We went over to The Vyne yesterday to meet up with friends. Unfortunately it turned out that the playground there is closed until 13 February but there wasn’t too much complaining from the children. Whilst everyone else had lunch, Duncan and I joined one of the gardeners for a spot of wassailing to assure a good crop from the orchard. This involved drinking cider (at least for me) in a toast to the tree, placing toast soaked in cider around the tree (to encourage the birds to come and eat any pests), making lots of noise (to ward away the evil spirits), and party poppers (which left the tree suitably decorated). After lunch we wandered around the lake and up in to the woods. Remarkably 20 month old Alice insisted on walking the whole way until she finally fell asleep within sight of the car park.
Archive for the ‘Family’ Category
Wassailing at The Vyne
Sunday, January 18th, 2015First ‘O’ of 2015
Sunday, January 11th, 2015Our first orienteering of the year took us over to the WIM Galoppen at Moors Valley Country Park. I went out on the Brown whilst Christine shepherded both children around the White. Emma started two minutes after Duncan and Christine and had caught them by the second control. Duncan exacted his revenge on the string course! I’ve succumbed to the children’s cough over the past few days which, combined with a general lack of core strength, meant that I found all of the brashings and furrows hard going (and the planner had, unfortunately, done his best to ensure that use of the extensive path network was minimal). I may have been sixth in the results but I was a good 12 minutes behind the winner! Thanks to Simon Errington implementing my feature request, I can also now link directly to my route on RouteGadget.
Whilst Christine was out on her course we relocated the car round to the main Country Park car park and the children used up what remaining energy they had in the play ground and on the play trail. They certainly went to sleep quickly this evening! We’re booked in for orienteering the next two weekends so it’s good that they enjoyed the day out.
Fleming Mudbath
Monday, January 5th, 2015
Opening the curtains on the first Saturday of the year to view a very wet garden and more rain on its way could only mean one thing: the Hampshire Cross-Country Champs! At least it was handy with Fleming Park once again being the venue. Christine braved the weather first, cycling there whilst I fed the children lunch. We then followed on in the car arriving just in time to watch her race start.
The courses are particularly convoluted which has the benefit that, as spectators, we didn’t have to move very far to see Christine, and the conditions, getting progressively muddier and muddier. The children were very good given the weather. Emma said it was great fun although, to be fair, I think this may have just been her new discovery of sarcasm. Christine finished just in time for me to hand over, strip off, and head to the start for the men’s race.
Last time I ran this course two years ago, I started far too fast on the first lap only to realise that I still had to go round twice more. Knowing this still didn’t stop me repeating the error! I’ve strategically chosen a picture of Christine to accompany this post as, once you’ve removed the blurred and out of focuse photos she took, your just left with ones of me looking like an old man in lots of pain. I waded round the 11.5km of mud in 46:23, some 35 seconds slower than in 2013 and ended up four places further down in 45th place. By way of consolation, when I really am an old man next year and qualify as a veteran, I just need to shave off 16 seconds to end up in to top 5 M40s!
Duncan starts school
Monday, September 8th, 2014
After much anticipation (Emma and Duncan have been playing schools for months), Duncan finally got to experience the real thing today. He’s well used to the walk to school and Christine didn’t have any problems leaving him (he got there early enough to bagsy a LearnPad which had his full attention). I, meanwhile, got to drop Emma in the junior school playground and lost track of the number of times I was told ‘you can go now’! Duncan’s only there for mornings to start with but, if the state he was in this evening is anything to go by, they’re going to have to try a lot harder to tire him out.
Guernsey Camping
Saturday, September 6th, 2014
This post could equally have been called ‘Not the Austrian Alps’ as that was meant to be our summer holiday destination but we left things too late and somehow it ended up being too expensive or too complicated to get there. I’m not sure how we ended up on Guernsey instead though other than perhaps it is easy to get to from us with a choice of flights from Southampton or ferry from Portsmouth, Weymouth or Poole. We took the last of these which provide to be a bit of a rough crossing (Emma ensuring that we were in the majority of families that had at least one sick child).
We were staying at La Bailloterie camping which had a definite feel of end of season about it. Perhaps not surprising given the weather for the first few days we were there. We managed to dodge the showers fairly successfully though, enjoying the local beaches and visiting some of the many underground attractions when the rain became more persistent: La Vellette Underground Military Museum is full of memborilia from the German occupation but could do a better job of telling the story whereas the aquarium just looks tired. Thanks to a tip off from Christine’s brother we also enjoyed the view from Victoria Tower in St Peter Port (you get to let yourself in using a key from the nearby museum).
The weather brightened up as the week went on and we expanded our range of beaches. Originally we’d planned a visit to one of the neighbouring islands but after the ferry crossing nobody fancied it much! Instead we settled for walking across the causeway to Lihou Island.
All told, a good break and, although Guernsey has some fantastic spacious beaches, I’m not sure we’ll be rushing back there. It just seems a waste to spend 3 hours on a ferry and arrive at somewhere which is still very English (the local supermarket stocked produce from Tesco!). Time to start booking next year’s holiday in Austria…
Beaulieu
Monday, August 18th, 2014
I was back in sole charge of the children today and we decided to head over to the Beaulieu Estate (good value with just one adult and Duncan still under five). Emma was keen to act as tour guide following her school trip to the Motor Musuem. After a quick trip round the Top Gear exhibit (lost on the children and, to a large extent, me) we took the monorail down to the far end.
The Secret Army Exhibition held promise but sadly the showcases were too high for Duncan to really see anything and the audio-visual presentation was pretty lack lustre. Palace House was next up. As a nice touch, all of the notices within were written in the first person by the present Lord Montagu whose family has owned the estate for nearly 500 years. The children also enjoyed the games laid out on the lawn although we did have to hide under the adjacent hedge when a rain shower came through.
After lunch we headed in to the Abbey (remains of) and enjoyed a very information falconry presentation by Paul Manning in the cloisters. Nearly four and a half hours in to our visit we finally succumbed and took the vintage double-decker back and entered the National Motor Musuem. The preponderance of ‘do not touch’ signs meant that it was a relatively fleeting visit as the children were largely only interested in things that they could climb on!
The day ended with the obligatory ice cream. It remains to be seen whether we make use of the offer to return free of charge in the next 6 days, or indeed the ability to return to just the museum at any point of the next year (as a result of giving Gift Aid).
Not the Isle of Wight
Sunday, August 17th, 2014We were originally thinking about a day trip to the Isle of Wight today. We thought we’d leave the car at home and get the train and ferry which, with a railcard, is actually cheaper than just getting the ferry even before you factor in parking. Then we started to look at the logistics: the free bus from the train station to the ferry terminal seems to be perfectly timed to miss the incoming train and then to miss the ferry so you end up waiting around for an hour in Southampton. Then when you get to the island, you have to get to Newport before you can get the bus anywhere else. Before you know it there’s hardly any of the day left, and we just threw up our hands in despair and decided to go somewhere else instead!
We ended up at the National Trust’s Hinton Ampner which was hosting a ‘Family Fun Day’. On arrival we went straight over to the advertised tree climbing. Unfortunately Duncan was too young but Emma thoroughly enjoyed her rope climb up in the to branches of a massive oak tree. It was a shame that we had to wait so long and that it started to tip it down when she was half way up. I was just glad that I’d borrowed a helmet and was stood under the tree taking photos when the rain arrived!
It wasn’t long before the sun came out though and we had a lovely picnic in the grounds with an accompanying live band. Emma then wanted to go in search of the promised free face painting. Another long wait ensued and, as her departure time approached, the lady would no longer do full face patterns, but the effect was worth the wait (at least for Emma). We then did one of the trails where, as he filled out his quiz sheet, Duncan demonstrated that his writing is improving nicely just in time for school. He also demonstrated his ability to annoy Emma by somehow always getting the rubber stamper before she did! The children were suitably rewarded with plastic medals and, as Christine went off for a run, we picked up more medals on a quick tour of the house.
We finished up the day flying Emma’s pocket kite. It was nice to have had a trip to Hinton Ampner where we weren’t completely zonked after a night of orienteering (our previous two visits) and we spent just four pounds plus petrol money which certainly wouldn’t have got us to the Isle of Wight!
Museums & Shoes
Saturday, August 16th, 2014
I was on child minding duty again on Friday and there was much debate on what we should do. Emma was insisting on Manor Farm and Duncan wanted to go to Winchester, probably just to be contrary as he couldn’t say what he actually wanted to do there! Emma was brought round to Winchester when she realised that it could involve a trip to a shoe shop!
We parked at the top of town and went up Westgate before heading over to the Great Hall. Emma then seemed keen on following the sign to the military museums. We went in search of the visitor’s centre to get some guidance on which of the five museums we should go to but the content of the visitor’s centre itself seemed sufficient to satisfy Emma. We sat and had our lunch amidst the (converted) barracks which is a lovely peaceful spot away from the crush of the High Street. It was also a good excuse to check out this area before November’s Urban Event!
It was then time to hit the shoe shops. Mercifully Clarks offered up school shoes for them both without too much pain but Emma is also angling for some late summer sandals which we failed to find. We then went to the Winchester City Museum which I’ve passed on numberous occasions but I don’t think I’ve ever been in before. Sadly I didn’t get to take much in as we had to race round looking for the faces on our clipboard as part of the children’s trail before dashing back before our parking expired.
Duncan must have found the whole experience pretty tiring as he then dropped off to sleep on the way to his swimming lesson (and was therefore particularly recalcitrant when trying to get him ready). Roll on the weekend and shared parenting duties!
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