Our Family Grows By a Few Hundred

Well.... maybe.... You see, two years ago Neil put in a pond in the front garden as a way of attracting wildlife. For the first two Springs we did exactly what all the nature organisations ask you not to do which is to import frog spawn from another pond. They tell you that you should wait and that frogs will find your pond eventually. But Neil is impatient. Anyway, this year we had spawn laid in our pond and then just this week the spawn has turned into hundreds of wriggling tadpoles...

So this week we've been taking advantage of more nice weather by taking some nice walks in the local area....

Neil and Zafra in the Arboretum. This is where people consume trees.

If you haven't visited Bournemouth, this is what you're missing. This photo was slightly edited to remove the power station, the skyscraper and, of course, the 10-lane motorway.

Zafra has definitely decided on a style of crawling which we have come to realise is like a baby turtle on a beach. Watch in the video not only how she moves like a turtle but how she even leaves little marks on the carpet exactly as a turtle does on the sand...

Zafra has also got much more confident in sitting up. There have been two occasions where she thought it might be a good idea to propel herself backwards at great speed so that her head bangs on the floor but in general she has shied away from this peculiar behaviour.

This week was Mothers' Day in the UK. Zafra gave Mummy a book called "I Love My Mummy" which she herself had signed. Perhaps more strictly, Neil had signed using Zafra's hand while trying desparately to stop Zafra from sucking on the top of the pen. It's the same thing, really...

Jenny and Zafra on Mothers' Day

Because Neil has to work on Sundays it wasn't entirely possible to do the usual Mothers' Day thing. So we kept it the Jewish way - Erev Mothers' Day being Sunday evening, extending all the way to Monday evening. So Monday morning we went to Jenny's favourite local eatery, Boscanova, for a slap up meal...

Zafra prepares for a full English breakfast, baby style - a mushroom, some egg and, of course, a pint of warm beer.

Where's Zafra?.....

....Where's Zafra?....

... There's Zafra! Hooray!!!

Hooray for Mothers!

We trawled through the local charity shops before coming home, having lunch and then going out for a swim. Zafra does an underwater swimming class which is great although they're trying to encourage us to pay £90 ($180) for a photo of her swimming underwater. So we're probably going to buy an underwater camera and take loads of underwater photos ourselves, even if they won't be of the same quality. So after swimming Jenny and Zafra had a bath while Neil prepared the photos for this blog post, then we went out to dinner. But it was all a bit much for some of the family....

zzzzz

We thought we'd leave you with a short vid of a certain little girl being tickled!