Gloopy fun

I couldn't let the boys miss out on the gloopy fun from yesterday. (I'll blip that later.) So, when we discovered there was no tots this morning thanks to a burst water main over near Ferring meaning no water for a few hours this morning, I made up an Investigation Tray with cornflour and glitter, couscous, water, paint and glue and took it outside for the boys to, well, investigate. And they did! The cornflour was slippery, the water was wet, they had fun trying to mix the water and flour together. And Bean was very much not impressed that the gloop stuck and dried to his hands almost immediately! BUT that said, once we added some paint to it and some glue so they could dribble and splat it on some paper Bean at least started really getting into it. Bear was more interested in the couscous and water, well, particularly the water. Bean thought that was fab and added Bear's couscous and water concoction straight to his paper!

It was all too much for Bear though who wanted to go to sleep so we settled down on the swingseat for a sleep while Bean played indoors for a little while.

It's been so so hot today. Beautifully hot, really. We spent most of the day outside, in and out of the shade. Bean decided he wanted to wear long trousers and socks, and a long sleeved teeshirt and I couldn't persuade him otherwise. Bear demanded to wear his pyjama bottoms all day but at least I was able to put a clean short-sleeved tee on him! At least when it got to mid-afternoon and they asked for the paddling pools to be filled they were both only too happy to shed their clothes. And I just about managed to put the canopy up again, although I really need to learn to tie sheetbend knots.

Mostly, the boys have been really lovely company today. It's been pretty cool being able to spend some unexpected quality time with them both. They've been hard work though, mainly because they are so both so full-on and full of energy!

While Bear had his nap, Bean and I had some REALLY lovely quality time together. We sat out by the brambles watching and identifying bees. Steve printed out some bee identification pages for us yesterday, and I chased bees around taking pictures of some of them so Bean could look at their colourings and markings more closely, but he loved watching them all. He can now spot red-tailed bumblebees, buff-tailed bumblebees, yellow honeybees and dark honeybees! We saw giant pollen sacs on some of the bumblebees but not on others. And no wasps today - they're very different colourings.

Been quite a day. So nice to have a day at home! Bit of a mountain of washing up to get through now though :-/