Monday Musings

Ooh - another few days since my last post.

Thursday 2nd June we awoke to what promised to be a beautiful day, so I decided to take the children to  Slimbridge WWT for the Downy Ducklings event. A quick trip to the local supermarket for bread and a flurry of packed lunch making ensued and we set off.

Slimbridge is great - it's only about 20- 30 minutes from us (at the most) and we have family membership, meaning that, as long as we visit at least 4 times per year we get our money's worth. We went to the first play area (after buying a bag of seed for £1 to feed the ducks, geese and swans and booking a place on a Downy Ducklings Tour) - Welly Boot Land. Aimed generally at the smaller children, it has running water (shallow) in it and soft cushioned play surfaces, slides, a climbing frame and things to do in the water. DS3 (2) loved it and made myself, DD (13) or DS1 (11) walk around and around with him. DS1 also took him on the roundabout - which he thought was absolutely fantastic. DS2 (5) had a good time playing, climbing etc too. We had our lunch in the play area and also some ice creams - it was a super hot day and we caught the sun, even with factor30 suncream on (DS3 had a sunsuit on too, and they all had hats and sunglasses on) After almost 3 hours in the play area we had a walk around and fed some of the birds, before heading back to the main building where we grabbed some refreshing cool drinks (having drank all of ours) and a chocolate muffin each (left over from lunch) before having a tour of the duckery.

The Downy Ducklings event runs during the May school half term every day and also for a few weekends after that week. You have a talk about nesting, egg collection etc and get to see them 'candle' fertilised eggs at different stages. If you're really lucky you can hear a chick attempting to break out of the egg. You also get to see newly hatched ducklings and goslings and also slightly older ones.

We have done the tour for several years now. It's not as 'good' as it was a few years ago - bio health & safety rules mean you see less and can touch less - but the newly hatched ducklings are so sweet!

We came home after our tour, tired but having had a good day out.


Friday was a bit of a catch upday with housework. I had intended to do some gardening, but spent the day doing chores in the main except for a couple of hours in the afternoon tidying up in the back garden

Saturday - DD was meeting friends in Cheltenham for shopping and I had a couple of things to do, so we took her and went for a wander around ourselves. I returned some things to M&S and we bought DS1 several pairs of sports trousers, a new wet coat and some waterproof trousers. DS2 also found himself a tshirt in the sale that he really liked, and Mr G had a new polo shirt bought him. DS1 also bought himself a second hand Nintendo DS game and some Pokemon cards with his birthday money.

When we came home we spent some more time in the back garden - it's looking so much better!


Sunday - a day of making sure the children had done all their homework, school uniforms were ready and similar things. It rained incessantly from 4am until late evening, so no more work was done in the garden and the poor guinea pigs stayed in their hutch in the garage. It was also Mr G's best friend's birthday, so we spent a couple of hours with him.


This morning is, if not warm, at least dry! I have two loads of washing on the line and another in the machine almost finished to go out. I'm hopeful it will dry! I've also made a quadruple batch of the cornflake flapjacks. 2/3rds areasper the recipe (sort of, I'm a 'throw-it-in' sort of cook, so there's less sugar, more syrup (to finsh the jar), and more oats) The final 1/3 have chopped nuts (needed using up) and chopped glace cherries in. The oven is just beeping to say they are cooked - yummy!