Early on, we went and had a lovely day in Peel and I gave Finn the choice of going South or North. We chose incorrectly, leaving the West-&-North sun behind us at Dalby and entering a thick fog that left us cold and miserable in Cregneash, darting from site to site to get inside!
The view over Ramsey & the north from there was also very lovely:
Since we were there, we also did the first trampolining of the season at granny's. Orry was very jealous to hear of it!
Having failed to make good on a plan we had when visiting Peel Castle ahead of the Oie Voaldyn event, we made a special trip out to the castle to have lunch and to make some drawings for Cori's birthday, just like the picture she made for me of the castle at Christmas. Finn and Orry did very good jobs:
Indeed, the trip was so successful that we were shocked to have Orry fall asleep at the dinner table for the first time in about a year or so!
Next on our outings was a repeat of a trip we enjoyed so much last year - to Kentraugh Mill. Although we unfortunately got a guide who didn't know what to do with kids (neither explaining it in easier language, nor allowing me time to re-explain it to Finn, despite us being the only people with him, until he sloped off rather embarrassed by it all as I explained something to Finn!), it was as fun as last year, especially when the thing was turned on:
After the tour of the mill, we retired for cream tea on the lawn, which was lovely:
As the eagle-eyed amongst you will have seen, we solved Orry's jealousy over Finn & I getting jam scones by our spreading jam between our brought-from-home-egg-&-milk-free-biscuits - he enjoyed it!
We left ourselves very little time after this to get to Balladoole for a quick picnic before dancing practice in Peel, but it was still lovely to nibble a sandwich or two inside the site of a Viking ship burial, as you do!
To go through the whole month of our weekend outings, our final one was with granny on our first trip to the Sneafell Mines. It was quite a long walk, in the hills over rough ground, but Finn impressed us all by doing it all, and Orry went an impressively long way of it, and it was well worth it (for Finn & me at least!) to look around the old mine areas effectively untouched since the 1950s:
Perhaps also relevant here is the fact that I took an outing by myself on Sunday, to Lezayre with friends to search for a place in Manx folklore and effectively lost since the 1970s. It was a great decadence to be out wandering the hills on my own, and one I realise isn't likely to come very often again over the next couple of years:
Finn's school had a Shiaghten Slayntoil / Healthy Week, which focussed them on eating healthy foods and doing more exercise. Finn was quite engaged with it and very conscientiously asked about the healthiness of foods before deciding on what to have, even going so far as to turn down drinks other than water (or, more frequently, have the sweet, but guiltily!). A part of this has gone on for over a month now (as I write this at the start of July), with him asking about which of the cereals are healthiest each morning and choosing accordingly. Great work!
The walk which his class went on was a surprisingly long one, from Peel all the way back to St. John's along the old train track, a journey that must have taken then over an hour. We were very impressed that they would take it on as a school:
Finn, however, didn't have the best of times, as he reported being miserable from a goading he got from another boy in his class for being slow (which would inevitably have made him slower still!), and for getting his trainers muddy (which made us immediately guilty for having dressed him so in the morning!). But at least it was the experience rather than the walking which caused him to be miserable about it - he asked about our doing it together one day to school/work, which sounds like a lovely plan, if I can catch him in good enough a mood one day for it not to be an ordeal for us all!
Cori's bump continued to blossom in May. It was at about this time that the tedious questions of 'It can't be long now?' followed by the surprised response to the due date of 'Really? Is it twins?' Cori was really rather bored of it, which made it all the more humorous for me when we met people on the weekend (friends and strangers alike) and I too heard them deliver the lines exactly.
As amazing as the identical questions of everyone was, it was perhaps understandable to see where they were coming from:
Indeed, by the end of the month, the baby was sufficiently packed in there that we could see it moving around inside. This was not encouraged by Cori, who is pained enough by him pushing about and exercising in there as it is! But when he's doing it anyway, it is nice to have Finn and Orry talk to him and get him leaping about more:
As the bump would suggest, preparation has been on-going, as time goes by and the To Do list and sorting out of stuff remains towering.
... I'm not sure is those pictures were illustrations of Things Being Done, or of the towering To Dos, but you get the idea!
But, to leap from the horrifying to the silly, here is a picture of Orry being classy, taking the drying toilet mat to put around his potty before he gets onto his business:
Also rather silly, but also very impressive is the game Cori devised for them of the ski-lifts between chairs, made out of bits of toys and string tied between two chairs. It was a very simple thing, but it drove Finn's imagination and he pulled Orry into this very intricate game of a rescue involving much delivering and taking of supplies over the lines etc. It went on for a very long time, which Cori was delighted about as she buckled down to getting stuff done quietly in the corner!
Also somewhat silly is Orry in the bath with bubbles. It was him who daubed himself bubbles before standing up, posing and demanding I take a photo. Ridiculous!
Talking of water-related activities, Finn was delighted to get to go to a swimming party up in Ramsey. It was our first swimming party, and we were filled with horror at the prospect. However, with Orry there too, we were forced to effectively sit on the steps with him chatting to parent-friends as Finn ruckussed about with other dads & kids. It wasn't so bad. And then we had a nice dinner afterwards, with hats!
Talking of Finn's friends, it was nice that Cori's weird constant Amazon suggested advert to come in handy. Had she not been receiving repeated adverts for an apparently comfortable massive inflatable tube, reputably for use at the beach etc.!, she'd not have recognised it when someone else had thrown it out at the tip. She took it straightaway, knowing that it would be a great thing to let the kids play with after school one day on the grass opposite the school:
It was indeed a lot of fun, both in the running around to fill it with air, and in the playing on afterwards. Everyone had great fun, even Orry (after a bit of crying at not being able to join in initially with all the older kids). A lovely afternoon entertainment!
Another rather silly entertainment was worm charming at Maughold. This wasn't really the sort of thing we'd do of our own accord, but granny was adamant that we'd be there and we did indeed have fun, once we worked out what we were doing:
As the picture might explain of itself, the aim is to 'charm' out (ie, without digging or searching) of the ground worms from within your own plot. Initially the 30 minute time seemed painfully long to keep the kids entertained as we got not a single worm. However, with only about 10 minutes to go we found a patch of ground where stones didn't stop the fork going in, and we worked out to just wiggle it, and we ended up with 13 worms in our pot by the end.
We were quite amazed at how it was working in the end, and especially so as we were far ahead of the next competitor. It's just a shame that we didn't know to do that from the start, or else we could have competed with the winner who was at it from the off and got 35 or so!
At the very end of the month we went off on holiday, so it's sensible to leave that to a separate post.
Instead here we'll leave you with a video and a picture...
... of the start of the TT practices, which was the most we saw of it all this year (since we were away for it all)...
... and just a nice picture of those two boys one evening when the great weather hit towards the end of the month and I took them out for a walk to the end of the breakwater as I couldn't not be out there (note the evident heat here, seen in Orry's sweating brow!):
And a fittingly lovely picture it is to finish on too!
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