Summer days at home and day trips out too......

Eatting outside , a rare occasion in Ireland

A day trip out with the kids and I, Thorben, Elke and Jonas in Kilmacurragh Gardens....a great spot for a picnic or walk, free in and they have toilets. Free and Beautiful Day out........

The three adventurers.....hats and bike helmet are part of essential kit on days out.

We sat under a lovely tree and ate our picnic lunch

We found some enormous leaves....they have lots of trees from seeds brought back from expeditions to places all over the world.

They have a mowed lawn area for running down and also a lovely meadow wildflowere area.

The kids insisted on trying out the picnic table for our camping trip...breakfast was like this every morning...



bbqing in our courtyard....

Axel and i taking some shade

our fencing out the front, behind it rubarb and spuds

this little man is very much loved by his sister

Smiles from Thorben

Our gang

Axel and I on a garden tour of Gash Gardens , Co. Laois. A wonderful day spent with the gardening club of Ballymore Eustace.

Our group on the tour, Mary the owner of Gash Gardens gave us a really good tour.

We went to Avondale with some of my cousins and an Aunty and Uncle and my folks too.

We went to the Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin and Ines and Derek and family.

The hot house there is very cool...



My Uncle Sean in Avondale

Nice box hedging holding herbs in the botanic gardens vegetable walled garden

Holidays are here....lazy days

Summer holidays are here. no commitments..lazy breakfasts and endless days ahead of us. We feel more relaxed already.

On advice from Suzie Cahn. our permaculture gardener friend, we have got a pond dug....we have a spring piped into the corner of our field from the mountain behind us so we started to fill it and it held the water with no lining.....brilliant news for us.



Our digger man was great he managed to avoid damaging our alder trees which are on one side of the pond.It is in the planning stages really, we need to put in an outlet and maybe a stream section...of course fencing too as the kids are young...but we saw our first dragon flies dancing over it this morning....it was lovely to see.

Polytunnel progress...Axel in my sling here....the place is bulging with growth....carrots, beans, pease, chard, beetroot, courgettes....



Broad beans on left, peas on right...the kids are eatting them like sweets.

Granny and Elke camping together

Our tent, Becca came down too for a night, Grandad and Grannys caravan in the background. right beside us which was brilliant for us.



Our tent its huge<<<

BEcca, Axel and Granny...the fruit cake was good though BEcca looks like its not...

My Uncle Tom came down for lunch on a Tuesday with my folks...

Our Tomatoes

Giant courgette

Strawberries.... 

Home baking....the buns did not last long...

First week of May

1. Polytunnel progress, everything is growing well.
2. Pok Choi nealry ready to eat as young salad leaves and transplant the rest into position for growing.
3. Carrots in pot coming along.
4. Loads of apple blossoms on one of our mini apple trees in tunnel.
5. A new cockeral from our friends Aoife and Ger. Jonas has named him Darth Vader. He is a half batham.

The end of April the start of May ....woofer leaving, spainish visitors, tents, 7 year wedding anniverary...

Axels place these days travelling in his sling with mammy

 Our group picture with Bastian our woofer..who left us after a six week stay

our friends from Spain

 Orla from Spain stayed with us for a night in April.....her new baby Saoirse below in a sling

 Ciara Orlas other daughter from Spain, Elke, Thorben and Jonas up the forest at the back of our house

 We bought a tent we hope to take our holidays this year with my parents , them in their caravan, us in  our tent. We put it up here in the garden for the bank holiday weekend.

Myself and Steffens seven year wedding anniversary was Sunday 5th May...We bought food from M and S and ate our special meal with the four kids in the new tent in the garden. We are 18 years together this year..what can i say..no two people so well suited, still in love, still feeling so fortunate to have met each other..it can be busy with the small four children but as we keep saying these are the happy days and good times....we have family round us and good friends and neighbours.

We had intended to sleep out for a night as a trial run for the weekend in June with the folks at a campsite. Some of us slept a bit but most of us were too excited to sleep, we ended up coming back into the house. Myself and Steffen both have headcolds/sinus problems and i realised you can not co-sleep on an airbed with the baby. I will need a thermarest for the next night out. We have realised we will have to be prepared for excited little people the first few nights in the tent...it was difficult to get them to stay in their sleeping bags, hopefully June will be warmer.

Us eatting our meal

 Axel in the tent wearing a beautiful jumper Aunty Nora knit him with a cute dog on the front.