Spring Barn

We went up to Spring Barn this afternoon, meeting up with C and her 3, plus her mum, plus E's children L and T. Had such a lovely time up there. The children just played endlessly, requiring very little input most of the time, there is so much up there and they did most of it, including 'meet the animals', jumping pillow, zip wire, slides, swings, running up to the little lookout house at the top of the hill, all sorts. And I had hot chocolate, delicious soup and plenty of chatting time with C and her mum.

F and I got there middayish and we all stayed until it closed at 5pm. The sun shone all afternoon, the sky was a deep blue and there was even warmth getting through onto our backs and faces. We were outside almost all of the time.

We did the trailer ride - last year this was quite spooky and F and I went several times because we liked it so much. This year it was a very different thing really. Last year: performed by drama students; sound-effects and the sound of characters approaching the trailer rustling through the maize; a skeleton hero and a scarecrow villain chasing him; a bit where we had to throw things at target scarecrow faces to frighten them off. This year: read from a sheet by the woman who does the coffee in a witches costume; no other characters, no sound effects; no chase; no interactive bit other than guessing the item of clothing the scarecrow should wear.

Still we can remember last year's very fondly, and on the plus side nobody got scared! Apparently they had complaints last year. Sort of wish they did a non-scary one and a scary one though. Bit disappointing but at least there was a story and they all got sweets at the end I guess!

Had a conversation with F on the walk over to the farm park, with her talking about parallel universes and such and somewhere things would all be different and that kind of thing and how do we know we're real, etc.

I don't do well with all that these days. I blame the relative sobriety of my parenting years.