Emily and I had our second visit of the week to Midtown park, this time to meet Julia and some of her friends, who were having a teddy bears' picnic. The upper lawn was roped off, and the reason soon became apparent: a hot air balloon was laid out and soon inflated. The children all found it fascinating; Emily talked about the balloon for days afterwards and about the 'balloon fire' ie. the gas burner used to inflate it. I had intended to leave before the others began their picnic, as I had lunch ready at home, but they started very early and Emily naturally wanted to tuck in too. She went straight for a packet of Jaffa cakes, and necked two before I managed to tear her away and set off for home.
Nick was very subdued on his regular lunchtime call, and I found out why when I logged on, to see that he had forwarded an email telling him he had failed the regulatory exam. It was no more than he had expected, but I had allowed myself to harbour a little hope that he would scrape through. Now he has to resit it, and also do a lot more revision, which could eat into our weekends together.
After lunch we met Jo and Bettina at Kyu Shiba Rikyu. The kids had a wonderful time playing there, especially with the gravel. Emily collected enough in her pockets to make her sink to the bottom if she fell into the lake.
As we crossed the bridge to the little island I caught a flash of blue in the corner of my eye, and realised that it was a kingfisher. It sat on a rock overhanging the water and darted down to catch one of the tiddlers in the lake before flying up into a pine tree with its catch. Emily loved the many huge carp there and called out 'Hello fishies. How are you?'!
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