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Wednesday, August 10, 2016

The big mouth, the rows of sharp teeth, those small beady eyes and that menacing expression... it can mean only one thing...


It's me on holiday! I like to be a bit menacing in the hope of keeping the kids in line, although as a general rule they just ignore me and do what they like. I blame Lisa.

Anyhoo, the main achievement of my last four years on the planet has been my successful raising of a dinosaur. Toby is fluent in more than a dozen distinct dialects not used since the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, can name a dinosaur for every letter of the alphabet, and is able to distinguish between a carcharodontosaurus and a pachycephalosaurus from a distance of half a mile. He's also the only member of this family that can pronounce them.

So what better place to take him than the Dan-Yr-Ogof National Showcaves Centre for Wales. It might not sound much like Jurassic Park, but what you don't know is that Dan-Yr-Ogof is Welsh for Dinosaur. I think. Either way, it enabled Toby to survey his kingdom like a young John Hammond...


And take the mickey out of a triceratops...


That's pretty much the only photo I have of Toby posing with a dinosaur. He was so busy studying them like a dedicated paleontologist on a field trip that he refused to waste his time by smiling for the camera. As a result, I have a lot of photos of the back of his head.

Amelie gave me no such problems...


And I was no shrinking violet either...


Let's face it, if you can't pretend to be licked by a torosaurus when you're on holiday, when can you?

Of course, dinosaurs are all very well, but if you're going to call yourself the National Showcaves Centre for Wales, you need to have a bit of underground action too. And it didn't disappoint...


The Dan-Yr-Ogof Cave and the Cathedral Cave were both excellent. If a little chilly. And wet. In the case of the Cathedral Cave, you basically have to walk through a waterfall in the dark. It was like The Great Flood of 2013 all over again. But it was all worth it, and the caves were a surprising hit with the kids. And not just on their heads from the low ceilings.

As an additional bonus, the lighting conditions really brought out the dust spots on my camera lens...


The intriguingly named Bone Cave was a bit of a disappointment, and involved the obligatory use of hard hats...


... mainly, I think, because there'd been some kind of mix-up between inches and centimetres when building the walkway up to the entrance, and they'd erected the ceiling at hobbit height. You basically have to limbo-dance your way up the hillside. Ironically, the one member of the family who would have been fine was Toby, and he decided he didn't want to go in. He must have been reading TripAdvisor, as he really didn't miss much. The other two caves were far superior.

Personally, my favourite part was the lost valley of dinosaurs, which was so lost, we almost didn't find it. It led down to a beautiful waterfall...


... and enabled us to play Where's Wally. Firstly with Lisa and Toby...


... and then with me...


We never did find Amelie.

At the gift shop, I told Toby he could have any three of the small plastic dinosaurs, so he chose three identical velociraptors on the grounds that "they hunt in packs, so I need three". They're already plotting the downfall of his stegosaurus.

Before leaving, Toby and Lisa proved their ability to blend into the background whilst hugging a brachiosaurus...


... and we made our way back to the car park, pausing briefly to chase a sheep...


Ten minutes later, Toby had fed it to the T-Rex.

Sunday, August 07, 2016

The downside of holidaying in another country is the inevitable risk of stomach problems due to the local food. I'm not the most experienced traveller, so I decided to give the laverbread a miss yesterday, and instead played it safe with a jumbo battered sausage and chips, half of Amelie's fish & chips, two large ice creams (with flakes) and two bars of chocolate. But despite my admirable caution, I felt inexplicably sick all night, and still feel a little delicate this morning. I'm putting it down to sheer bad luck.

But before being struck down by the cruel mistress of ill health, we'd actually had a nice day yesterday. We spent it on the Gower Peninsula, which I like to think of as the tongue of the Welsh pig...


That's Rhossili Bay, on the tip of that tongue. It's basically the spot where you'd get an ulcer after eating too many sweets. Or maybe that's just me.

As a location, it suffers a bit from the lack of an escalator between the car park and the beach, and ideally they'd airlift an ice cream van onto the sands, to save you the trek back up the cliff, but that aside, it's really very nice. Especially if you can persuade Lisa to carry the beach mats.

Brighton beach at this time of year looks a lot like this...


But interestingly, Rhossili Bay on the first Saturday in August seemed a lot quieter...


At least until Amelie and Toby arrived. Here's Toby shovelling sand into his mouth with a spade while Lisa tops up her skin cancer...


I tried to get Amelie to recreate a scene from Baywatch...


But whilst Toby was willing to run through the waves like David Hasselhoff, Amelie's Pamela Anderson seemed strangely distant...


On the subject of being strangely distant, Lisa and I decided to test our parenting skills by letting Amelie and Toby wander off on their own. They're in the photo below, dead centre, but invisible to the naked eye...


Although we could still hear Toby roaring. That's the furthest they've ever been from us on their own. Unless you count the time we lost Toby at the school fete. Frankly he could have been anywhere.

Anyhoo, a good time was had by all, and I decided that a deserted sandy beach is a lot better than a packed pebbly one. So why we're living in Brighton, I have no idea.

Before leaving, we just had time for Toby to model a beach mat...


And Amelie to do handstands...


Before heading back up the cliff path, for one last look at the bay...


It's a miracle there's any sand left on that beach. It feels like most of it's now in our car.

Saturday, August 06, 2016

Since last putting finger to keyboard, Toby has turned four...


We've acquired a mean, dragon-slaying kitten...


And Lisa has defied the laws of physics with a pile of washing-up...


We've also sailed the seven seas and seen spectacular sights beyond anyone's imagination...


So after all of that, we needed a holiday. Which is how we've wound up here...


We're currently staying in a remote log cabin at the foot a mountain, miles from the nearest town, where the locals speak some weird, incomprehensible language. I've seen at least fifteen horror films that start this way. Although, to be fair, most deranged slashers don't keep their lawns looking this neat...


Clearly it's the grass that gets slashed on a weekly basis, not the guests. Although if we do go missing, my car registration's above. If someone could pass that on to the police, I'd be grateful.

Anyhoo, we're currently somewhere between Bryncoch and Pontardawe, just south of the Brecon Beacons in Wales. I wanted to be within easy reach of both the beacons and the Gower Peninsula, so that we could make the most of the scorching early-August temperatures by spending time on some of Britain's most beautiful beaches and spectacular mountains. So as we speak, I'm in the middle of nowhere, looking at clouds with a jumper on.

By choosing this week to go on holiday, it means we're missing this year's Brighton Pride, although I was pleased to see lots of signs on the M4 yesterday directing us towards 'Cardiff Pride'. It was heartwarming to know that different parts of the country are organising similar events at the same time. Until I realised that the signs actually said 'Cardiff P+ride' and were directing us towards a car park.

But we arrived here in good time, to views such as this...


... and a sense of peace and solitude we'd never get in Brighton. Mainly because Amelie and Toby live there. The bad news is they've followed us here too...


They're currently running with a pack of wild dogs...


... but they seem to be loving it, so we're letting them enjoy their freedom while we catch up on 'Words With Friends' and enjoy some serious art appreciation. The log cabin is decorated with some fine original artworks, which make it seem like a home from home. Although most of ours are done in felt-tip on A4 paper.

The owner of this particular property, however, clearly doesn't share this family's love of dinosaurs and mermaids, and has instead decided that the perfect picture to place on the wall of a holiday cottage that caters to families with young children is this impressive work of art...


I expect it's his wife. They have to make their own entertainment around here.

Monday, May 30, 2016

Ken and Barbie, eat your heart out...


Admittedly, Ken and Barbie have been going steady for 55 years, whereas Lisa and I have only lasted for twelve, but given that we have to cope with two kids and we don't have a camper van, I think ours is the greater achievement.

It was on 29th May 2004 that I caught Lisa off guard and in a moment of madness she agreed to call herself my girlfriend. It took another six years to take the step up to wife. The photo above was taken in March 2005, and didn't feature in the original blog post due to Lisa being less than keen on having her photo appearing on the internet. She still feels the same today, but now we're married, she no longer gets a say. And besides, I only allow her half an hour of internet use a day. On condition that she's ironed my shirts.

Anyhoo, I've clearly lost a lot of hair in the past twelve years, due mainly to these two...


I'm not saying I'd push them onto the train tracks, but they can be a little wearing at times.

Friday was the last day of our holiday, and the weather forecast was for cloud in the morning and rain all afternoon, so having woken up late to the anticipated grey skies, we decided to cancel our plans to visit the Tamar Otter and Wildlife Centre, and head into Launceston with our coats on. At which point the sun came out...


Unlike the sun, Toby refused to come out for that photo, preferring instead to re-enact The Railway Children by threatening to run onto the train tracks whilst waving his underwear on a stick.

It turned out to be a warm, sunny afternoon, which only added to the enjoyment of our wet-weather activity at the Launceston Steam Railway...


I'm not much of a trainspotter (I prefer stamp collecting), but it was a charming experience with sweet little steam trains...


... and enthusiasts who clearly love what they do...


The train runs back and forth between Launceston and New Mills through pretty countryside, a journey of around two and a half miles...


In reality, it doesn't go quite as fast as that. Which is just as well, as it actually made me feel slightly travel sick. I'm more of a Pendolino man, if the truth be told. I couldn't even plug in my iPhone.

But despite that, it was all quite enjoyable. The tickets allow you to ride all day, so having done the return journey once, we headed into Launceston town centre for a spot of lunch...


Toby was busy reading a dinosaur book he bought in a charity shop, so he missed out on the healthy, balanced meal that we provided for Amelie. It had fruit and everything.

With lunch over, I insisted that we get our money's worth by riding the rails again, this time rejecting the Toastrack carriage in favour of the Torrington & Marland...


According to the railway's website, this one "runs on bogies", so it was right up Toby's alley.

Friday evening was our last at Trewin Court, the holiday cottage we'd called home for the previous week. It was tinged with sadness, partly because our wonderful week of fun had come to an end, and we'd loved everything about the place, but mainly because we only found out on the last night that it had a freezer. The kitchen looks like this...


... so it's not until you open each wooden door that you know where everything is. The fridge and the washing machine essentially look the same. Which explains how Toby's pants ended up in the salad drawer. On arrival the previous Saturday, we'd found that one of the doors didn't open, so we assumed it was purely decorative and wasn't intended to be used. But on the Friday evening, twelve hours before departure, Amelie gave it an extra hard tug, and instead of breaking the handle as anticipated, the door swung open to reveal a full size freezer. I was gutted. I could have been eating ice cream all week.

But despite that tragedy, it was the perfect seven days. We bid a very fond farewell to Well Farm...


... and set off for home, stopping off briefly in Wiltshire to pay Big Sis a quick visit. We caught her between her nail appointment and her hair appointment, so her hands looked nice but her face was best avoided. It was nice to see her though.

So that's it. This blog's week-long resurrection is, in all probability, over for the time being, but it's been a fab week with a fab woman and our fab children. The next few months are likely to feature a few unpleasant challenges of the facial variety, but as I said to the dermatologist the week before last, "Cancer, schmancer". Well, ok, I didn't. But I wanted to. We've faced plenty of disasters over the past 12 years (not all of them child-related), and we'll get through this little setback too.


I love you, Mrs Gardner. xxx

Friday, May 27, 2016

David Attenborough, eat your heart out...


Admittedly, Sir David sat amongst a family of gorillas, whereas we just pointed at a group of meerkats and shouted "Simples!", but that doesn't mean we weren't brave. They could have kicked sand in our faces at any time.

Anyhoo, our plan for yesterday had always been to go to The Eden Project. Thursday was supposed to be the day the rain came, and being only an hour north-east of Eden, it seemed like a good opportunity for Lisa to pick me an apple in paradise while we dodged the showers in and out of the biomes.

But in the tradition of last minute changes, I looked at the blue skies outside, looked at my children's history of loving animal parks, and - most important of all - looked at the £25 ticket price of The Eden Project, and decided that a day spent looking at plants probably wasn't the best thing for my family. We've got weeds on the balcony at home, and they can look at those for free any time they like.

So we went to Newquay Zoo instead...


We visited their sister zoo in Paignton three years ago, when we looked more like this...


In those days you could just wheel Toby into frame and click the shutter button. Now it's more of a challenge, where his presence in family photos is largely down to luck, perseverance and a willingness to endure tantrums.

But the good news is that we had a lovely time at Newquay Zoo. I'd read reviews on TripAdvisor which criticised it for being small, and claimed you could see it all in an hour or two. Well, it's possible my family are just sloths, but we were still there five minutes before closing time, and I don't think we saw every animal. Although we did see a sloth. The surroundings were beautiful, the staff were friendly, and the kids loved every minute. Apart from the minute we spent looking at the otters, which Amelie told me was "boring". Mainly because she'd spotted the Tarzan Trail assault course, and was keen to move on.

Personally I loved the otters...


But my favourite animal was the lynx...


I think it's a vegetarian, but I could be wrong. I also liked the Bleeding Heart Pigeon...


It looks like it's been shot in the chest, but in reality it's suffered a far worse fate: it's been chased by Amelie and Toby...


We watched the lions being fed...



... which was fine until we found out they were eating Dartmoor Pony. That put a slightly different complexion on things. Apparently cows and pigs are too fatty, so they prefer My Little Pony.

We also posed for some delightful family portraits...



And we discovered that Amelie's the same height as a lion, while Toby's as tall as a lioness...


But the highlight of the day was feeding time. I had a bowl of cheesy chips in the café and an ice cream that was to die for, but the kids enjoyed it even more...


Those Visayan Warty Pigs are thought to be extinct in the wild, so it's the closest Toby's ever come to feeding a dinosaur.