Having checked that no last minute folk had decided to contact me about coming to Tilgate Park after all this morning I put the vote to Davies and Scarlett as to where we went. I love Tilgate but it’s a place even better to enjoy with friends – or indeed Ady so it seemed silly to drive all that way if it was just going to be us. After a bit of discussion we settled on Drusillas.
We nipped to Tescos on the way to get batteries for my camera and then I decided to drive slightly past Drusillas to The Long Man of Wilmington which is one of those internationally famous landmarks we have on our doorstep but have never done more than drive past and gaze up at whenever we go to Eastbourne. There is a car park with a further mile or so of footpath to walk to actually get to it and as we were already heading towards 1130am we decided not to do the final trek but to save that for a day when Ady was with us too. The carpark was next to a field with horses in it so we lingered there awhile and got a few photos of it from afar and marvelled at a load of paragliders doing their thing off the downs across from us.
We drove back a different way to the way we’d come off the A27 which took us through Alfriston and past a NT place which we’ll go back and visit another time. I don’t think I’ve ever been to Alfriston before – very quaint and Sussex village-y place – hell to drive a people carrier through the narrow streets when loads of 4x4s are coming the other way though! We did a fair bit of up hill and down dale type stuff before turning round to do it all again. D and S thought this was all excellent run and were making rollercoaster sound effects in the back of the car and putting their hands in the air at appropriate moments :lol:.
We arrived at Drusillas and decided not to do any of the challenges or spotting this time, just to walk round. Drusillas is really overpriced although in fairness they do plough a lot of money back into the place – I think we were rather spoilt in Manchester having both Chester Zoo and Knowsley Safari Park on our doorstep so to speak, both of which were excellent. I do take on board all the issues people have with zoos but Tarly particularly is so big cat obsessed it would be nice to have somewhere nearer that she could indulge her passion in seeing them at more often. I looked at the programme of events for this year which is just a whole host of costume character appearances – none of which would interest either Davies or Scarlett and made me realise that actually they are possibly slightly older than the market Drusillas is looking to appeal to actually. Davies did some reading of signs – he won’t be pushed or have reading suggested by me and will give up quite easily if he deems it too hard but he is really trying to decode things at the moment under his own steam.
We had an interesting conversation about charity and whether the world’s wealth should be more evenly spread out and how people have ideas about how much they need which was as usual illuminating to get a child’s innocent take on such things – if they ruled the world eh?
There were quite a few school trips there today so the play areas were pretty busy but they calmed down after 1pm when they were all called away to go and be educated again leaving it fairly empty. I sat on a bench and watched them play for a while then they both decided to go over to the other side so I perched on a new bench which they both came over to every so often. Scarlett then walked back over to the other side, but I could see her every so often and she waved to me a couple of times. She will actively go looking to make new friends at places like parks and playgrounds now which is really sweet. I realised I’d not seen her for about 10 minutes when Davies next appeared back so I sent him over to look for her but he came back unable to find her. We chatted about how I probably shouldn’t leave the place I’d last been in and he went off on a series of hunts for her but to no avail. It was just crossing my mind that maybe I should start to be getting concerned when I spotted her coming towards us with a Drusillas employee, chatting happily away to him. Apparently she’d decided she was lost and sat on a bench crying when someone’s mother asked her if she was lost and took her to the kiosk where she sat on a chair and told them her name was Scarlett and described what I was wearing, the man was bringing her round the play area to see if they could spot me. She seemed totally unfazed and had none of the telltale blotchiness she normally has when she has been crying for more than a minute or two. I’m frustrated rather at her dizziness – I’d not moved from the place she clearly knew I was at and proud of her for knowing what to do and doing it rather than being pathetic she took charge and dealt with her situation. I do think I maybe need to have some sort of stranger danger type chat with her though, she is very confident in talking to any adult and would all too happily give way too much information about herself away. I’ve no idea how to tackle that really, Davies has always been far more suspicious so it’s not felt like an issue and I don’t want to scare her silly either…
We went into the soft play place then where I had a big cup of tea and read a (thoughtfully provided) magazine while they tore around for half an hour. We looked at the train but it only runs on the hour and it was 25 past 2 so there was no way I was hanging around for 35 minutes for a 3 minute ride on a train that plays Thomas The Tank Engine theme tune on a constant loop, so we looked in the bug world where we marvelled at leafcutter ants and then we left.
On the way back we were looking again at the paragliders and wondering about how exactly they got airbourne so we decided to take the next available left turn and find out! It was a charmingly named ‘Bo Peep Lane’ which claimed to be a T junction so I was not entirely convinced wouldn’t lead us on yet another crazy East Sussex trail but ended up being precisely the place with a carpark leading to the downs where they were jumping off. Being nearly 3pm they were mostly starting to pack up and none of them looked approachable enough to go and ask questions of. So we looked at the view and talked about how we were higher than the lowest clouds, which I said in an attempt to be poetic felt like we were on top of the world, but was corrected by Scarlett telling me ‘no Mumma, that would be the North Pole and then there would be snow!’ – humph! Amazing views anyway and the paragliding thing looks excellent fun 🙂
Home for an early tea (whilst watching Wonderpets) and then off to Badgers. No idea what they did there today but at the end there was talk of a county competition including First Aid competition which Davies seems very keen to enter so I need to talk to the leader about that next time. We listened to lots of soundtrack to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in the car so we’ve all been singing about how the Candyman can :).
Tomorrow I’m working and Ady is home with the children, which means I get to not worry at all all day about what they’re doing and come home to a perfectly tidy house and children who have already had their tea organised – much like he does every day he works ;). Hurrah!