9!

So today Tom turned 9.  9!  NINE.  A proper proper age.  It is scary.  He is now his own person - he thinks for himself, is responsible for himself and can do more and more for himself.  We think he is turning into a lovely young man: he has compassion, is articulate (when he wants to be),  can think for himself, is quizzical and caring.  Lets hope he keeps developing so.

The new bike

He managed to wait until 8am before he came in to see us.  We had a good bundle of presents to give him (mainly from other people)  We had got him a reading book, a notebook, a fact book and a puzzle.  That was it.  We asked him if he was happy with what he got?  He said yes.  When I pointed out to him that we had only got him a couple of books and a puzzle, he said he was still happy with what he had - what a sweetie.  We thought we would take him down to breakfast - there he found a helium balloon floating behind the kitchen island, and attached to it...a brand new, massive 26 inch wheeled bike.  He was overjoyed and bouncing up and down all over the place.

Add to that smoked salmon and cream cheese on toast for breakfast and the day was going pretty well.  Oh and he got a West Bromwich Albion Kit from Grannie and Grandpa, a pencil case & clothes from Granma and Pop Pop and the Lion King x 3 and The Railway Children from Simon and co as well as lots of money and interesting pressies from his classmates. 

Mountain biking with Finn and Lucas

It was a pretty damp morning, but the rain eased off to give him a chance to take his new bike to the waggon park for a test ride.  He looked good on it so we then headed to the pump track.  He killed it straight away.  The bike is MASSIVE compared to his old one (he now has the same size wheels as Matt) yet he looked a natural which is great.

Once he was tiring, we headed home, parked the bike, had a rushed visit from the Bickerstaffs and then headed to Inglesport for a drink and cake.  We then packed the car with our biking stuff and headed to Giggleswick Mountain Bike track which we had hired for an hour.  Tom had requested we went there again for his birthday as he enjoyed it so much when we went in January.  He didn't know he would have a new bike!

The rain was beginning to get heavy again so we were beginning to worry about it, but luckily it never reached Settle.  It was damp and grey but it didn't rain as such.  The track was mega boggy and mega muddy though and we all got very very dirty.  We had arranged for a couple of his friends to join us: Finn and Lucas who both have mountain bikes and are more than capable riders (most of the other boys in his class aren't).  I didn't realise that Finn and Lucas are very very close friends so to start with they just went off and left Tom by himself.  Unfortunately although I could see it happening, Tom was so fast on his new bike that I couldn't catch up with him to keep him company, so he went around on his own and then got upset that the others weren't including him.

The traditional birthday curry.

We stopped and waited for the others to do another lap and then I asked them to go round together, which they did (with some adult supervision to make sure it happened)  Tom still got a little left behind but at least Kate was with him, encouraging and helping him. It was really hard work in the mud and we were all plastered in it but they had fun.  After 3 laps the boys decided to walk their bikes to the top and ride down a couple of times (takes the muscle burn out of it) then everyone was spent.  We headed back to the cars for hot drinks and cake (although the boys weren't interested and decided to play football instead)

We took a very tired, very dirty boy home.  We all had showers to get the mud off, put the washing machine on and collapsed on the sofa in front of the Lion King.  We then got dressed and headed back to Settle to see Grannie and Grandpa and then on to Gargrave for birthday tea at Bollywood Cottage - yup curry is still number one!  They set up the table with a helium balloon, confetti and birthday banners which was ace.  He ate up well considering he was absolutely exhausted.  In fact we all ate up well considering we were all exhausted.  Butter chicken for Tom, Drunken Duck for me - the most tender duck I have ever had.  Matt had the Bollywood special, which had a bit of everything.

He rolled into bed on our return, Matt and I weren't that far behind him (just needed to put a second load of muddy clothes into the washing machine first)

Anyway a successful birthday I hope...