Magical Day Out

Flat out

Two Saturdays ago we had wonderful warm sunshine (most likely this year's Summer), so we donned our t-shirts, shorts and sandals and decided to visit Powys Castle for a family day out.  The sunshine shone on us, until we entered Wales and then thick mist rolled over the car and got thicker and thicker.  Well done us!  The whole country was bathed in sunshine and we managed to find the only bit which was cold and cloudy!

We continued on, ever hopeful that it might clear (it didn't) and parked up in an almost empty car park - we desperately looked for the sunshine but could only see a thin disc of light behind thick clouds.  Oh well - we were determined to have a good day anyway.  Matt had cold wet feet and I had cold legs, Tom of course was well prepared and appropriately dressed.

There is something about Powys Castle, whenever we have taken Tom there we have had a fab day out and today was no exception.  Tom was immediately in a good mood and decided that he was going to spend the day playing football.  (Something to do with him wearing his Ajax top maybe?).  And off he went kicking his football all along the terraces, down the steps (where Matt had to crawl though undergrowth to retrieve it after Tom pushed it through some bushes) and down to the grounds at the bottom of the house.

The grin

At that stage I went to the loo and told the weather to clear up and be sunny when I came out.  Lo and behold, I came out into sunshine AND it was warm too.  Hurray!!!!!!  We made our way to the fountain (Tom's favourite play place in the property), striped back down to T-shirts and had a wonderful time playing football, hide and seek, dipping hands and balls into the fountain, eating our picnic, having races and generally having a lovely time in the sun.

Standing on Mummy

Tom played and played and played, he was on such good form it was a pleasure to be with him.  He didn't tire at all - even after doing about 4 circuits of the grounds, he just kept going and going.  His football really came along as well - kicking it straight and at a run which he hasn't done before.  Eventually the heat got too much and we decided to go on an ice-cream hunt, so went back up to the property to see if we could find one, which we did.  Now, we spent our last holiday in Spain teaching Tom to like ice-creams and we got there.  Looks like he has forgotten as he showed no interest at all - having the odd lick of ours, but really not wanting one (oh well guess it saves our £s in the summer!)

By about 3pm Tom was beginning to flag (no surprise) so we headed home.  He was asleep in minutes and stayed asleep for a good hour.  A fabulous, magical day out - Powys Castle really is one of our most favourite places and certainly we have some of our most cherished memories from there.

Oh the video, Tom was having such a good time, I thought I would record it, but we didn't have the video camera, so I used my camera - not great resolution I'm afraid, also the battery ran out as I took it - so it's not as good as it could have been.