First football match

So we had a glorious week of sunshine, then on Saturday we were engulfed by fog!!!!!  It was the day of Tom's first proper football match - against Settle.  As we headed over to Settle, the fog got thicker and thicker.

Craven Wanderer

It was an interesting experience for us and Tom.  The problem of lack of boys born in 2008/09 rears its head again.  As you know there are only 7 boys in Tom's class.  Only 2 of them: him and Lucas are interested in playing football.  2 boys don't make a football team.  However, there are loads of boys in the class below - so they filled the team with the best of those.  This of course means that Tom's team are weak because most of them are a year younger than they should be, and then the team below him is also weak, because all the best players are playing in Tom's team.  Oh hum - it was a baptism of fire and both teams lost.  Tom's team were absolutely thrashed, but they were playing against boys who all played in the league last year so knew what to expect.  Luckily Lucas played in the league last year (not sure how as you had to be 6 to play last year and Lucas was 5).  Anyhow, it was just as well as Lucas was forward and defence.  He played his heart out and managed 2 good goals.  Tom was like a rabbit caught in the headlights - he didn't know what to do, where to go and looked completely dazed!  I think he kicked the ball about 4 times in total.  He did actually tackle twice which was good, but generally ran around somewhere near the ball but not wanting to get involved in the melée around the ball.  In the end he got pulled off and substituted with someone a year younger than him who got stuck in - less skills but more passion to get the ball.

He spent the rest of the day in a daze - I'm not sure he knew what had happened to him, but I think he may have realised now that if he doesn't go and tackle to get the ball, nothing much happens.  We will see next weekend if anything has clicked.

Kicking off with Lucas

We got back to Ingleton - the fog was as bad!  We had planned to go blackberrying, but it was cold and damp outside, so we headed to Inglesport for lunch and then settled down on the sofa to watch Big Hero 6.  We almost got through it without tears, but not quite!  We then went out to Avanti for a pizza tea to cheer us up after a miserable day (weather-wise).

Sunday it was still foggy.  Tom suggested we go swimming.  Matt and I were nervous as whenever we go with him, he turns into a clingy, whiny thing, so we gave him a good talking to before we went saying we expected him to swim etc etc.  To our surprise he was true to his word.  He was fantastic, swimming lengths, smiling, having fun and diving to the bottom of the deep end to retrieve sinkers.  We couldn't believe our eyes, definitely our best family swimming session to date - we all had fun which was just great.

As a reward, we took Tom to Carnforth for lunch - he still loves watching the trains and playing in the Thomas room.  Then to Aldi to pick up some smoked salmon for him (where we bumped into Miss Swindlehurst - or Mrs Burnett as she is now known).

The Wanderers

Next stop was Hawes where we met up with a young Japanese to English translator who was over from Ireland and passing through on his way back from a conference in York.  Matt had found out he was in the area the day before and wanted to meet up (it's not that often that he has an opportunity to meet someone who does the same as him).  We found him at the YHA and took him for a quick once round the Wensleydale Creamery and Hawes village.  We then headed home, a bit of a long day, but a nice day.