Although it's not warm yet, we have made a couple of trips to the Essex seaside over the last month or so. Last weekend we had one cracking day - about 12deg and sunny. Excitedly, we got a picnic together and headed to the Mersea beach straight after Bella's ballet lesson.

The girls had a wonderful time, finding shells to make necklaces and bracelets out of. Xander and Bella then embarked upon a treasure hunt for Samuel Pepys' buried cheese. A bit puzzled by the seemingly strange treasure, I asked Xander what he was on about. He went on to give me great chapter and verse about the Great Fire of London in 1666, and how Samuel Pepys had buried his favourite cheese in his garden to protect it from the fire.

All this interest in the Great Fire promted us to take the kids into the Museum of London the following day. We couldn't have picked a better day to do it, as there were new exhibits about the fire and a story teller recounting a tale.

And a picture from the latest lunar eclipse on Saturday night taken from the garden. We got Xander out of bed to have a look at it - he didn't really think it was that exciting. Oh well...