Summertime. Lots of big adventures ahead, but first, time to clean the car.
Then tidy Sarah's workroom.
Then taking a bath herself. Via the odd flume or two.
Mummy and Lily visited the V&A for an exhibition of fashion inspired by the natural world.
There were plenty of cool exhibits.
And it was an amazing place to hang out...
...and make a splash.
Lil-o and Stitch.
Lily gave her hair a funky splash of colour.
The girls chilling out in the garden. The back of the house might not look like that much longer...
As she's older, Lily is starting to head off on her own. Well, with Mummy and Daddy keeping an eye from a safe distance...
Daddy and Lily took a walk up to the Leigh Record Exchange.
The owner said no one had ever bought Yes and Public Enemy at the same time before...
Sadly, this wasn't available in Daddy's size.
All the Parker girls came to visit.
We had a lovely time catching up (and watching a snail on the trampoline, accompanied by David Bowie!)
Lily spent some time in norfolk. First with Nana and Papa.
She monopolised their time.
Have they shrunk?
Lily couldn't resist a few new purchases, such as this Stitch hoodie.
And this en flique yellow beanie.
Lily tracked down a few of the GoGoHares in Norwich.
Then she headed off to see nanny Maureen and Grandad James.
They took her for a fab day out at the dinosaur park.
Got a long, long, long, long neck...
Velociraptors, veloci-rappin', don't get to close who knows what could happen.
Check yo'self before you T-Rex yo'self.
And just have a little comparison between the picture below and this one from 2013.
Daddy sent Lily a picture of the Schizoid Man.
And she joined him In The Court Of The Crimson King.
Shades on.
Chips ahoy.
Lily braved the estuary. But it wasn't just the temperature of the water she had to contend with.
Boats kept passing very close by!
The Cliffs Pavillion staged a version of Awful Auntie.
There's a great view of Southend from the clifftop venue.
Edith was there too.
Mummy and Lily went to Chessington, but they weren't lucky with the weather.
Not that it spoiled the fun.
Is that Daddy photobombing in the background?
She still had a swinging time.
Mummy winning a massive cuddly sloth brightened up the day.
Then Lily spent and evening with Aunty Sarah...
...not forgetting the doggies.
Lily enjoyed her girls' night in while Mummy took Daddy to see Iron Maiden which she'd booked as a birthday present.
We all caught up in the park next day.
We bought a dinghy. And carried it all the way down the hill to the beach.
The tide was out, but we set sail on one of the big rock pools.
Not quite the same as kayaking in Barbados.
We tried all sorts of permutations to find the best sitting/rowing positions. But ultimately concluded that our bendy oars just weren't very good.
She's a Pip sometimes alright.
We love spending Friday evenings in the shed. Here we are with a Chinese takeaway, cocktails...
...and records.
Lily painted more stones for this year's Love On The Rocks Bug Line.
Here she is near the start of the line, adding some of her creations.
Lily's tiny bug on a leaf became a big hit on social media.
She counted every stone and chalked up the first five hundred (there ended up being nearly triple that).
We went back to the beach next day. As the King of the World.
Lily liked this one because it's yellow (which is the in colour at the moment).
We got a butterfly kite out as it was good flying weather.
And Lily made this cute little heart of shells.
Not really sunbathing conditions, but she didn't seem to mind.
The next adventure was at the Lea Valley watersports centre.
Lily and Mummy had always wanted to try paddle boarding. They had a great time (even if the instructors kept pushing them in).
Maybe Lily could win a medal one day?
Frankly, she'd settle for a slice of rainbow cake.
Another London excursion.
This time, they explored the Science Museum.
There were all sorts of crazy experiments to discover.
One Lily is enough toruble.
But here's a whole host.
A camera obscura selfie.
On the pack, these looked like cute Mickey Mouse facemasks. In real life, they looked utterly terrifying.
Lily wanted to try bubblegum.
She started off small...
...but soon got the hang of it.
Daddy and Lily went off on an adventure this time. Past The Tower of London...
...to London Bridge. See that walkway connecting the tops of the towers? Yup, that was where we were going.
There were quite a few stairs.
It's a very impressive structure inside.
At different points of the climb, there were exhibits explaining how the bridge was constructed (divers like this one dug the foundations).
Up on the walkway, they've installed a glass floor.
You can see all the traffic and pedestrians hundreds of feet below.
Lily thought it was amazing. Daddy thought it was horrific.
Lily showed no fear at all.
The ceiling is mirrored so you can see how insignificant you are compared to the dizzying drop beneath your feet.
We checked out all the original machinery built to lift the bridge in the engine rooms.
Then we walked along the South Bank to the aquarium.
There were sharks.
And penguins.
And if you click on this picture to enlarge it, you'll see there was also a massive tarantula just to the right of Lily's head.
One window had a cage in front of it for the full 'diving with sharks' experience.
But what Lily really wanted to dive into was the jacket potato (that's somewhere beneath this entire bowlful of cheese).
Norwich has hares, London has rhinos.
We had one last adventure together, driving to Wales to visit Benji.
Here's Lily in Cardiff.
Aunty Laura showed us round.
We had a lovely time exploring (ignore Daddy) and stopped off for lunch.
This is the famous Welsh National Opera building.
Everyone jumped in the air, but Daddy has never been that quick at getting his phone to take a picture.
Lily explored the whole area.
She particularly liked this waterfall sculpture.
Benji tried to keep us there.
He's always on the go. We only just managed to snap this pic of him before he wriggled off again.
So that was summer. Back home, Lily went to the salon to have a back to school haircut (and remove the last of the dye). Got to look smart for her next exciting adventure – High School!
