Amusing ourselves

This is us last night: Cambridge map, sock in progress (poor sock was started on the plane over, mid-July!), Mr Sneeze for child-amusing, and a pint of beer. Also you will see the laughing child inserting hand into picture, in an attempt to wreck the whole set-up. Hardy har har.

We were in the Castle pub, on Castle Road, near Castle Mound. There was once a castle there, but it became redundant some centuries ago, and is only a mound now. Fun to climb up, even in the rain. It was the last day of Stephen's conference, so we met up with him and another family with a young boy!! But the other boy was not feeling well, so that was a tad disappointing. But we hope he gets better soon! Like today. The kids are getting a bit bored with me...

This is the sort of thing they get to do with me. Look at different pillar boxes around town, and get all excited when we see a new king or queen's initials. This one is in the train station, and it was put there by King Edward VII . We have also seen George VI and several Victorias, including one that is hexagonal. I'm sure there are pillar-box-spotters around who know where all the rare and exciting ones are, like these in Oxford. Well, enough about that!

We were at the train station to get a family pass, which gives us discounts on train tickets for the whole year, for 20 pounds! Not a bad deal, I figure. Our first big expedition is next week, when we take the train to Oban. Then get a ferry to Mull. This will take all day... We get the train here at 6 am, and should get to Oban 9 hours later. This is twice as long as it took us to get across the Atlantic Ocean. I hope it's fun, but really, it'll be a challenge.


And when we're not out looking at pillar boxes and such, we have several crafty things to do at home. This is an assortment of the bead thingies the children have made. We've seen these kits before, but the beads have to get ironed together, and we don't normally have an iron. I know, shocking. But there ya go. But here in our furnished house, we have one, so when we were in Robert Sayle looking at yarn, the kids saw the kits and jumped at them. I must say, this is not my favourite thing. It's good to lay out the beads, and they are nice colours, and I guess they'll look good on the Christmas tree, but as you can see on the orangey-yellow star, sometimes they get broken, and really, what can one do with them, other than save them for the Christmas tree? We bought 15 000 beads, so the house will soon be filling up with them.

I don't know about the internet connections at our place on Mull, but I'll try to update as we go. First thing, pack!