Boys on Tour - playtime

Its Wednesday afternoon and we are all having a cup of tea (smaller people are having orange juice) and sitting about after a busy day in Maldon. Its a lovely little place, and about the closest piece of coast to Heather and Jeff. Its a little estuary really, with a few pubs and bits of wharfery and a fat little church. There are several Thames barges moored there, with brown sails furled against thick pine masts. From a distance it looks like a nineteenth century engraving with a forest of old masts in front of leaning buildings. Not that we spent a whole lot of time in that bit of town though, as there was an enormous children's play area, with things to climb and, joy of joys, a splash area. Tom ran about in it like a mad sprite, shoving his head under every stream of water available. There were more children there than I think I have ever seen in one place at one time. They were swarming over the place like multi-coloured bees. After Tom had spent his energy reserves, we had a picnic overlooking a little pond with Swans and ducks and watched the world go by.

Right behind our picnic spot there was a field full of inflatable trampolines and slides and climbing walls, so naturally that became our next stop. Perfect after a large lunch... After several days of having to tag along with the grown-ups its been nice for T to do things which are just for him, while surrounded by other kids. He Loved the climbing wall (as he did with you PT) and the lads running it were very amused by his constant conversation; "will this wall fall over when I get to the top?" "No", "How do you know it won't?", "Because its tied down", "Supposing it does though?" Of course when he got down he was telling all the other kids how to do it.

There were ice creams and running around and all the other things you do when near water and in holiday mood. We even found a dogem ride just before we got in the car, but that was a ride too many for little T who couldn't work out how to stop wizzing round in circles backwards and was teary and frustrated by the end of it. A quite ride home through pretty villages, with a cup of tea waiting at the end was just what we all needed.

Its been hot here again today, though I see that our high (about 75) was your low in Washington today PT - phew! Rather you than me, though we all agreed we have to come back to Maldon again so you can see it too.

Yesterday we also went somewhere new - a great park with all kinds of imaginative things for the kids to climb on including, Tom's favourite, a sort of giant see-saw which they could run on in big groups and send it tilting back and forth. I think he would have stayed on that all day.