Terribly British Day Out

I'm working on fighting off a flu-y thing- I've been feeling crappy since Friday afternoon. I've slept most of the day today, so I'm feeling a little better.

We had a fun weekend: we went to Newmarket for a train show on Saturday morning, then to Bury for some groceries and a quick walk around Ickworth, and then to Freda and Travis' for a barbecue. They'd had such a good time cooking outside with my parents in New Ro that they decided to buy themselves a barbecue for the patio. It was a gloriously summer evening, and we all had a lot of fun. At the train show in the morning, the biggest hit with James was a guy who'd taken some Fisher Price Geotrax and built trams to sit on top of the trains, along with a fairly complicated layout. He had 4 kids driving the trams (the controllers are really simple) and trying not to hit each other. James would have stayed there all day, but we figured half an hour was plenty of time. :)

Yesterday, we went to Dedham (in Constable country) with Ian and Caroline, where we had a picnic in a field by the river, went for a hike, and then hired a boat and rowed down the river for a while. We watched a pair of girls accidentally flip their rowboat, which was pretty funny. One was tall and lanky and the other was...er...of more traditional build. They wanted to switch places, so they both stood up. The boat tipped, and rather than sit down again, the bigger girl grabbed the gunwale and freaked out. ::Splash:: It was like the whole thing happened in slow motion. We retrieved the oar that they had lost in the excitement, and Ian held the boat while they climbed back in. They were v. wet and extremely surprised, but otherwise fine. James was VERY careful about not standing up in the boat after that.

C and Liz (my college roomies) gave us a bunch of board games for the wedding, including Risk, which James immediately decided he HAD to learn how to play. So he and I played the two-player version (you get to have neutral territories- it was really cool) yesterday. I was helping him with strategy and stuff, and he was doing really well (read: winning, and getting very cocky). I told him Risk isn't over until it's over (I had Australia and was busy with Asia), and John came over and told me to stop letting him win and start fending for myself. Which I was planning to do on my next turn anyway- I had a huge card bonus plus all my continents. His eyes got all wide like dinner plates. Then he had a temper tantrum and declared it a tie. I felt TERRIBLE kicking an 8-year-old's ass at Risk, but it was bedtime anyway. I'm an evil stepmother. :(