19/05/2023
Monday morning after dropping Eloise off at nursery, Lachlan wanted to continue his stroll around the neighborhood in search of his beloved cats. He is getting good with the pram. It is not always easy on the Glaswegian footpaths but for whatever reason, don’t you dare touch Lachlan’s pram. He makes it very clear, he does not want your help.
After Jo (and Emma) had done a great job watching Lachlan on Sunday, Monday afternoon we farmed him off to Janet, although Super Mum delivered him asleep after carrying him up three flights of stairs in his pram seat. He inevitably woke up and freaked out, not sure where he was, but luckily a few Janet cuddles sorted that out. He was happy in building block heaven.
In the afternoon, Eloise scored a bargain and found £2 Crocs, she was welcomed into the Croc Clan. Just in time for our most exciting summer road trip yet.
It was the usual daily sunny arts and crafts. After Eloise’s non-stop cutting of paper into tiny pieces for the past few months she has convinced us that she can handle the “big girl scissors”, no stopping her now.
At the dinner table, Eloise pulled out her nursery creations of the day, she calls them “Mummy and Eloisey robots”. The boys were not happy, she explained her teacher had to leave and next time she will make “Daddy and Lachlan robots”.
Appropriately, “a butcher from North Lanarkshire has won what organisers say is the first Haggis World Championship”.
In other exciting news, “the UK’s first full-sized driverless buses have started operating for passengers in Edinburgh”. There you go Laura, there are more than just buses in Edinburgh.
Tuesday morning, was an early start, I even beat Lachlan up, it was off to the airport at 05:30 before a quick takeoff, we told you the UK is looking exceptionally green right now. It was going to be a long day in Farnborough.
It was a longer-than-usual flight down to Heathrow which was supposedly rammed. We had to do a few circles of London before the approach, luckily I had a window seat.
We have worked ourselves into a serious babysitting debt, while Eloise was at nursery, Lachlan was delighted to have “Juju, juju, juuuujuuu” to entertain him. She was good on the bike.
Wednesday morning we turned our backs for a few minutes and “uh oh”, Eloise had overdone it with the nail polish. Surprisingly, Lachlan was the controlled one.
Before Eloise’s nursery, Lachlan wanted to take his baby for a walk and play chasey in the local park.
Early Thursday morning Lachlan had found a way to entertain himself. Running about making ghost noises and bumping into things.
Eloise laid out her outfit, nicked Super Mum’s phone and took a picture to make sure it was okay. She does love her party dress.
In the evening we decided it had been too long since we ate at our local pub and headed out for dinner. Lachlan managed to convince Dad to switch his seat around permanently, it was the only way to stop him from taking Eloise’s seat each time.
The lasagna and schnitty were just what we needed. Eloise and Lachlan made quick work of their meals too. Eloise enjoyed her “ginormous chair”.
Liam was keen to keep his four-day weeks rolling for a third in a row, after our two recent bank holidays. Lachlan was happy to have him at home and was keen to make the most of it with a 05:00 dino tv marathon.
We had promised our dino boy one last present to celebrate his coronation, a walk amongst the dinosaurs. Funnily enough, Lachlan was regretting his early start and got a solid nap on the way to Blair Drummond Safari & Adventure Park. Eloise could not deal with the pressure of sneaking in as an under three so decided to hide as we passed through the gate.
As we were waiting for the safari gates to open, the kids jumped into the front seat with Eloise excited to get behind the wheel for the first time.
Eloise not only had to make sure she stayed on the track but she had to make sure she did not hit any of the animals. We doubted that the insurance covered a threenager driving through lionesses and rhinos. Luckily her noble sidekick, Lachlan, was on high alert.
Lachlan was having a great time in the front seat, jumping up and down whenever he spotted new animals.
Eloise wanted to make sure that she was not missing any of the animals and whipped out her binoculars.
Thankfully, Eloise put her binoculars aside as we got to the lionesses. Serious time. When we eventually found them, Lachlan made sure to “roarrrr” at them.
Eloise did a pro job steering through the lioness enclosure, the trickiest test was the cheeky monkeys. We had to stop so Lachlan could shout at a few of them to get them out of our way. Luckily there were no monkeys on our car this time.
Eloise had done a good job getting us through the safari park with no animals injured in the process and the car in one piece. As we arrived at the car park. There was one thing on Lachlan’s mind, he grabbed the map from Eloise and was off, “dinos, dinos, dinnnnnoooossssss”.
Lachlan started out loving the dinos and seeing them thrash about, however as we got closer to the scarier dinos, he watched from behind Super Mum.
The boy seriously loves dinos, look at this face below! You should have heard the squeals he made while jumping up and down. Safe to say, Lachlan was getting a real thrill out of the dino section.
We were starving after the morning excitement. The kids were glad Super Mum had the Bento boxes loaded with goodies. However, we were not quite out of sight of the dinos, Lachlan was too distracted to eat.
The one thing we missed last time was chimp island. Eloise was frustrated that we were not allowed to cross to chimp island and yelled at them from afar.
Eloise remembered how much she loved her swan pedal boat ride and we sprinted off to get life jackets. She was so happy that Lachlan was big enough to come with us this time. Eloise took the role of chief steerer and Lachlan was just happy enough to be out on the water.
There were mixed reactions to heading over to Lemur Land. As Lachlan had only recently been crowned King, he was not sure if he wanted the trouble of bumping into King Julien again.
The kids were a bit mesmerized by the tortoise, Eloise was quick to point out it was much bigger than Bill’s.
Driving pro, Eloise had a hot head around the track. Storming out of her car and giving Lachlan a big push to hurry him up. Lachlan was not impressed.
The giraffes are always neat to see, by this stage, Lachlan was starting to fade.
We quickly grabbed some ice creams and more nachos before heading to the bird of prey show, we do love a good bird of prey show. I think I got some good shots, they are incredibly fast.
Sadly no Hedwigs, the vulture is always the grand finale, swooping low over the crowd. Lachlan was feeding off its energy, Eloise was not so sure about the mega bird flying so close, it actually donked Super Mum on the head.
We quickly dashed across to catch the sea lion show. At the end the kids were ready to run again, it was time for the beloved petting zoo. Eloise is getting faster at warming up to the animals. We never know what is going to happen as Lachlan prefers to charge at them.
We called it a day with the animals as we swung past the tiger and Eloise yelled at another lemur.
Well, we almost left, Eloise then spotted a large pirate ship that she had to check out for her pirate cousin. It was down the pirate slide, then down the even bigger blue slide, then back in the car.
The plan was then a quick drive through the Safari Park again before heading back to Glasgow. However, the camel had a different idea. Eloise thought this was very funny.
[…] We bumped into Henry Ford and his Model T which we thought was pretty neat. We were a bit confused what Henry Ford had to do with Fort William. “Motor enthusiast Henry Alexander made the triumphant journey up the Scottish Mountain in his Model T Ford car in May 1911. Now, more than 100 years later, a three ton bronze sculpture of his car named ‘The Bronze Ford’ has been created and is scheduled to be unveiled in the town’s Cameron Square on May 19”. Eloise lept behind the wheel, keen to drive again. […]