Days 7 & 8 : Thomas Land

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".

Day 6: Half Day and Parents

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