Run Away!

We were up early this morning and drove to Rachel's to spend the day with them.  It's a long way to go for a day, but it's the first time Alan got to meet Violet and we also spent the night with his parents - whilst I've seen them on my recent visits, Alan hasn't seen them since Christmas.

Leaving early, meant the traffic was fine and we arrived at 11am, so nipped to Ikea as there were a couple of things we needed and our closest one is over an hour away.  When we arrived at Rachel's both girls were asleep so we waited for them to wake up and then we all went out for lunch.  Afterwards we went for a walk and Scarlett went on her scooter to their local duck pond.  She can scoot really well, although she did fall off a couple of times, but just got back up and on it again.

There were quite a lot of geese at the pond that are quite tame, so Scarlett was able to sit and feed them the oats we'd taken.  I remember when I was a kid, we always took bread, but now they say bread is bad for them - they didn't seem to enjoy the oats the same though!

There was a family with 8 goslings which were very cute.  I managed to get a close up and was tempted to blip it, but our day was about the girls, so I chose this one of Scarlett chasing these two ducks who managed to escape into the water!   I've put some other pics of our day in my extras, including a rat that we saw at the pond!  Its funny isn't it how we say 'Ewww' at rats, but I think it's because the fact that they're associated with sewers and being dirty.  These rats looked quite clean though - they just have the same 'Awww' appeal as squirrels, but Alan commented that they're really not much different.

We had a nice night with Norma & Barry but we're away early in the morning as we're going to pick mum up and take her back to Brighton with us.  She was supposed to be coming on Tuesday, but with the threats of more train strikes this coming week, she cancelled her ticket seeing as we could take her.  The strike has since been called off for another week, but it makes the journey easier for her and she gets a few extra days at the seaside.  The downside is that our journey will be a couple of hours longer and it's forecast to be a hot sunny day, so we'll have to leave early, in the hope of getting home in time to enjoy some of the sun!

Anyway, it's been a whirlwind visit, but it's been great to see everyone and Violet is doing really well, she's gaining weight and is a little chunk :-)