SeaLife Centre in Btn with FFFs today - 3 families in all. F and I got the train with C and her 2 girls, which gave me the welcome opportunity to see someone else's child choosing where we would sit, just like F sometimes does, leading us down the train. C had checked out the discount for the 'residents' pass', so we were all able to go for that, which saved a lot of money and will mean much cheaper visits in future too.
Had a lovely time apart from 10 minutes near the end of the day when F was very tired - her walk is very wobbly at the moment and she felt miserable walking back up the hill to the train. Apart from that though, we really enjoyed the day. We all got to touch anemones and see how fast some of them pulled their tentacles in, feed rays and large fish and chuck broccoli into the water for Lulu the turtle. Plus quite a lot of running around, crawling under display stands, exploring, etc. This particular configuration of FFFs hadn't happened before, but it worked very well I thought.
F was quite thoughtful/helpful to other children a few times, which was nice to see. I looked after E at one point so that her sister, M, got a chance to go in the 'submarine ride' (a room with a screen playing a 5-minute loop 'adventure', complete with juddering seats) with their mum. F was fine about that and went in with C, then went in with me afterwards. E and I looked at the catfish, starfish and small turtles and talked about swimming and about how old the SeaLife Centre is and how it must have been 100 years ago. She and M are lovely kids - each very different in many ways. F gets on with them both, and always gets on with other M too, so she enjoyed the company very much and seemed quite 'in demand' at times.
F and I talked about the texture of the anemones, what different water animals eat, different materials used for the displays around us, whether the 'submarine ride' was in a real submarine or not and how we knew. Enjoyed going through the tunnel under the big tank again and then looking in from the top, though at one point, whilst all 3 adults were gazing into the water with interest, at sharks, turtles and fish, our 4 children were far more fascinated by running up and down the auditorium seats and finding a manky old sweet someone had left on one. We listened to the short talk there. F didn't really listen though, she sat for a while, then wandered a bit. But she did throw broccoli in, along with the others, then waited ages wanting to ask a question. In the end she asked something that she wouldn't have needed to ask if she had been listening, but maybe that doesn't matter that much. She wanted to ask, she asked, that's fine, it's all good.
Back here, J and F did a bit of Wii Fit, but I was tackling washing up! J improved his ski jump and stepping and F did well at bowling. Then we had curry (pizza for F) and watched Dr Who Confidential and some old Dr Who (Seeds of Doom).
F is totally knackered and so am I, after 4 hours of walking. Think we will have a fairly restful weekend.