Skunks, snakes and a lizardy thing

I seem to be way behind on my blogging, so here I am catching up with last weekend's activities. I'd forgotten what we'd been up to so it's just as well I take the camera everywhere with us. I'm sure the kids get fed up of me snapping away but it does act as a useful prompt for my ancient memory cells.

The kids were thrilled to have a visit from their Auntie at the weekend, who joined us at the sailing club on Saturday. We didn't do any sailing as there was a race going on and I didn't think my sailing skills were good enough to avoid 20 other boats travelling at speed! However we picked up dd1's new lifejacket that we'd ordered and she felt compelled to try it out in the swimming area.

On Sunday we all went to an event organised at a local allotment. There was live music, stalls, displays, children's activities, and animal handling (as you can see below)

This is a skunk in the arms of dd1! Apparently it's had it's scent gland removed, so no chance of a stinky surprise. It looked just like a baby all wrapped up.

Ds2 gets friendly with an owl. I couldn't believe he was actually brave enough to hold it. Dd1 couldn't resist having a little stroke of it too.

Meet the boa! Dd1 wouldn't let it go round her shoulders but she was ok about stroking it.

Auntie is being very brave (not bad, considering she's frightened of snakes!). She said it was actually not so bad, though she did get a bit worried when it looked like it was wrapping itself around her neck! [Just as well she didn't see the documentary on tv last night which showed a boa eating a deer - whole!]

And a lizardy thing....

Yes I probably should know what it's called, but I wasn't listening. Too busy trying to stop dd1 stuffing furry things in her pockets and taking them home with her.

The allotment site was huge, much bigger than the one we belong to. It was interesting wandering around, being nosey, and looking at what others were growing and how they were growing it. The place had a nice atmosphere. I'm half tempted to get on their waiting list and see if we can swap our plots for one there. They look like they might be slightly more tolerant of weeds there, unlike my present allotment where the 'weed police' run a strict policy of guilty until proven innocent {g}. Which reminds me...need to go to the allotment and do some weeding.

Ds1 tries out some new playground equipment at a local park (Friday) when we visited with one of the children's friends. At last, after years of putting up with sad, peeling, 1970s play equipment, one of our local playgrounds has had a bit of a refurb. Most of the old play equipment had been 'disabled' for years because it was considered too dangerous to have it moving (not surprisingly it had absolutely no play value because it didn't actually do anything any more!) We hadn't been to the playground for ages, but with the new equipment I think we'll be visiting a bit more often.