List o' Summer I

So, how's that summer bucket list going? We've done our first fruit picking, strawberries.  They are lovely this year, a bit late it seems but sweet and juicy and gorgeous.

Isn't that colour just amazing?

We attempted strawberry jam for the third year in a row and still don't have it right, it's lovely but much more like strawberry syrup than jam, not enough pectin?

We made pretty lovely vanilla ice cream, although I don't know how anything with that much cream, eggs and sugar and an entire vanilla bean could be bad.  The custard looked weird and, of course, there were about a thousand steps but it is pretty fantastic.

We made dancing hoops and ankle bells

My video skills are truly excellent

We also went to Bookbug and bought a couple of chapter books.  I wasn't at all sure that she would be into them but she so is! We started off with this

I don't remember it being quite so grim, or maybe I'm just ultra sensitive in trying to shield her from anything vaguely violent or troubling.  I'm not even sure she knows what a gun IS. Anyway, she really loved it.  Real page turning stuff.  Maybe she's just so sick of Brown Bear Brown Bear and the Hungry Caterpillar! So now we are onto Winnie the Pooh which she seems very into as well, despite the archaic language "Pooh strolled a small spinney of larch trees".