Saturday 10 October 2009

Garston Adventure Playground

We made our first visit to 'GAP' this week after a number of attempts over the last few months, all of which failed due to napping.. Anyway, that seems to be becoming a thing of the past for Isaiah and so we are not usually bound by related time constraints at the moment as Jeremy will sleep anywhere at this stage :)

The visit was arranged by the Merseyside home educators network and all credit to them for this fabulous find! We hire the whole place so get it all to ourselves. I never knew it was there, tucked away between the railway line and Garston library. There's also an indoor area with hockey hall and softplay but we didn't venture in there as we prefer the outdoors whenever possible, plus it was a lovely day that we wanted to make the most of with it being October!

We made a grand entrance down the steep slide, which is set into the earth down the hill into the lower area of the two-level playground where there are various wooden climbing apparatas and a crocodile made from a painted fallen tree! There's also a tunnel cut into a natural earth mound.. So, generally a fun space to explore :) Isaiah enjoyed himself on the hammock and playing in the outdoor sandpit, and we went home with the inevtably acquired stick :)

We also had a lovley time back at Greenbank Park this week, among other things. Isaiah and his little friend had a good run around the walled garden, looking for fish in the pond and posting pebbels in the postbox (I'm not sure if I should allow that but I don't really see the harm!?!)..

Thursday 1 October 2009

Speke Hall and Crosby Beach

We had a lovely day at the National Trust's Speke Hall yesterday with my parents. The weather was lovely so Isaiah played in the little adventure playground there for an extended period of time, twice, and rode his bike around the gardens inbetween :) He found a fallen apple and had a couple of bites but it was pretty bruised so the rest got shunned. There were loads of Yew trees and my dad informed me their berries are poisonous. I recognised them as the ones mentioned in a previous post that Isaiah and Davey tried to eat, so it's a good job we stopped them!

Isaiah went exploring off the beaten track with Grandpa, in the trees and bushes, and we spotted a member of staff in Tudor costume, who was amusing to see wandering around the grounds - adorning tights and a feather hat (among other things, needless to say)!

Crosby Beach was fun today. The babies didn't love it (we were with friends) - I spent my time sheltering Jeremy from the wind - but they ended up sleeping much of the time - I guess the sea air must have taken it out of them! The kids had a great time though! To my surprise they didn't venture toward the sea at all despite my carrying wellies and change of clothes etc, but they spent ages collecting wood and shells, playing with the sand and on the rocks. Isaiah upturned the two buckets our friends had brought and lay the plank of wood across them that he'd found, then proudly declared "We've made a bench!" They then proceeded to decorate it with the shells they'd collected. We had a picnic and later on the three of them disappeared over to the rocks and it transpired they were 'filling a hole with sand so that people wouldn't fall in it'! It turned out to be a pretty big hole; they were there for at least an hour!

We then made the treck back past the marina to the car and Isaiah slid his hand along the fence most of the way, stopping at an area of decking to listen to the water sloshing up against the rocks. He walked a considerable distance quite happily :) I'm glad we managed a trip to the beach before the weather gets too wintery, not that that will necessarily put us off but it may!