and Nana.

Bam Bam and Nana live in a flat in a converted larger country house. There are the gardens to roam and this time plenty of other children to run with. We went picking blackberries and saw the gardener mowing the cricket pitch (of course a country house had its own cricket pitch). Number Two Cousin came to a visit and we went to a playground (above) in the nearby village that has a shop. Naturally, we had to replace everything I had forgotten to pack with us. It is not nice to go for a week without a toothbrush. That was basically the last we saw of dry weather (with occasional rain drop) in West Sussex.

Bye bye Bam Bam

What followed was spells of heavy rain that continued all the way down M3 when we were on our way to Devon. The rainy weather seemed to hover above London, West Sussex and Kent and be county-defined. After witnessing the slow lane transforming into a river on M3 off M25, the rain stopped when we entered Wiltshire. We managed to see Stonehenge in sunshine, although a bit Japanese fashion by taking a photograph.

Number One Cousin lives in a community in the uphills of Devon towards Exmoor where they grow vegetables and have a camping. You can step into their gardens through the old country house gate and walk through the overgrown drive way to the lawn of the house. This was a heaven for Number One Son. Not only he could play with his cousin he had not seen for awhile, but he could also observe the chicken, take part into building a den and run through the woods on the Two Moors walking trail. There was a dog to pat and a cat named Tiger.

It was also highly educational. We visited a parish church and saw Dartmoor in the horizon. There was the school Number One Cousin will go one day - if not otherwise, then for the brownies. We smelled the pig poo and avoided cow pats next to the electric wire. There was an autumn feel in the air. Even if it was sunny during the day, there were plenty of muddy puddles for the children to get themselves muddy in. Zed was seen in shorts and people in Exeter did have summer dresses, but when the evening came, it was chilly.

Like the other people and the campers, we also came and went. Now it is the Bank Holiday weekend and the summer holidays are over. Year 2 starts in two days.