Waiting at the station, Blue was clearly baffled by the whole thing, but in her usual Go With It style remained cheerfully willing to enjoy the madness that lay ahead.

The early morning train was initially empty enough for her to stretch out across the aisle. Except the man in the dark suit who got on at Basingstoke who she took a sneaky fancy too, and kept trying to lean her cheek on when he wasn’t looking.
He clearly didn’t like dogs.
I think she knew this.

But as we neared London, the train began to fill, and Blue was squeezed under the table.. This is her with her bottom against the side wall. She’s a le-ee-tle too long for under-tableing.

And she kept on wondering if we were there yet…

Made it to Waterloo – things are noisy, smelly, and busier than anything Blue’s ever seen.

Waiting for the driver to find us in our deeply difficult at-the-taxi-rank location (waited and had various frantic phone calls between BBC person and driver person who was NOT my driver, and then driver person who WAS my driver, and BBC person, and driver again…but he found me eventually)… Blue was a temporary celeb, with countless people stopping to chat to or stroke her.

Trip across London was easy – the driver was thoughtful enough to pull the front passenger seat right forward to allow Blue lots of room behind, and with the window down to see the sights she was most happy with the arrangements.

In the Green Room. All still rather baffling, but there’s a naughty black lab just waiting to be chatted up (we’ll just ignore the personality-less fluffy thing on the other side).

The show itself was, on the whole, annoyingly pointless. Unlike the normal watchdog show there was no investigation, no resolution, and they simply skimmed the surface of the issue with some platitudes. I’ll write more tomorrow about why we were there i the first place – and I’ll try and video the clip so that you can see Blue-the-TV-star hogging the camera ;)

And so, brief excitement over, we head home.
New Driver does NOT like dogs. He scowls at her as she enters his car, and he’s made no effort to accommodate her so she’s squeezed into a tiny foot well behind the pushed-right-back passenger seat.
She takes her revenge by rubbing her chin on his elbow, shedding tiny tan-coloured hairs on his jacket, drooling occasionally and consistently panting heavily at him with some fine dog breath.
He’s really not amused.
I am.

The train home is much busier. Initially we have a table to ourselves, but Blue has to stay tucked under it – this is all the room she has. Eventually the seats filled up, and all the seats round the table were also taken. You can imagine her space allowance then. But She was magnificently patient, and the ladies we shared the table with were very sweet about the galumphing canine elephant who kept sitting on their feet….

I have never been to Stonehenge.

There. I admit it.

Despite living less than an hour away, and driving right past it whenever we go anywhere except to Wales or further West… I’ve never stopped.

The thing is, I’ve never really seen the point of wandering around it in a carefully fenced ring a long way from the stones.

But. Last night we went to Stonehenge. Oh yes.

And it was… magical.

Amazing.

And probably indescribable.

The Fire Garden was part of the Cultural Olympiad, and all we knew was that as well as the fire installations we would be able to ‘get closer than usual tourist access’.

What we did NOT realise, until we walked through the gate, was that this meant complete, unrestricted, wander-right-amongst-the-Stones access.

Jaw dropping.

The Stones are… amazing. Warm… and so very tactile.

All night I saw people unable to stop themselves reaching out to touch them, to stroke them, to lean on them – many seemed to have the same need as me to simply close their eyes and just feel them.

They are… irresistible.

And yes, I am quite aware how kooky that sounds. But it was undeniable.

But of course there was the fire too. All around us, large braziers, weird fire sculptures, huge roaring chimneys, large fire pits, marvellous mechanical mouse organs (well, all right, they weren’t mouse organs, they were small ‘machines’ which cast truly remarkable shadows against the Stones when they sprang to life)… and throbbing in the background there was the strange, ethereal, ancient music, oddly fitting as it flowed across the warm summers evening…

Yes. Pink is dancing. Of course.

Well, I saw P&O were running a photo competition on their Facebook page for images of ‘My Magical family’ – it only had two days to go, so I entered one of my photographs of that evening.

Well.

It only went and WON the judges choice!

WOOT!

We’re going to Disney! To stay for three days!

Here’s hoping it’s better than our last disastrous experience…

The REALLY BIG kind.

Add four children, two *cough* grown ups, one dog and a dose of Autumn sunshine.

Hey Presto – mix it up and you get Four Hours of Silly.

And then we *might* have decided that enough wasn’t quite enough, and that maybe a little stop at the park on the way home was in order…

It *might* have been at ths point that things got a little out of hand, and C decided to jump onto the weird spinny-pole thing to see how it went.

And got stuck.

Spinning faster and faster whilst I laughed till I physically hurt.

Then he fell off and stayed on all fours, moaning, hands gripping the earth to stop it tipping.

At which point I may have been unable to breathe as the tears poured down my cheeks.

I may actually have made myself sick with laughing so hard.

*might* have happened. Not saying it did mind…

But while we were there, we saw a family. A large family. Three generations at least. Laughing, playing, chatting, arguing… grandmother holding the baby, Grandfather poking the small boys in some kind of complicated game which involved much giggling, a posse of girls making daisy chains, teens who were too ‘cool’ to do anything but watch desultorily (until they got dragged in), the grown ups involved in an uproarious game of Bulldog.

Their dog escaped and came to visit us, and the grandmother wandered over to collect him. She was a lovely lady, and with a little prompting was happy to chat, clearly immensely happy and proud of her family. She said that they do it every year. the Saturday following Easter is Wardour Saturday, and the entire family collect for a picnic and a game of Bulldog. They started the habit with their own children, and now it is a full family tradition -  their children have grown up, married, and have their ownchildren, some of whom bring partners too – there must have been around 30 of them. All collected together for one day, just play, re-connect and enjoy each other.

And we just thought ‘how wonderful’. For me, it was a snapshot of family gatherings of my own childhood. For C, it was an image of the big family he’d always wanted to be part of.

And it’s a tradition we have unwittingly started ourselves – and now mean to purposefully carry on.

We have so many photos of the family over the last ten years in the grounds of Wardour, running down the same hill, sitting on the same bench… and you can see the passage of time in them.

So here’s this years Wardour Day. Block is our family game of choice, but there was a fair amount of siting among the daisies having silly conversations too.

either the castle is shrinking or my children are REALLY growing

Boy and Jolly. Bein' stooopid.

Boy. Watching his brothers make daisy chains.

Daisies. *happy*

The Four.

And an incredibly rare picture of The Six.

and all the way home, Pink was face in the wind, singing at the top of her voice, making me smile.

Sofa time with my small people, with the most magnificent cards and gifts any mother got. Sorry, I know your love yours, but quite clearly – mine were Best.

An afternoon exploring and running and jumping on a hill fort – and the obligatory game of Block. Which Blue was particularly bad at, giving away every hiders position one after another with smug irrespressibly bouncy glee, no matter how often we hissed at her to go away.

Home for movie night, and the boys ‘treating’ me – to  their very favourite burger-and-chips-from-the-pizza-shop. *eyeroll*. But hey, I didn’t cook.

From Pink - a hand-flower, and a picture of me. Yes my feet are that big and red.

Jollys card - get that Roman mosaic.

And from Boy - an acrostic poem:

M is for making me Happy

O is for Outstanding Mothering

T is for treating me sweets and chocolate

H is for Having you around

E is for Everything you have done for me

R is for being ready to help me.

And from No.1 - an origami card, plus (accidentally) my favourite quote from my hero Winnie the Pooh "If you live to be 100, I hope I live to be 100 minus one day so I never have to live without you"

And No.1 also made me this most beautiful of sculptures in Art.

Five on a hill

Always the same - the boys explore

... and Pink tries very hard to keep up

Another Perfect Sunday spent meandering, breathing, chattering, running, climbing, exploring, absorbing… and Being Us.

Pink saw The Tree first. It made her very happy, and she just knew what it was perfect for.

And so she went right on up it.

All credit to her judgement - it was possibly the Most Perfect Climbing Tree Ever.

Jolly on sniper patrol. Of course.

Blue looking beeyootiful as always

and there MAY have been a ninja-photographer catching the Family Skip which-made-Mummys-jeans-fall-down-and-ended-in-a-breathless-tumbling-heap.

Us.

But.

I wanted to show something else for this weeks gallery. Like many people, Trees, for me, are always a connection to the earth. A personal symbol of silent strength, and peace, and beauty. I frequently stroke the trunks as I pass, lean against them to pause a while, find a nook to climb into and sit and watch the world. Old stumps need company. Young trees earn a smile of encouragement. Twisted Oaks, Grand Beeches and Shimmering Hazel. I just love to… watch them. And be with them.

The way the sun peppers through the leaves, the stinging brilliance of the fresh lime green canopy against a blue sky, the sharpness in the black of a winters silhouette.