"You can plan a pretty picnic but you cant predict the weather"

I'm a sucker for collecting things, its a little obsessive and and extremely compulsive i cant help it Ive always been the same. Today we decided to take the boys to Dale End Park for a picnic. We haven't done our 'big shop' this week yet so i had to pop to Asda to get supplies.

While in there i found myself venturing down the baby aisle (again) and a new drinking vessel for Opeie caught my eye. I had been in last week and brought some items from the i monster Nuby range and hadn't noticed the 'No Spill Cup' that compliments the other items, so it made itself into my basket along with the Monster cutlery Set which to be honest was a bit of an impulse buy.

I returned home and we packed our food along with the other Nuby items and off we went. Probably wasn't the best day to be going for a picnic as the ground was still pretty wet so inevitably we all ended up with a soggy bum. The new cup of Opeie's thank fully didn't leave him soggy, weve brought no spill cups before and they haven't really lived up to the hype but this one was the real deal which is what we need with Opeie as he tends to catapult things all over the place.

It was nice to spend some time together in the park and Aunty Lotty joined us too which was a lovely surprise. Had a bit of drama when our frizbee broke in half though, Seth got rather upset but we managed to calm him down by telling him that Grandad Gary could weld it back together for him. He'll have a good chuckle when he's older and reads that back.

"A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new."

Yesterday was the first of many Goonies style adventures and it turned out more of an adventure than Seth could have hoped for, although Mrs M will strongly disagree on that one. After speaking to one of her colleagues at work this week Mrs M came home and told us about a possible spot to fill our Saturday, somewhere where there was walking, places to investigate and somewhere quiet where we could have a nice relaxing afternoon (how wrong could Mrs M be!!). After Seth's Tae kwon do class was out the way we headed home, Mrs M prepared a picnic and we loaded up the car and headed out. Seth's physio and Occupational therapist have always stressed the importance of exercise so over the Easter holiday we have tried to be as active as we could.

We were heading to Hawkstone Park follies and as i found out pretty quick, if you have a child with Mobility issues, a partner who has a fear of heights and a 2 year old that is in to everything, as beautiful as the place is you really should researched the area. Apparently all spontaneity does is stress your loved ones out. We arrived at lunch time and as it was feeling a bit nippy we decided to have one of our famous car picnics, the words of Mrs M being "well this lovely picnic has gone down like a lead balloon" (always the optimist). I also got told off for taking a picture or the part of the food that wasn't healthy so had to snap away again after this salad was introduced into frame.

After eating we headed to the main entrance to pay and get our maps. Opeie miraculously got back a few extra months of his life as under 2's get free admission (come on you've all done it). The woman on the desk was lovely but seemed to make it quite clear that with two young boys we probably wouldn't last the distance and if we didn't make it all the way round then they would stamp the ticket so we could come again, which i thought was lovely, although this is when we started to realise that maybe we had made a bad decision.

The first part of the adventure was pretty flat, beautiful scenery and with myself and three other smiley faces it was shaping up to be a perfect family day out. Spirits were high and there was plenty of mucking about. We even got to put Mrs M in some stocks that were randomly in a field. Its amazing though how quickly a situation and pleasant moods can change...

Me and Mrs M knew as soon as we arrived there that with Seth's muscle condition and his limited mobility we were going to find the walk difficult and probably wouldn't get to far but Seth being the independent child that he is he knew what he wanted and neither of us were going to hold him back. I was prepared for that, we both were but what i wasn't prepared for was the storm of emotions that was heading or way and was going to hit us at great speed.

Ive always known that Mrs M didn't like heights but as we had never been anywhere where we were going to be high up i had no idea to what extent, today was the day we were all going to find out. We made it to our first minestone, a small cave in the side of the hill and Seth and Opeie were very excited. Mrs M honestly looked like she was going to pass out and i decided that we should head back. Mrs M is an extremely strong character though, what i love about her the most is although she was clearly very uncomfortable with the situation, shes not afraid to catapult herself further in for the love of her boys, she knew how much Seth wanted to carry on and for him (and Opeie and me) she would do ANYTHING. (how could i not be completely smitten by this woman?).

We made our way up the side of the hill slowly, muddy tracks and uneven stone steps were real obstacles for both Seth and Mrs M but with me taking it in turns carrying the boys on my shoulders and Mrs M walking hunched over and trying not to look down we made it higher and higher up the hill passing each one of the maps statues and buildings stopping every five minutes for a rest. It was clearly going to be a long day and Mrs M's mood was slowly deteriorating.

Thinking about it now i feel quite bad as at the time i did find Mrs M's mood a little amusing, not the being scared of  climbing the edge of the hill but the very grumpy face that was complimenting her mood. She didn't want to be there but was doing everything she could to mask her emotions for Seth. Opeie seemed to be having an amazing time and apart from being worried about both Seth and Mrs M i was enjoying the fresh air and being out walking. Opeie obviously didn't understand how Mrs M was feeling so when Mrs M spotted this sign and was filled with dread...

...how did Opeie feel about the overwhelming stress brewing?

Seth had packed an 'Adventure kit' that me and Mrs M have been adding to over the last few weeks, i was going to photograph it for the post but i thought i would hang on and write a post just about that. About half of the way to our destination Seth found his first chance to Use his torch in a small cobbled hut and Opeie was obviously feeling the tiredness of being carried everywhere and stopped for a feed.

After more walking, carrying and almost getting lost with more sit down rests than you can imagine we finally reached our destination and Seth was one very happy little boy it was a shame that the same could not be said about one of the other members of our party who looked like she was going to cry. We were very VERY high up and the thought of it was causing Mrs M some serious discomfort.

The caves were very exciting and Seth said he felt like Indiana Jones. I didn't take any photos while i was in there as it was dark and i was holding on to the boys hands. Mrs M really didn't want to go in so she sat outside which i thought was really brave of her as we were so high up looking over the rest of the follies. Outside of the caves Seth broke out his Adventure kit again and did some dusting for fossils (with a paint brush) and pretend digging at rock with his fold out trowel. He also blew his emergency whistle to try and get help for mommy haha.

There was a sigh of relief that we had reached our destination but as they say 'what goes up must come down' and i think this thought was filling us all with dread, well all except Opeie. Seth had had enough of walking at this point so between me having him on my shoulders and Mrs M carrying him on her back we began our mission back to the car.

About 10 minutes into the journey back is started to rain and things got progressively worse from there. Mrs M's fear of heights and anxiety had now turned in to anger and frustration, we had not seen anyone else for quite some time (probably had more sense than us to be out, and because it had taken us 4 hours to do the hour walk, due to Myself and Mrs M carrying Seth and having to stop a lot) and it was starting to feel like we were in an episode of lost. We had no idea which was the quickest way back, then a quarter of the way into our journey back there was a glimmer of hope when Mrs M spotted a 4x4 parked up and two park workers, Mrs M rushed over (literally ran the fastest I've seen her run- and she's speedy !!) to find out which way we should head back and came back with a huge smile and a look of relief i wish i had captured on camera. The two chaps had offered to drive us back to the car.( Mrs M had a huge grin when she came back, saying she'd hitched us a ride) So we loaded the boys in and headed off (not before getting a picture of our heroes though) and just like the end of the Goonies we were saved.

As stressful as it was at the end, i had had a great day but when we lay in bed last night, right before she went to sleep Mrs M said "i hated every minute of that".

"Oh i do like to be beside the seaside..."

Health wise its been a pretty bleak Easter holiday for us at Gifts from the Pirates, Seth kick started the holiday off with Tonsilitis, Both Myself and Mrs M had Bronchitis and then Opeie joined the Lurgy club with a bout of Chickenpox (or Chicken spots as he liked to call it). We managed to get out and do some things but there was a fair bit of time at home relaxing and trying to get back to health.

Today was the last day of the Easter holiday and that's really quite a depressing thought. We love having Seth off and now that Opeie is at Nursery too the holidays are even more important. yesterday we had planned to go to Legoland but the Metoffice informed us that there was going to be heavy rain in Windsor so we decided against the 3 hour drive just in case it was right. The boys had been talking all week about going to the beach so we checked the weather for Barmouth and surprisingly it said sunny and dry so we packed the car and headed out for some sun,sea and sand. 

about an hour in to the journey the sky turned grey and everything started to look a little grim, had we made a bad decision? Mrs M checked the Metoffice again, 30% chance of rain, She then decided to check Windsor again, dry and sunshine! yep that about sums us up. we ventured forth though adamant that there was fun to be had at the beach.

We stopped off at the supermarket just before hitting the beach because we were ill equipped for a picnic, changing our plans when we woke up threw a spanner in the works so by the time we arrived we were all hungry, it was cold and windy outside so we had a very cramped car picnic, needless to say the car is now in dire need of cleaning out. The boys couldn't wait to get their coats on and grab their nets, buckets and spades. Despite the cold and gloomy weather fishing in the rockpools and hunting for shells was loads of fun. The boys were really excitable which was great and they ran around on the sand with big smiles.

Mrs M donned her shades and wooley hat and although she doesnt like the cold at all she was relishing her time with us. The sunshine desperately tried to stay out and when it did show its face it warmed up nicely but the whole time we were playing on the beach we could see the rain heading our way. After splashing in rock pools, digging a trench and looking for crabs we headed back to the car to venture to the other end of the island. Opeie decided that this was a perfect opportunity to have a sleep and as Mrs M was feeling shattered too so she stayed in the car for a bit while me and Seth went searching for adventure.

The weather was taking a turn for the worse and we knew we wouldnt have long before the rain came thrashing down. Seth decided he wanted to do the thing he loves doing most at the beach and that was dig a nice deep hole...

...and of course, climb inside it!

As expected though the sky turned grey and the light showers turned into a heavy downpour so we headed back to the car, with Seth though there is no such thing as heading straight for your destination so on the way back we had to climb up some pretty high sand dunes and then throw ourselves down them.

 It was a pretty amazing afternoon at the beach and although id have loved a visit to Legoland I'm glad we ended up where we did. Its so nice to have us all back to (almost) full health, its just a shame that it happened towards the end of the holiday.  Time to count down to half term now.