Fizzing swimming drawing playing choosing

Today I gave F pretty much free choice of what she wanted to do/where she wanted to go and she chose to make a couple of bath bombs at home and then go swimming.
So we made a lovely pinkish red perfectly spherical bath bomb with glitter in and a less lovely weird purplish grey squodged shaped one without. The kit was fairly easy to use with the ridiculous exception of 2 plastic containers having necks too small to fit the spoons in! Tsk.
We left the bath bombs drying in the conservatory (very very hot glass box these days) and went off to the swimming pool. It's a long walk for a young child in the heat - just over a mile each way - the walk there is not so bad, but the walk back is hard going, even with the obligatory ice-lolly purchase. Definitely need to work out a bus that we can get, and plan for that next time. I'm pretty sure there is one that goes part of the way so we need to plan our swimming pool/leisure centre trips around the bus times if I can find them out. Brighton buses are all on the internet, but local buses are a bit of a mystery!
At the pool, F wore arm-bands and then grabbed a swim ring and suddenly found confidence with these buoyancy aids. She really started lifting her legs up and trying to move around the pool moving her arms. And she watched another girl swimming doggy paddle style and tried to copy with a little success. So that was quite a step forward. I bought her a swim ring as we left as it seemed to have made a big difference.
We stayed for well over an hour and then began the long slog home in the heat. Got ices at the first shop we came to and gradually made it home. It wasn't too bad actually, just hot and slow - I tend to want to walk fast in heat to get out of it, but F dawdles of course.

Back at home I got the paddling pool out and we put the bath bombs in it - very pretty. They worked - they are very small - about 3cm diameter - but they did dissolve and fizz spreading colour and glitter through the water. So we will do more of those and think about other things to put in (flower petals, etc.). There are some other 'fizzy' experiments to do in the kit too.
J arrived soon after this, so we all cooled our feet in the chilly purple water together, which was bliss.
F spent a bit of time in the pool and then swinging, then she came in and had a 'picky bits' tea while playing XBox with J in a 2-player game.
Then she stayed up late drawing each of her My Little Pony items (butterfly island, etc) on a separate piece of paper, with actual looking at them and everything.

So our week of me not working much and spending better/more time with F has got off to a good start. Not sure what we will be doing tomorrow. One day I will have to get into town to buy various items for the upcoming picnic and I do need some time just to laze around not working too, but hope to give F some more free choices during the week. She does spend a lot of her time at home deciding what to do and doing it, but it's normally me that says when we can go out and where we go and if something requires a lot of my assistance/supervision it is me that decides when it can be done. It's nice to be able to offer her a freer choice when I have the time.