Today started pleasantly late for me, which was needed. J and F looked at some stuff about the Corpus Clock and talked a bit about how big the faces of Big Ben are (23 sq. ft.).

After some leisurely breakfasting and lolling, J made some sandwiches and I packed a few bits up and we set off for a walk and a picnic at the local nature reserve - it's a 15-minute walk away and we'd been meaning to have a picnic there all summer.

Stopped for a quick chat with a neighbour at the park, then a bit of sitting with ice lollies in the local gardens, before reaching the nature reserve. It's a great place for wandering and exploring, having lots of paths off paths and strange little bridges and features. Lots of reed beds and wetness too.
We saw herons, standing and in flight, frogs, those outrageously blue damselflies, waterboatmen, bumblebees and non-bumble bees and many other such naturey things. Also picked and ate blackberries here and there.
Did a nice big loop and then went to riverside picnic spot, where we ate sandwiches, nectarines, grapes, crisps, crackers, bread and houmous. J had cunningly packed a cold Smirnoff Ice for he and I to share, which was nice.
It was all very idyllically Sundayish and we stayed for quite a while. A spaniel came and wolfed down F's discarded crusts cheekily. F did a bit of sketching - a drawing of J and a painting of me. I am loving having the pocket watercolour boxes and A5 sketch pad. Should have taken more, it's pretty down there and I quite fancy painting at the moment.

On our way back we bumped into another neighbour for another chat.
Back home I gave F a bath with lavender and tea tree bubbles and we watched Neverending Story, which I quite liked, never having seen it before. F stayed up and watched a bit of the Strictly Come Dancing results show, with hot chocolate, but was very tired then.