London (part two)

Today was a very relaxing day for us. We are staying with Alison in Clapham and woke up to a beautiful sunny (yes there is sun in england) day! We had tea and toast in the back garden and elsie had to put on a sunhat


We decided to soak up the sun and head down to the park via clapham's main road - here we are in front of a very popular mommy hangout.

After a coffee and a quiche Michael pointed us towards the park and gave us some instructions to find a pub (because clearly our whole vacation is based around eating!!). Off we went.

The park was filled with pasty white folk trying to get a bit of sun without getting burned.


Can you believe Elsie's leg is in the sun - I don't think Dad saw that.


We found the pub and had a small lunch - just as the food arrived Elsie decided she also had to have lunch, so another first happened ... breastfeeding in a pub (fortunately we were outside and Elsie was under a shawl so not too much trauma).

As soon as lunch was done Elsie did some major business that required and impromptu pants change on the grass - fortunately Mark is superman and can change pants faster than a speeding bullet.


After a long walk we arrived back to alisons where michael and alison were prepping for the dinner party (which we didn't take photos of - shoot!). We had Patsy, Antony, Jonathan (mark's cousin) and Tamar (Jonathan's lovely lady friend), and Alison's brother Johnny and his wife plum. It was a yummy dinner.

Tomorrow we are heading to Dorset (alison's country home) and will be without internet connection so we will post next when we get to heathrow on Friday.

Elsie is doing great - I even caught this little smile today ... (she's chubbin' up!!)

London (part one)

We drove into London this afternoon (after a quick stop at the Dragon School for Boys in Oxford) to have dinner with Glynn, Cindy, Peter and Anika. Elsie was named for Elspeth (Mark's Mom) and Elspeth was named for her dad's favorite sister Elsie.


All of the manson's were taking turns snuggling the bean - especially anika and cindy...

They had a new kitten (11 weeks old) named Peter that was extremely lovey and feisty at the same time - and I had to show this photo because their puppy Dottie was so patient. Lola take note ...


Glynn is known for spoiling girls and in keeping this up he wanted to be the first to buy Elsie a DIAMOND! (it is her birth stone). Here she is with her new bling!!


Dad said she couldn't wear it officially until she was at least three. :) She loves it!

English Gardens

On Sunday we headed to Steeple Aston to visit the Kewley family (Jan is Mark's godmother). We didn't get a photo of the B&B we were staying at in Badsey until now and Mark wanted everyone to see that we were staying in a land of little people - here he is coming in the door. Elsie, of course, was right at home.



Now on to Steeple Aston .... we arrived to Jan and Davids house which was an 17th century farmhouse that use to belong to Iris Murdoch called Cedar Lodge. The house has 5 acres of land around it that Jan and David have turned into a perfect english garden. Yes, Julie this is exactly the place that you need to be.



The House is beautiful and the gardens are spectacular. We arrived for lunch and were lucky enough to have coincided with Kate who was home for the weekend before Exams.


We had a lovely lunch of home grown veggies and some fresh baked scones and then took a walk through the grounds.


The kewley's horse, Kismet is 29 and just loves Jan. "Kizzy" has her run of a field, but comes in at night to her stable. Jan really wanted Kizzy to have her ears up for the photo.



Here is david creating a hedge wall on stilts - when this place was first purchase 14 years ago only the the mature trees were there - the rest of the garden has been imagined and created by Jan and David. Jan is filled with gardening knowledge and we were sad to tell her how poorly our garden is doing in Colorado...


The Kewley's have two cats, one looked much like Crenshaw and was instantly wanting to snuggle me and elsie while elsie had some lunch.


Of course Jan just loved Elsie (who wouldn't!) and Elsie loved the Enlgish Garden!! Now we are off to London!