Monday, October 24, 2011

a sunny, not so lazy, Sunday afternoon

hi everyone

well, i don't know about all of you, but we've had a rather busy and indeed excellent weekend over here! Saturday and Sunday were days that were as full as one could make them. i do not, alas, have any pictures of Saturday, but i suspect you having read this far and seen the title of this particular post have, as it were, "clocked" that.

as it was a mostly lovely, warm weekend here, Grandma thought it might be an ace idea to take the boys along to a rather good garden centre, the name of which escapes me for the moment. calling it "just" a garden centre is a bit of an understatement, one that you will understand when you see what they have on offer there.

like, for instance, an excellent range of lizards, snakes and reptiles for sale!





William, as you can see above, was rather impressed with the one above! i think it might have been an iguana, but i shall accept any other name you care to give it.

he was not, it has to be said, all that bothered with the snakes, really.





well, in fairness all they do is sort of lay there and stick their tongue out a bit, not the sort of thing to impress William. James rather likes all the snakes, mind.

both of them were, however, rather taken with the large number of mice that they had on display!





i know you cannot see all that much in the above picture, but trust me there were dozens of mice running around in the thing they are looking at, and i think they boys were rather keen on trying to get one or two of them!

they were also rather taken with the chickens on display for some reason. again, you shall have to take my word for it that it is chickens they are looking at!





not content with the rare and potentially dangerous possible pets on display, the boys were a bit beside themselves with the 4 (four) excellent play areas they had to choose from. well, i say choose, needless to say they had a go on everything that the place had to offer!





i did not, sadly, take all that many pictures of them playing. rather a lot of the play areas were elevated jungle gyms, a little bit over my head, and of course they insisted on climbing as high as they could. i felt it somewhat better to keep an eye on them and be ready to catch, so to speak, than it was to try and take pictures!

not that i was the only one taking pictures, of course, James took a bit of a break from playing to grab the camera and took this rather splendid one of his Grandma





and indeed this excellent picture of his dear brother William stopping to have a drink!





William is a touch peculiar with that drink, by the way. when he has a sip of it he pulls a rather funny face which suggests that he does not enjoy it at all, but insists on having more and will not accept a replacement one. go figure!

anyway, after a photographic and refreshment break, it was soon back to the all important task of playing; something made quite class by the provided bikes and excellent track they had for them to ride around on!





and it was not just "conventional", traditional playgrounds that they had the choice of either. they had a range of those rides that look like vehicles and sort of shake about a bit in exchange for some financial consideration. William loved them at Sun City, so i was delighted to be able to let him loose on some once more!

it seems i have "forgotten" to bring in the pictures of them on most of the rides, but here is an absolutely priceless one of the two of them on the king of rides they had, an excellent helicopter that went up, down and around a bit!





i just love the expressions they are pulling there! James seems not to have a care in the world about the direction Airwolf is going, whereas William seems concerned that they are about to crash!

after a somewhat exhausting run around the whole of the garden centre, it was back off to South Fork. not for a rest, however, for the boys seem to have no need for that! the boys wanted to do some swimming, and so this is what we did! here they are sat with someone i won't name, but i can confirm that he does have tickets for The Stone Roses next year. there, see, i got a mention of them in.





now, if the boys do not look as happy as they could in the above it is mainly because James wanted to get on with learning how to swim properly and William was determined that he could indeed swim if we just let go of him and let him get on with it!

as far as William goes, we shall have to keep a good eye and firm grip on him around any sort of water that is more substantial than a cup, really. he has got the general idea of how one swims, but his skill does not quite match his confidence.

James, however, seems to have the hang of it, which is excellent! for the most part this would be down to the most outstanding swim outfits Grandma got for them which helps with floating, but i did a little bit to help him learn too, i would like to think!





we are really rather impressed and proud of how James has learnt how to swim and is getting on with it! we just wish that perhaps he did not shoot off to the deep end straight away until he has refined his skills to a bit more than a paddle!

well, that's an insight into how some of our weekend went! i trust and hope that yours was just as ace!



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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