Trains, trains, trains

Blackberry face

Before I start this weekend's entry - here's a photo of Tom from the week - we went blackberrying.  I was hoping to get a good stash to put in the freezer, but Tom decided that he wanted to eat every single one he could get his hands on, and if he couldn't get any he would muscle his way into my bag and eat what I had picked!  He must have eaten a good 1/2 lb of them - as you can see from his face, he enjoyed them!

It's fun being the prey of dinosaurs!

Surprise, surprise, our weekend was dominated by trains.  Saturday it looked like it was going to be rainy, so we decided to do our (now becoming regular) lunch trip to the Station Inn for lunch.  We stopped off at Shifnal Park on the way to give Tom a chance to run his energy off and then got to the station platform in time to watch a couple of fast trains before getting the stopping train to Codsall.  Tom as is usual was quite excited by the trains, and demanded 'MORE' as soon as each train departed, but he had to make do with 10 including one very long freight train which was 'wow!'

Had our usual good nosh and came home again - it didn't rain all day, but we had a good time never-the-less.  Oh and today was a milestone, Tom was back to napping in the day and sleeping at night without a murmur and is lying in in the morning as well.  It has taken us a full week to get him back on track, but we are there.  We definitely think it was a spider that started it all off, as he saw one in the bathroom earlier this week and got a bit upset with it, until it was dispatched.

The Horse Carousel - Tom's really enjoyed this one

Oh, it was our 7 year anniversary on Saturday as well (doesn't time fly).  We celebrated by some slap up nosh at the Cholmondley Riverside whilst very pregnant Rachel babysat with strict instructions on what to do if she went into labour.

Sunday was supposed to be sunny so we decided to go to Thomasland at Drayton Manor (just 40 miles away).  We know quite a few people who have taken their toddlers along and had a good time, so we thought we should take Tom before the season comes to an end.  We didn't have the best of starts, we got on the Bertie the Bus ride and Tom dissolved into tears, so we got off before the ride even started.  He refused to walk anywhere, so we had to carry him, however, it was quite packed and he doesn't like crowds.  We then tried a calmer ride with some of the diesel engines which started off ok, but went on too long and he started to grizzle. We then found an even slower ride with the little engines on the Blue Mountain Railway, which he did enjoy - phew!  Next stop was a ride on Thomas himself up to another part of the park.  This was a success and it took us to a huge outdoor play area which Tom liked immediately so we stopped there and had lunch. 

Enjoying a ride on Rheneas

Next stop was the Dino trail which Tom enjoyed - I will never understand how a toddler's brain works - how can life size models of dinosaurs with huge teeth and claws not be scary? We then had a look round their zoo, which was quite well stocked, had lots of birds, monkeys, leopards, tiger and lots of reptiles, much more than we expected, and Tom had a good run around and splash in the puddles there.

Rosie - Tom's Favourite

We found ourselves back in the theme park and walked towards a lake where we got a paddle steamer for a quick sail round.  We then found another train which took us around another part of the park.  Tom made it clear that he wanted to have a go on the horse carousel, so Matt did that with him - he loved it - hurray.  We went back to Thomasland and redid a couple of rides and then went for another ride on the train to the play area (this time with Rosie - the pink train which Tom took a great liking too) By now it was quite late, so we had one last ride on the train and drove home.  We were there until 4.30pm so Tom did really well, we didn't get any tired grizzles, he just slowed down.  He was asleep in minutes in the car, so we drove back to Telford and then decided to go straight to our local Chinese restaurant for dinner.  Tom did really well considering that he had to eat immediately on waking up.  He didn't get to bed until about 8.00 and went down again without a murmur, a good happy day.