The joys of grandchildren

Decided to give the daughters a bit of time off during the school half term holidays last week and committed myself to firstly taking the granddaughters out to Warner's Park followed up by an ice cream. They’re both strong minded little princesses so encountered a couple of problems.

Firstly they didn’t want to do the same things at the park. Paige wanted to sit under a tree in the shade and for me to tell her a story. Izzy wanted to play football in the sunshine. As always with a compromise the outcome wasn’t very satisfactory… Izzy and me kicked the ball around but not for long enough, and when it came to the story she was bored, bored, bored.

So time to get to what I thought would be the really exciting part for them… ice cream sundaes at Slepe Hall Hotel. Here they are in the video clip both getting stuck into a strawberry and a chocolate one each. But despite Paige’s assertion that they were going to eat them right up, within about five spoonfuls they’d had enough. See the photo at the foot of this posting of the uneaten sundaes.

On to the second half of the hero granddad routine… taking Connor and Sammy off to Monks Wood for a picnic on the magic island and a good long walk. The sign by the entrance says there are more than a thousand types of beetles in this ancient wood… and I’m sure the boys spotted and examined in great detail every single one as we ambled (that would have been breakneck speed compared to the actual pace they managed) along the butterfly walk.

Finally we made it to the magic island… so called because we have to step over a dip in the ground which sometimes contains water (honestly Beth, there’s hardly any water in there at the wettest of times and on our visit there was no water at all, so no chance of Connor doing his usual trick of flinging himself in the nearest puddle).

After a wander around we made for the meadow to eat our picnic. The grass was quite tall and I didn’t notice until watching this video clip how nervous the boys appeared, looking like a couple of meerkats on the lookout. You’d think a tyrannosaurus rex was about to come crashing through the trees any minute. I relaxed by flattening the grass and lying in the sunshine at full stretch… only to find I’d chosen an ants nest to rest on so I was soon on my feet as well!

After a good wander around the woods I drove them both home… with the usual chatter in the background about such un-pc topics as winkies and how fat that man at the bus stop was. I’ve given up trying to divert them on to more wholesome subjects when they’re together, I only seem to make things worse.

Lots more video clips and family photos below from the last couple of weeks.