David, Grace, Sarah and Emma Bellis

The girls have had a busy week. On Thursday night, form 5 led us through their Beijing trip, with skits and songs:

Then Friday & Saturday were orchestra weekend, followed by an excellent concert on Saturday afternoon. The first clip zooms in on Sarah and Emma during the Radtzky March:

And the second is Take Five, my favourite performance of the show:

The Sunday before last had an animal theme, gerbils in the morning and swans in the afternoon.

Emma has been asking about pets forever, but hadn't mentioned them recently. We thought (hoped!) the excitement of starting at a new school had distracted her. Except when we went along to school for a meeting with her teacher, she pulled out two books with a "Thought you might be interested to read these...". Two books about hamsters.

Ok, let's get on with it. Now we've looked before for gerbils but never found any in Hong Kong. But this time a search in Google and up popped two for adoption at the SPCA. So off we went pronto, and now we've got two new family members. I'm especially pleased to report they're two brothers, evening up the balance of the sexes here in the Bellis household.

Introducing George and Ginger (or Ginger and George, Emma will tell you who's who...)

From 2015-09-swans+gerbils

That was the morning's outing with Emma, then it was off to see Sarah's ballet school put on their annual show, Swan Lake. We thoroughly enjoyed the show, and Sarah was lovely to see. Here she is, looking down at us from up on point...

From 2015-09-swans+gerbils

From 2015-09-swans+gerbils

From 2015-09-swans+gerbils

Two sister swans...

From 2015-09-swans+gerbils

From 2015-09-swans+gerbils

And finally a twirl for the camera...

(If the slideshow below doesn't work, you can click here to visit the photo album.)

Up in the Lake District we stayed in a lovely self-catering cottage in Bassenthwaite. The girls enjoyed helping look after the animals. Here are the ducks heading home for the night:

Sarah & David went on the Go Ape zipline at Whinlatter:

Then from Elizabeth's we went for dimsum in Manchester,

for a muddy outing at Trentham,

and fun at the Crocky Hole:

London first...

Then off to Wales & Scotland...

Our first camping trip to Tai Long Wan with the girls, a trip to Disneyland with the Moks, Grace's birthday, and Emma's Brownies.

Packing up #22 in preparation for mum to move to a flat. A busy week in London, then a quiet week in Ireland. A weekend with Nick and Jessie and the ladies, several trips to the beach, and Tim & Vicky's wedding to round it off.

Featuring Sarah's school orchestra, lots of geckos, fairies, Lara, Victoria, Christmassy stuff, Jake, Sinead, Dominic & Diana.