The Men Who Stare at Boats

Drawing influence from the Stargate Project, Teddy has begun a series of experiments on London's waterways.... Teddy is the first in the new intergalactic battalion of Men Who Stare at Boats.

...this mostly involves walks along the southbank in Rotherhithe to look at boats between Tower Bridge and the Peninsula...

... in the rain...

... or

... nice weather...

... and even walks down onto the foreshore beach to see the boats from their level....

... and a spot of sketching from time to time...

... sometimes with a vehicle... 

... this has earnt Ted the local nickname... "The Captain". 

Easter Activities....

... some things we got up to over the Easter Holidays...

... On Good Friday... we went to the newly opened Magic Garden, at Hampton Court Palace (photo knicked from HRP)...check out the link for more info and photo's on it...

... there's a dragon that breaths steam... seriously awesome! (photo also knicked)..

... Teddy and Rose running wild on the high walkways on way to the massive slide...

On Saturday after a morning at Museum of London Docklands, we went to "Big Stick Day" at Stave Hill Ecological Park... 

... we made a magic wand, which turned out to be useful to banish cars the next day... 

... After a Lazy Sunday... we raced through Storm Katy to Messy Monday's at the National Gallery, messy play here we come!!! 

... stick day clearly rubbed off on Teddy, as he stopped off to pick up sticks! 

... a week later we sort of closed off Easter by feeding the Lambs at Surrey Docks Farm... 

... amazing, fun times for all! 

Easter Food...

This Easter we did some baking! 

We made a Simnel cake, the eleven marizpan balls represent the twelve apostles minus Judas. We made this on Mothering Sunday, as per the tradition. 

We made some lovely hot cross buns. 

Which were well appreciated!! 

We died some eggs, with homemade dyes. 

Instead of Easter Eggs this year we made Cornflake Chocolate Nests

... and here they are with the Simnel cake, and an Easter basket that Teddy made at a stay-and-play. 

Where the wild things are...

 We recently paid a visit to Lavender Pond, a 2.5 acre wilderness space, in our community. Not typically open to the public, they were having a wild flower planting day.

The pond... where Teddy discovered frogspawn...

...your local wilderness needs you... to plant! 

..here's some of the amazing insect hotels...

... dig for victory...

... Ted checking out this path..

... and this path...

... and having a well earned break! 

Going through the archives

I realized out trip to Paris was a year ago, how time flies!  I was looking through the archives of photos and found one from last year and one from this year and thought about how much Teddy has changed, and how some things have remained the same. 

Teddy in 2015

Teddy in 2016

You may note in the second picture he is doing some heavy reading, he enjoys Amy Poehler's book Yes, Please which is really funny, he has good taste in books and comedy already. 

a leap year letter

To mark the leap year we're making a short post (leap year letter) to be repeated each leap year of things that are important to Teddy right now.

So here's a few of Ted's favourite things right now... probably his favourite things are cars and buses, especially lining them up. He's a fan of watching Peppa Pig and really anything associated with Peppa. He loves to sing the song "big red bus", and play "sleeping bunnies", and listening to nursery rhythms including signing along to twinkle twinkle little star. Teddy loves throwing and kicking balls, playing with building blocks, and pushing a wheel barrow, or walker at speed over great distances - especially up and down ramps. Some of Ted's favourite places to visit are the MoL Docklands - especially the mini-mudlarks gallery, the London Transport Museum, and the Salmon Centre. His favourite snacks are drinking babyccino and eating fruit. He's a supportive friend and likes to clap and cheer when friends complete tasks or slide down slides, and he likes spending time with his buddy Daisy and hiding in wardrobes, pushing each other around in a push along walker, and holding each others hands as their buggies roll down the road together.

Ted as Mr Darcy

This weekend we headed to the city of Bath, to meet up with the Grandparents...  

... Teddy also got to meet Jane Austen...

... and to dress up in Regency wear... 

... not to be outdone, Ro donned a bonnet too...

... and then Ted went into full Mr Darcy mode... 

... we wandered all over the city... here's the Abbey (sadly having their AGM, so we couldn't go in)... 

... we found a park, where the Grandparents could play...

... and visited the Egg Cafe (seriously child friendly cafe)...

... Ted took the Grandparents for a walk around town... until their legs got tired and a cup of tea was needed... here they're all staring at the Obelisk.. 

... now some sites of Bath, this was just a lovely street view...

.... Dalek in the shop window, why? who knows ...

... the famous weir... 

...and associated one end of the Pulteney Bridge...

... Ted playing with sticker book on the train ride home after a lovely day trip to Bath...

... sadly Ro left her scarf on the train, and in contacting lost property discovered this wonderful "Teddy Rescue" service that GWR have to reunite lost Teddy bears with their families! Perhaps influenced by the most famous lost Teddy Bear in the world (and conveniently their network hub) Paddington Bear. 

Alpacas and Ack Ack: A typical day in the East End

We try our best to adventure off on the weekends and see something new, this weekend we set off to Mudchute farm, an amazing piece of countryside in the East End...

Teddy in the wilds of the East End... 

...running through the farm path...

... ALPACA.... seriously teddy loved this alpaca...

... the pigs however scared him...

...bull in a field...we didn't go in here...

...nuff said...

... oh yeah, and there's an ack ack gun...  

...and some tropical birds...

...on the way back through Canary Wharf we saw this amazing system that wrote words in the air using sprays of water... it was drawing quite a crowd!...