Our day trip to Stratford Upon Avon xxx

I made the picnic last night and by 9am this morning, Eva and I were on our way to Janet's house to meet Janet, Sue and Bebe and then drive to Woodend train station to get the train into Stratford, where we were meeting Tricia, Fred, Stefan, Jenny and Samuel, Katie and Tegan for a day in Stratford. It would be Eva's first ever time on a train.

When we arrived in Stratford, we first found a little coffee shop and sat and waited for the others to arrive, had a couple of coffees, then had a slow saunter down through Stratford, over the river, and eventually to a huge play park full of things to play on. Eva fell asleep eventually in her pushchair, but woke back up literally about 20 odd minutes later. That cat nap proved to be Eva's only sleep today. We found a nice spot on the grass, lay out the picnic blanket and started on the picnic, while some of the slightly older children went off to play in the park. Eva sat happily munching on some ham sandwich, turkey sandwich, a little mini gingerbread man, some halved grapes, and a yoghurt. She also drank plenty of water. After the picnic, Eva had a wonderful time on the swings and Bebe even took a turn at pushing Eva on the swing.

On the walk back through Stratford back to the train station, I hoped Eva would go back to sleep in her pushchair, but despite being absolutely shattered, she would not go back to sleep. We were about half an hour early for the next train, so we stopped off and had another coffee and Janet and I shared some scones, clotted cream and jam mmmmm, the whole time with me rocking Eva's pushchair back and forth, but she wouldn't go to sleep.

Even in the car on the way from the train station back to Janet's (we went back for coffee and Eva had a ball playing with Bebe, crawling all round Janet's lounge and dining room and looking out of the window at the cows) and in the car home from Janet's, Eva would not nod off. I had actually been umming and arring about going out for the day, as I didn't think Eva would sleep apart from in her bed, and she had always had a sleep around 12pm in her cot, so this was the first ever time I decided to just do it and go out for the day. No Eva didn't sleep, but she was actually in very good spirits despite having no sleep, and it's 10.30pm as I write today's entry, and she's been fast asleep in bed since 7.15pm tonight.

We really did have a wonderful day. It was fantastic to all get together and Eva was made such a fuss of by everybody, I was a very proud Mommy. Her little face didn't stop smiling very much at all from start to finish. Even at bath time tonight she was laughing and splashing away in the water, finding it hilarious that I was getting soaked.

Today's picture is made up of Eva and Bebe holding hands on the train, a group pic of 4 of us outside the coffee shop in the sunshine, Eva enjoying a sandwich and some grapes at the picnic and Eva loving the swings in the park. There were so many photos I could have chosen from today, it really was difficult narrowing it down to 4 photos. Xxx