An expedition to Hampshire

Beautiful butterfly display

Today we went on an expedition. We ventured into Hampshire. The first excitement was the train journey - Miss I sat shredding the newspaper, while Miss A carefully cut out pictures she liked. I was interested to see the Royal Mail is issuing stamps with Morris Minors on them, and amused to see a picture of the Chief Executive of Thames Water (quoting his salary while pointing out by how much the water bills were going to increase) wearing a Southern Water fleece (from a previous role)! They didn't try very hard to find a current picture!

On arrival in Portsmouth we met our friends J, J and S, and hopped on a bus to Southsea. Our first stop was Southsea Castle. It was Free. Excellent. Ramparts to run around, sea views,hidden tunnels to venture into, and the most lovely cafe I've been to at an attraction. The Yellow Kite cafe was superb, well priced with great quality food and such a relaxed setting. Then we marched along the sea front to the Canoe Lake where we had our picnic, before trying out the play area. We popped into the new Community Garden which is a great venture, before finishing at the newly refurbished natural history museum. There was a most beautiful butterfly wall (see photo of the ones made by a local school), and the butterflies flying were startlingly big. Our return bus journey and train journey were uneventful.

Miss I needed her bath as she looked suspiciously orange - like an Oompa Loompa after eating all her curry for tea. Having done so much walking today they were both ready for bed. I now have the fun tasks of creating birthday thank you cards, and sewing on school uniform name tapes. Why do these things fall to the mothers? Answers on a postcard please . . . .