the girl, the bucket, and the castle

We've been to Leeds castle today. What an amazing place. It's so beautiful, and we all thoroughly enjoyed it. The actual castle and the grounds are beautiful. The flowers growing in the gardens that were in bloom were beautiful and delicate, and there were peacocks and black swans a plenty. I could have spent days just walking around the grounds. We enjoyed a picnic by the moat, with the castle as a backdrop. The mini pinks surprised us completely by saying they wanted to look inside the castle. They then spent the next half and hour or so oohing and aahing over the Queen's bedroom, the bathroom, the lounge, all the books in the library and the knight's armour. It was a high speed tour - done at mini pink speed - but I felt so proud that they were taking an interest rather than moaning about going in a castle. Yey mini pinks.
In the grounds there are adventure playgrounds and a maze. We had a lovely time playing in the play area, and bearing in mind that Miss Pink had walked all the way round so far, she was doing brilliantly well. We decided to do the maze last, and with thunder rumbling in the background we thought it could be a last thing before heading home. It was all going really well (aswell as a maze can) until Miss Pink lost her blanket. This is Blanket as in Bunny and blanket that goes everywhere. It had been sitting in her bucket, the bucket must have tipped slightly and the red blanket fallen out. So we decided that we would split up and go in search of the blanket or the centre of the maze, whichever came first. A few trips around in circles, and Master Pink found the blanket. I have never been so pleased to see a piece of red fleece...ever! We hadn't found the centre though. A friendly "maze assistant" gave us a clue, so we reached the centre after a few minutes. phew. We just needed to find the other pinks. We could see Mr pink's head bobbing over the hedges, and eventually, Mr Pink and an exhausted Miss Pink found us at the centre. Bless her, we went out of the grotto (short cut to the exit) popped her in the buggy and within minutes she was asleep. Still holding her bucket.
The thunder turned into rain, rain that drenched us through. rain that meant we had actual drops of water dripping down our noses in the gift shop. But we had a brilliant day!


blackblipped