What a lovely weekend
My parents were hosting a Quiet Day on Saturday for some random religious types which would take over a lot of the house. Being a normal 4 year old (how the hell did that happen?!) boy, this is not the sort event that Edwin can expected to hang out quietly in the house while it takes place (I don't think this sentence is even nearly grammatically correct, but you get what I'm wittering on about, right?).
Fortunately, my parents live about 30mins away from Thomas Land and I'd toyed with the idea of going ever since I'd seen an advert for it on the Hero of the Rails DVD we have frequently borrowed from the library. So, with Richard away and knowing we'd be turfed out of the parental house, I thought it would be a nice treat for Edwin. I checked the prices online and nearly had a heart attack ... £36 for an adult (apparently I am one) and £25 for children over the age of 4 (dammit, why are children so keen to tell everyone how old they are?) the prices are reduced to £20 & £12 respectively but still *ouch* ... I took a deep breath stuck in my debit card details ... clicked on the checkout button and looked at the options. Print at home or collect on the day.
Both of them carried a £3.50 booking fee. Fuck me. I know my maths isn't great (just ask anyone I currently work with, ever worked with or went to school with) but that's more than 10% .. when paying with a debit card. I did toy with the idea of collecting on the day, just to make them actually do some bloody work for the booking fee but even the thought of having an extra queue with and excitable Edwin was more than I could bear, so paid and printed my tickets.
So, the rides ...
- Jeremy's Flying School (2) - ace, the 'pilot' made the planes going up and down as it went round and round
- Troublesome Trucks (3): a real rollercoaster but for children, not very long and twice round was NOT enugh
- Rocking Bulstrode: it was a boat that jiggled you about
- Harold Helicopter Tours: "Mummy, why aren't the propellers going round?"
- Lady's Carousel: Edwin went on his own. Apprently, saying "you wait here, I'll go on my own" does NOT mean that.
- Crazy Bertie Bus: there was a girl with special needs who stayed on this ride for several goes. That was a tricky one to explain.
- Diesel's Locomotion Mayhem: no queue and surprisingly fun. Especially because we got to go in Rusty, the orange one.
- Blue Mountain Engines: no queues, unsurprisingly, it was a bit shit, well designed for very small children.
We also went on a little train ride with Percy & Thomas.
The queues were't awful - fortunately, the longest wait we had was about 20 minutes for Harold.
A little game for you, match the pictures to the rides:
For Edwin, the rest of the weekend involved lots of splashing about in the hot tub, egg finding, feeding tomatoes to the chickens (chickens only eat ripe tomatoes), general garden chores (including putting carrots in sand to keep them fresh over the winter and hitting piles of leaves with a big stick - no idea why) and eating lots of ice cream. There was also a trip to a big adventure park which involved boy heaven i.e. lots of climbing and mud.
For me it was just a bit of a break, which was very nice.
As we were leaving my parents, I asked Edwin what his favourite thing that we did this weekend. "The park mummy, that was the best" was his reply. I must have looked slightly put out because he quickly added "Thomas Land was good too".
Half days at work ROCK.
I've changed my hours at work so I work an extra hour on Tuesday & Thursday and leave at 2pm on Fridays but since Richard's been away, I've reverted to normal hours and I took half a day off today.
I left work and went home to pack which take very long. Then I sat on the sofa ando did NOTHING. Being a lazy lazy comes naturally to me, I have to give myself a slap round the face to make myself get off my fat arse to do stuff.
Edwin finished school at 3.15, so I collected him and we headed straight to sunny Staffordshire to my parents house. I should explain that my parents live next to a scout camp on the edge of Cannock Chase, just round the corner from Castle Ring. It's also spitting distance from Cannock (funnily enough) home of Stan Collymore and apparently the dogging capital of Britain
I would describe my parents as middle class baby boomer eco warrier Christan hippies (without the drugs). They live in carbon neutral house with a massive garden with chickens, bees, half a rowing boat on their pond (don't ask) and a vegetable patch the size of my own garden. You can be looking out of the kitchen window and see rabbits and deer amble across the lawn, (well, the deer amble, the rabbits sort of bounce) while woodpeckers feed from the birdtable.
As amazing as all this to a small boy if I'm honest, the best thing about a visit to Grandpa John and Grandma's house is the HOT TUB*
It was a late night for Edwin as he slept for an hour on the way down, so after a dinner of homemade chips (yes, potatoes from the garden) and salad (yes, from the garden) ** it was hot tub time.
I really couldn't be arsed was to get in, so it was down to Grandpa John to supervise!
* it's heated by a wood burner and being incredibly eco minded, they only heat it up once per month. Normally this coincides with a visit by grandchildren.
** as a child, we had set meals for each day of the week. Friday was always chips & salad night. (I'll do a blog post on this at some point, remind me). 25 years on and my parent still have virtually the same plan
Monday morning and I'm looking forward to work? Yes, that's right.
I'm knackered. I am averaging 4 hours of sleep a night which is worrying when you consider that Margaret Thatcher *spit* used to get by with the same amount and look how that turned out. So to be honest, I was looking forward to grown up conversation* and generally not having to worry about someone else for a few hours.
I got to the kids club at school who provide wrap around care for normal i.e. working parents was told that school might not be open because they had no water. But there was no one at school who could confirm that the school would be closed *ahem* So I hung out for a half an hour waiting and then decided to drive into work.At 8.10, I was half way to work and got the call from the kids club to say school was closed.
The offical text from school arrived shortly after.
I'm a planner. I write lists. I don't like things not going to plan. Today did not go to plan.
On the plus side, there was no shouting - from me at least.
*being able to swear
So Richard is in India for work. It was originally going to be for a week, which turned into 10 days which turned into 12 days. It's the longest we've been apart since I moved up North, let alone since we had Edwin.
He got collected yesterday morning (business class *sigh*) and Edwin & I had a pretty unventful day. OK, I admit it, we (he) watched a lot of t.v. and being a typical middle class mother* I felt incredibly guilty about it, so I tried to plan out some activites for today.
In fact, today is the only day that Edwin are going to be together, on our own all day. He's got school, I've got work and next weekend I'm fleeing to my parents (Thomas Land at Drayton Manor, here we come)
When Edwin went to bed last night, I said that we were going to go on an adventure walk and collect lots of his treasures to make a picture for Daddy. He seemed quite enthusiastic about it.Obviously, it was a completely different story this morning.
After a semi disastrous pancake episode**, we set off for Temple Newsam (free parking ahoy) and as I parked the car Edwin declared that he didn't want to go for a walk and he hated being outside. I believe his exact words 'I didn't choose outside'.
I managed to get him out of the car and imediately he started running about and generally being the ace little boy that he really is. We went on a Hunter hunt and a Peter hunt*** and had a walk upto the Little Temple, which as you can see, really has seem better days. On the way back down the 'hill' and he took great delight on weeing in a little stream, I was less delighted to get wee on my hand. He really does need to get his standing up weeing technique sorted out.
Edwin decided he was going to be a doggy, crawling on the floor, asking me to tell him to sit and chasing after sticks (and stones) I threw for him. Yeah, we must have looked like complete idiots but it was hilarious seeing the look on peoples' faces as they realised what we were doing. Then we went on a treasure hunt and collected loads of fallen leaves, sticks, sycamore seeds and to Edwin's great excitement lots of acorn 'hats' you know, like Twigs from Tree Fu Tom's hat
I gave Edwin the choice between a visit to the farm, a look round the shop and an ice cream from the cafe. Proving beyond doubt that he is my son, he chose the ice cream (surprise!) so after we'd finished we headed over the BIG playground for a massive run around. It was all going so well til about 11 when I knew he'd be getting hungry (we'd had the disaster pancakes at about 7am) but he didn't want to leave. It took 20 minutes and the threat of counting, before he'd leave.
When we got home he did have a 'I'm so hungry, I can't do anything' meltdown - but hey at least it wasn't in the park in front of all those other parents & their perfectly behaved kids *ahem*. Finally we tucked into my fave Mummy & Me lunch of fishfinger sandwiches or fishfingers on toast as he called it when he took the top layer of bread off.
It was all very domesticated after lunch, as I was getting the beef stew ready to put in the oven, Edwin made a lovely forest collage for Richard using all the treasures we'd found on our walk.We jumped about on the trampoline before heading to the library then came home to watch Hiro of the Rails. Yeah, okay, he watched it twice and I managed to have a cat nap during the second showing.
Obviously he wasn't at all interested in the AMAZING beef stew and just ate a shed load of mash & green beans instead. I admit it, I ate his stew, in my defence, I did give myself a small portion because I assumed this would happen.
Bath, stories and bedtime were all pretty uneventful - hurrah - and I was sat on the sofa watching Dr Who (I love the iPlayer in HD) at 7.30 after clearing up.
All in all, a good day. Yays.
* I accepted the fact that I'm ridiculously middle class a long time ago. I think I was in my early 20s when someone called me middle class as an insult. I shrugged and said, yeah, I know, why try and pretend otherwise.
** Don't put buttermilk into 'normal' pancake mixture. They tasted good but were a bastard to cook.
*** Edwin's obsessed with Peter & the Wolf at the moment
Well, I tried to make some fortune cookies. The first ones were ok (ish) ... the middles were a bit undercooked and they weren't as crips as they should so the fortunes got a little stuck on the cookie dough.
But the second ones were a complete fail. But Edwin has decided he LOVES cookies with messages in them so I bought him a big bag of fortune cookies at the Asian supermarket and I think I'm going to try to make them again at some point to help with his reading.
Anyway, here's a list of the fortunes that were in the cookies and I'll add to them everytime I find another - they're all written exactly as they were on the fortune.
- A modest man never talks of himself
- Characteris what you are, not what others think you are
- Every
heart is ticklish to love
- Everyone smiles in the same language
- Love will
always find a way into your life
- May all you're dreaming soon turn into dreams come true
- Someone is speaking well of you
- The
joyfulness of a man prolonged his life
- The star of riches is shining upon you
- Tomorrow will be a good day to get things done
- You are a
bundle of energy, always on the go
- You are never selfish with your advice or your help
- You are next in line for promotion in your firm
- You are very expressive and positive in words, act and feeling
- You have an active mind and a keen imagination
- Your future is as boundless as the lofty heaven
- Your
hardworking and careful ways with finance will lead to your wealth
- Your
present plans are going to succeed
