Put a Pony in your Pocket

is our current theme tune, since at least one of us seems to have a My Little Pony in one of our pockets at any time when we're out. No vans to grab suitcases from so far.
Today we were off to Paradise Park in Newhaven. Got up late, 10ish I think. Pootled and pottered for a while, F had a decent breakfast, I packed the rucksack and off we went. So lucky with the weather, the best day for ages, dry and even occasionally sunny!

We took both our DSs with us and 2 copies of Nintendogs - I've only just got it so was at the stage of having to get my puppy to recognize its name. When we got to the station we had over 20 minutes to wait, so we found a bench to sit on and F was helping me do this. It felt like about 10 minutes had gone by, with me mainly shouting 'Lucky' repeatedly into the microphone in a particularly British public-space whispery shout. I looked up and a train was there, I assumed it was the Hastings one, but then saw it was ours. We rushed over but the guard had already raised his paddle thing. Even though it was right there, it was about to go, and in philosophical terms, as he told me 'This one's gone love'. F was mildly bemused about how something could be 'gone' but right there, to be referred to as 'this'. I just felt kind of giddy and giggly at having missed our train through playing DS. F spotted the pun that I had been trying to 'train' my puppy and missed our 'train' - Hah!

Eventually, after some more shouting of 'Lucky' (starting to feel less appropriate as a name by that point, as well as increasingly self-conscious after having been seen to miss the train), another train came and on we got. Never been down that line before and I got all excited to find that we were actually, finally, on the line that goes right past the leisure centre - small things! F (probably justifiably) ignored my nerdish epiphany about this.

We played being an incorrect computerized audio commentary, on the train and at various other points throughout the day. I adopted a slow American accent for this: 'You arrre a chiyeld. You will find that you are not generally so tall as other people, called adults. You will eat chicken nuggets and go to a place called a school. You will live in a treehouse. You are a different species' etc. F corrected me vociferously on several of those points. Later the same audio commentary claimed, as we walked up a particularly ugly section of Newhaven roadage, that 'You are in beautiful Parrris, Fraaaance. On your left you can see the Eiffel Tower, a faaascinading exaample of steelworrrk used in arrrrchitecture', etc. That's a game that really passes the time on a journey, for sure.

We spent about 3 hours at Paradise Park I think. Went through the Planet Earth bit twice - the first time F just rushed through because she wanted to get to something, so it was good that we ended up doing it a second time, stopping to look at fossils, bones and other exhibits a bit more. We also did shooting and water shooting and lots of just exploring around the various trails. We bought an annual pass, so can go back any time free now - the train was really cheap, came to £3.something for the two of us. Lots of walking was involved - there are buses but it was quite walkable - F was tired by the end, but that's no bad thing now and then.

Back here, we played with the DSs a bit, I finally got Lucky to recognize his name and then taught him 'Sit' and we played in 'Bark Mode', swapping prezzies and voice messages for a while. Had lateish dinner - some nice Chinese food - and then F and I watched a My Little Pony film in bed, LOL, very relaxing!
Forgot to record Torchwood so will have to download I guess! I have a chunky load of work but deadline is not for 9 days, so pressure is off this week.
Tomorrow, working day at home, swimming lesson for F. Washing and baths might be nice too.