Meeting up with Uncle Martin

On Easter Sunday we planned to meet up with Martin, Ben and Mia.  They were over visiting from Australia for a couple of weeks and managed to squeeze us into their very busy schedule.  We did a half way meet up - in Cheltenham.  As the weather was predicted to be bad, we planned to meet up in a soft play area - so something to do with the kids and a chance for us to chat.  We checked their website - open everyday of the year it said.  WRONG!  We turned up and it was closed.  Oh hum.  So we had an early lunch and decided to risk going to a park as although it was cool and cloudy it wasn't actually raining.  This we did, and how lucky we were.  The park was just fab - a big play ground for toddlers, a big grassy area for playing football and a number of aviaries with weird and wonderful birds in (which Mia especially liked)  So, in short something for everyone.

Tom had his bike and was in a particularly dare devil mood and went racing all over the place.  We decided to explore some more which involved going through a subway under the road (Tom did this freewheeling which involved a steep gradient - we all had our hearts in our mouths as he sped away, but he was fine)  We found a big lake and did a circuit, then ice creams by the lake.  Matt, Martin, Ben, Mia and Tom then went rowing across the lake in Swallows and Amazons style for a while leaving me to look after all the bags and balls etc.  Then another circuit of the lake, half an hour playing football before saying our goodbyes.

Zonked out in the car, clutching his new Thomas jigsaw .

It doesn't sound like much but we had a really good time.  All the children were on good form, as were the adults, everyone was relaxed and time just flew.  We took a very tired and happy little boy home with us.  He was asleep in minutes.

Anyway, thanks Martin, Ben and Mia, a fab day and we look forward to visiting you in Australia sometime next year.