We awoke to bright sunshine, but with threatening clouds on the horizon so got the tent up and sorted asap. Amazing how much difference already having the camping mats and sleeping bags ready to just bring across from C&H’s tent made somehow. We had some comedy windbreak errection moments but it was otherwise smooth.
The rides at Wicksteed opened at 1030am and we were there shortly afterwards. Davies and Scarlett love fairground rides so we were keen to maximise every minute of the day. We’d managed to get Tesco vouchers to pay for the wristbands so saved ourselves £50 which was great as it made the weekend feel very cheap.
There were 3 very heavy rain showers during the course of the day there – the first we were on the railway for, the second we sheltered from in the amusement arcade and the third we gave up on worrying about and just carried on with the rides through. Appropriately Scarlett, SB and I happened to be on the umbrellas which did actually offer some shelter 😆
We crossed paths with The Beans at various points and probably ended up spending about half the day with them. At one point we kept SB with us while the others went back to the tent for lunch – we’d decided breakfast had been late enough in the day to keep going with just an ice cream rather than take any time out of rides.
Last year Tarly was too short for the 1.2m height restriction on a lot of the rides but this year the only ride they were too little to go on was the mad dropping boat one. Ady was incredibly brave and went on the rollercoaster and even the pirate boat several times. I was very proud of him as he really doesn’t like them but the kids were urging him with lots of ‘Come on Daddy!’ s and he said he didn’t want them to remember him as someone who wasn’t prepared to try stuff when they grow up. I love the rides anyway so I was more than happy to go on everything as many times as we could but we spent the last 35 minutes going round the rollercoaster as many times as we could until it closed. I reckon we had at least 30 goes on it and by the end I was fairly rollecoaster’d out! I have bruises on my knees, thighs and shoulders to prove it 😆
Ady, Davies and I liked the lasertag which we’d not done last year and the ride for bringing on the most joyous laughter which even had people standing watching us laughing along too was the carousel. Last year Scarlett excelled herself on that ride by crying all the way round it because she wasn’t on the ‘right’ horse before getting off, spending ages selecting the right one and ending up sitting back on the one she’d been on before crying about 😆 This year we were the first to ride on it after the very heavy rainshower and the cover had filled with trapped water which all span off and cascaded down when it started going round. 🙂
Davies and Scarlett are a joy to take to places like that as they just get every pennies worth of fun out of the rides, screaming, laughing, running from ride to ride , being fearless with their hands in the air and just loving every moment. Really want to take them to Chessington or Alton Towers later this year if we can. Poor Ady! 😆 They both had a wobbly moment during the day – Davies wanted to sit with me on the rollercoaster and so did Scarlett, Ady got on again to prevent the fallout from that and then Davies sat in the place we’d agreed Scarlett would. I shouted at him which made him cry just as the coaster was about to go. All these people were frowning at me as I’d said to him ‘Just get on quickly and stop being so ridiculous!’ which made it look to all of them like I’d insisted he go on a rollercoaster against his will. He soon cheered up though when it got going. Scarlett had a moment about not having as many goes as Davies at one of the pick and grab machines in the arcade while we were sheltering from the rain. Actually she didn’t, because Ady had let Davies have several goes and use all the change up so she was right to be upset, but tiredness made her more upset than was reasonable…
We left when the rollercoaster finished, which was probably before some of the other rides but we felt we’d had every pennies worth of fun and were getting really hungry. We went to Tesco for dinner ingredients for Ady and I and picnic supplies for the following day, then McDonalds for dinner for Davies and Scarlett (have discovered that 3 Happy Meals between them is about right for dinner and still cheaper than moving onto their full size meals). I had some mozarella sticks and some of the kids’ drink and started to feel much better as I’d been quite light headed and faint feeling, but then a full day of rollercoastering and no food is probably all but guaranteed to have such an effect!
Back at the tents we found Helen running a creche for various waifs and strays – she had Big and Small (Jax and Chris were at Tesco) and four refugee children, their mother and dog all sheltering from the rain in her tent, while she was taking a break from cooking dinner for the masses due to a run out of petrol stove 🙁 I offered wine and moral support and eventually the rain stopped, so the folk and their dog left to continue putting their tent up and Jax and Chris returned along with petrol.
We had a nice evening with a fairly early night, conscious of a busy day on Saturday.