Day 4.243: Time to fly...

Thankfully not long-haul this time!

No, today was the day that we finally took our kite out. Exile #4 has been asking for us to try all summer and today, with a clear sky and a hint of wind, we decided to give it a go.

We went to The Crossings and although it wasn't the best kite-flying day ever, we all had a good time.

And, for the first time since we returned to the land of early-September summer, it actually felt like a summer's day.

And yes, I did commit the cardinal sin of blogging by forgetting to pick up my camera as we left. Phone to the rescue!

Day 4.242: Crafty

E5N1 has spent a good deal of the summer doing junk modelling. In fact we had to warn my sister that of all the things in the house he was most likely to raid her recycling box.

Here is a sampling of what he has done since we got home two and a half days ago and a picture of him resisting the recycling box to play with his cousin's Bob the Builder Duplo a few days ago.

Day 4.241: Haven't they grown?

As I promised, here are the group pictures taken in Biddulph Grange Gardens in May 2005 and September 2011. Behind us is the Wellingtonia Walk which was dug up and replanted in 1996 as part of the astonishing renovation project that has been going on since 1988. As you can see the trees have grown quite a lot in the intervening six years.

Impressive right? but just look at the children!

Day 4.240: Bedtime (reading)

We're home!

Tuesday was a day of driving from Stoke-on-Trent to Heathrow via Cambridge in the rain. It was still raining when our flight took off around 9pm. It was raining in Newark when we landed just after midnight. It was raining as we set off to drive home in the New Jersey rush hour and continued until we got home several hours later. Fun!

Anyway, we made it and all is fine.

As we were packing up for our move from my parents' house to Exile #2's parents' house, we found a pile of books E5N1 had stowed beside his bed. Quite a reading list for a four year-old I thought.

Everyone except me is in bed and I am about to follow suit.

Day 4.239: Conkers!

A few weeks ago, sitting round our kitchen table back in upstate New York, I told the kids the following story.

In a land a long way from here grows a curious tree. Its boughs spread wide and strong, its leaves are large and green and in its branches live many creatures both plain and wonderful.

Each year in September or October, children gather under these trees avidly searching for a special treasure that can be found nowhere else; for the fruit of this tree is a spiky green ball and inside each one is a smooth brown nut - no use for the children as food, but more valuable than that - for these brown nuts are conkers.

They make a hole in the centre of these nuts and thread a string through and then battle one another for glory and to prove that their conker is stronger, harder, better prepared and more skilfully wielded than their friends' conkers.

They didn't believe me.

It's true of course.

Here is one of the horse chestnut trees I collected conkers under as a child (thanks to Google Streetview):

When we visited Audley End a week ago, we found conkers lying on the ground under a tree. Exile #4 uttered with amazement, "It was all true about the conkers!"

And yesterday, I showed them how to play.

All being well we are just arriving back in the US after a great trip. Thanks to all who shared it with us!