Friday 9 August 2013

The summer hols so far!

On Wednesday 24th July, at about 2.15pm I suddenly had a moment of panic. One hour before the boys were going to break up for the summer holidays and we hadn't made a single firm plan of anything to do over the next 5 and a bit weeks. No holiday, no big days out, not even a bucketlist of crafty things to try.
It was my fault, some slightly noble-minded theory that they would make their own entertainment and that we would have a peaceful time just going with the flow. But right at the last moment I was having a crisis of confidence. What if they spent the whole summer telling me they were bored and bickering with each other? Should I have enrolled them in some self-improving courses or organised a series of trips to interesting and educational places? Was it too late to book a last minute cheap deal holiday somewhere with reliable weather?
Well luckily, the next day the holiday got off to just the start I was hoping for and I was back on track with my go-with-the-flow attitude! Danny had come home from school with a gift for being a good eco-council rep. It was a little notebook and pen and his first thought was that he wanted to make a list of all the parks we must visit over the holiday- perfect. So on the Thursday morning we started to tick them off with a trip to the "Tiddleywink" park- so called by the boys because you go through a little hamlet called Tiddleywink to get there!

































As you can see, it has lots of great equipment to encourage them to get active and burn off a bit of energy; and having not visited since last summer they charged around for ages enjoying all the things anew now they were bigger and able to tackle them more independently.
The next piece of luck was that Danny insisted we go and buy some scrap books. Zac's teacher had sent a list of possible things-to-do last summer and Zac had spent quite a lot of time and care over making a scrapbook, which he still enjoys looking at now. Although no such list had come home this holidays, Danny felt it was an expected part of the summer holiday and I definitely wasn't going to argue- anything that makes him enthusiastic about writing has got to be good! We stopped off at the newsagent on the way home to purchase said scrapbooks and Danny entertained everyone by talking into a fan that was keeping the shop cool- he'd discovered it chops your voice and makes it sound like you're a dalek!
In the afternoon, they decided it was time for a fishing trip so we walked down to the weir. It's about a mile away and takes a long time to get there at little-person speed, but we were rewarded by catching lots of minnows so it was a very popular excursion.






















It was a very peaceful and very enjoyable day and I was looking forward to many more similar!
Well, since then we've visited several more parks:














And had lots of lovely walks:

























But we've also done some more full-on trips. Zac is slightly obsessed with Concorde so we went to see the one at the Fleet Air Arm museum, which was a fabulous day out although when we actually saw the aircraft he was initially terrified having seen pictures of it crashing :(.











The highlight this week was the Aldbourne Fun Day. They do it every year as part of National Play Day and it's brilliant. Most things are free to try and there is loads going on. The boys love to get stuck in trying new skills:











And to cap it all, yesterday we saw our first Combine harvesting!
So, so far so good. The holidays seem to be rushing past- I think it's because I'm very aware that come the 2nd September I'm going back to school- eeek! I'm going to try to focus on the next couple of weeks and not look too far beyond!

4 comments:

  1. And sometimes the holidays where you have nothing planned, and just do what takes your fancy, are the very best of all! Lovely post! :)

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  2. I often fibd spur of the moment days the best..it looks likwme your all having a great time so far x

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  3. I don't know why you were panicking - it looks like it's been non stop fun and activities! Great photos of all the super parks, fishing and the fun day - thanks for linking up and sharing with Country Kids.

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  4. Thanks all! We are all enjoying ourselves and having a lovely peaceful time- definitely panic over! Mind you, glad we haven't had non-stop rain!!

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