Day of sun

and a bit of wind too. Oh and some rain.

Only a slightly later start to this morning including the sad but expected news that the chick hadn’t made it through the night. Having all dealt with it sadly but stoically Ady and the children opened the egg which had pipped and stopped too to investigate inside and find another fully formed but dead chick. I think the mix of acceptance tinged with non-hysterical sadness is the right reaction from the children really and Chloe had a very similar one which was good.

We had a lazy morning chatting, drinking tea and coffee, eating croissants and banana sandwiches, having baths and Ady and the girls spent some time planting up some sweet peas and carrots which they seemed to enjoy. He is an excellent host is Ady, which is good because I’m inclined to be on the slack side and assume my sparkling wit and company is sufficient effort ;).

Ady had mooted Shoreham airport as somewhere that might be interesting to visit and Marcus had found a couple of geocaches to attempt in the vicinity too so we headed off to the airport and parked up. We explored some pillboxes and then went to the Shoreham tollbridge which opened having been restored last year. I’ve never been across it despite it being a bit of a local landmark and quite newsworthy during the fundraising efforts to ‘save it’. It’s actually a very nice, basic, wooden bridge but has fab views north and south over the river Adur and downs and out over the airport to the west.

We spent quite some time searching for a very small geocache, unsuccessfully. The children just enjoyed the bridge and the sunshine while we got progressively less secret and furtive about our search eventually ending up on our hands and knees looking 😆

We didn’t find it but on the plus side I found a quid which had fallen between the slats and a penny aswell and the children found a pidgeon which had a nest just below the slats

and the bridge was very pretty too.

We moved on to the second cache which I was fairly sure was one we’d found with Chris and Alison a few years ago as the clues sounded like the same place although it had been a scoubidou cache back then (it was the final resting place of that thong I made for Ros) infact the reading back old blog posts and finding old photos that today’s geocache has inspired has made me all nostalgic! It turned out not to be the same cache but one just a tiny distance from that one (as recognised by Chris on my flickrstream)
2005

(Chris has better pics here)
2009

Everyone was cold and hungry by then having been very windswept on the rather exposed path so we retired to the airport for a look round and some refreshments in the cafe.
(A photo that doesn’t actually flatter anyone!)

and then we said our goodbyes and headed for respective homes. Ours being rather a lot closer of course ;).

We had a quiet afternoon including very long baths each for Ady and I, some playing draughts and a W&G board game (called Going Crackers or something similar) for Ady and Davies followed by tea and an early night for the kids. We managed a very late dinner due to some bombay potatoes which refused to cook and assuming that everyone remains well we will be back to our usual levels of gallivanting next week kicking off with the monthly HE walk to Pulborough Brooks tomorrow.

Thanks M, M and C for a fab weekend, really enjoyed all your company 🙂 xxx