A nice problem to have.

After a lovely day with friends at Belton House yesterday, K came out with the following words of wisdom:  The problem with having a day with lots of good things that happen, is that it can be difficult to remember them all.  As problems go I think I'd cope alright with that one!  I suggested that if she doesn't want to forget about good things that have happened, she might like to start keeping a diary or journal, and she seemed to think this was quite a good idea.  Having established that a journal could be for keeping a record of important events, whether good or bad, K decided that somebody would have to do the final entry in it, because her death would be important, so should go in the journal and she wouldn't be able to write about it.

This time, I managed to get us to Belton House without going wrong and E, C, L & J arrived shortly after us.  We started in the adventure playground again, where C discovered a little mouse, that sadly really didn't seem very well.  After putting it in a quiet corner with plenty of ground cover and a bit of food, when we looked later it was still alive, but not looking too good.  The children all thought it was sad, but fortunately weren't distressed by it.

The poor little mouse.

After a good long play in the almost deserted adventure playground, we moved on to the indoor play and also had a look in the second hand bookshop.  Then we spent the rest of the time around the Mirror Pool, E & I had a good chat, while the five children got into varying states of grubbiness while fishing pond weed out of the pool with sticks, 'making potions' and 'cooking'.  They also explored and were particularly keen on the 'witches den' a bit shrubby area with lots of rabbit holes.

In the 'witches den'.

The best rabbit hole according to M.

K & M had their first Brownie meeting of the term.  It's going to be K's last term before moving up to Guides, although most of her peers seem to be moving up already, I'm not sure why.  She's happy to stay though and would rather do so, as she's definitely in no rush to grow up unlike so many children it seems, so it's not a problem.

Today was our first Fun Club back after the summer break.  The theme was world cultures, but first we had a talk from a lady about the Mission Aviation Fellowship followed by making paper aeroplanes.  There were various activities to chose from after this, but K & M spent all their time making Australian aboriginal art.

A paper boomerang and painted stones.

They really enjoyed doing this and are keen to do some more, so we need to keep a lookout for some good stones to use.

From Fun Club, we just had time to pop home to change for gymnastics, where they were doing beam work today.  This involved working on benches, lines on the floor and a proper beam on the floor.  They did bunny hops, caterpillar walks (where they walk their hands forward in tiny steps, then do tiny steps with their feet up towards their hands), handstands and forward rolls.  Unfortunately K had a bit of an accident and over balanced in a handstand, kneed herself in the eye and now has a lump and a black eye to show for it.  She's fine though.

Finally today was also the first korfball session back after the summer, which they both enjoyed, particularly because another friend has started playing too.