Climbing High

This is Miss E fifty feet up a huge beech tree. Just before she disappeared out of sight completely!
We'd booked her in on a tree climbing event at Anglesey Abbey and she LOVED it!
The day got off to an unfortunate start when Miss E came in to get her iPad and it turned out to be 9.15am. 
We had planned to leave at about 9.15am!!!
Mr K got them fed and dressed at top speed while I jumped in the shower. 
We left, came back for the National Trust tickets and then left again!
We were fifteen minutes late and hoped they could change her to a later session but they couldn't so she quickly got stuck in.
They strapped her into a harness, gave her a hard hat, vaguely explained how the ropes worked and off she went.
After a bit of fiddling she figured out the mechanism of the ropes and knots and then there was no stopping her. The other children in the group were all about six or seven feet off the ground when she got there and - proud Mummy alert!!! - she zoomed past them all and soon disappeared out of sight. It was amazing! She was so confident and fearless, it made me so proud. She got the top of the ropes - about fifty foot up apparently - and loved walking along the branches and swinging about on the rope. It made me neck hurt just watching her!
She was so proud when she got back down to the ground. She said "I don't mean to boast Mummy but I was the last child to start and the only child to get to the top"
That's my girl!!!!
We went and had a lovely lunch. Miss E discovered sausage rolls and Miss L discovered a taste for ginger beer (see extras)
After lunch we set off to the Wildlife Discovery Area. Stopping to be statues on the way.
Which is where all the trouble started.
They had both taken hobby horses from reception under strict instructions from me that we would not carry them and if they insisted on taking them then they had to carry them round the whole way. Naturally Miss E got hysterical that she couldn't manage her binoculars and the hobby horse and her denim jacket (which, again, I'd told her not to bring!) Her hysteria got worse when I suggested I take the hobby horses back.
I said she had to calm down or we'd just leave.
Twenty minutes later we were back in the car having treated everyone within a fifty mile radius to a show of screaming, dragging, kicking, flailing and general hideousness.
It was truly awful.
I just couldn't believe we'd gone from pretending to be statues to that in less than five minutes.
How on earth does that happen?
We went into Cambridge to pick up my newly resized and ridiculously shiny wedding and engagement rings and then headed out to the Orchard Tea Garden.
Despite the awfulness of our early departure from Anglesey Abbey we had a lovely time. We had a glorious walk along the river - admiring all the punters and swimmers, we had tea, cake and ice cream in deckchairs in the orchard, we played frisbee and the Little Misses had hours of fun jumping in and out of the sprinkler that was on to water the grass. 
A bit more frisbee then it was home to sleepover chaos.