Messing About in the River

Today mostly involved the River Wye.
Paddling in it; skimming stones on it; swimming in it; watching otters, geese, herons, kingfishers, egrets, and swans on it; rowing the dinghy on it; and watching a blue dot on it on the phone trying to ignore the rising panic that I was never going to see Miss E again. And given our recent traumas involving water it wasn't beyond the realms of possibility!!!
After lazy morning we decided to go into Hay on Wye for lunch. Having had fun in the dinghy this morning Miss E and Mr L thought it would be fun to row to Hay rather than go in the boring car. Mr M (Uncle M to Miss E) is always up for a challenge so he agreed to take them.
The river by the campsite is pretty shallow, and by road Hay is only a couple of miles away so we thought it should be safe enough and shouldn't take them too long.
OMFG.
Before they set off I added Mr M to Find my Friends and then, waving them off, we jumped into the car. 
Hurrying in case they got there before we'd got there and parked.
We needn't have worried.
Watching the blue little dot on my phone I felt sick with dread and worry. How could we have been so stupid to just let them set off in a rubber dinghy with no life jackets, no food and water, no warm clothes, no spare clothes, and no idea what the river's like between Digeddi and Hay???!!!!!!
We drove over the bridge in Hay and I was horrified that the river looked like the bloody Amazon. So wide and so deep and how could we have been so stupid????????????
By the time we got to the carpark the dot hadn't moved for ten minutes and I was practically hyperventilating with anxiety, convinced that there'd been some dreadful disaster and obviously Mr M would go after Mr L before Miss E when they both went overboard into the rapids....... Hideous!!
Mrs C, Mr K, Miss L, Mr R and Mr C and I walked to the jetty bit where all the canoes seemed to come ashore. We'd been watching people canoe past the campsite all morning. With their life jackets.
Time seemed to stand still as we watched the dot moving - millimetre by millimetre - towards us. 
The river is quite meandering and on the screen the bends looked like hills. I did have to laugh as Mrs C and I refreshed Find my Friends over and over and kept saying they only had to go "up that hill" and "back down that hill" until they would appear in view. Mr K was very sniffy about our lack of spatial awareness!!! Eventually, after about two and half hours, the dinghy finally came into view. I could have cried with relief!!!
I went up onto the bridge and took some photos of the voyagers arriving (bottom left). In my heightened state of anxiety I thought they'd lost their oars and that Mr M was in the water pushing the boat along. Neither of these things were true!!!!!
They'd called up that it had been AWESOME!!!!!!!!
By the time I got back down they were more or less back ashore and full of their adventures. It was EPIC as well as AWESOME!!
Despite the stress of the previous couple of hours I wouldn't have had Miss E miss it for the world!!! 
Mr M was knackered!
We went to the pub for a well earned delicious lunch and luckily had just finished when the heaven's opened. 
Mrs C rushed to the fudge shop with Miss L, Mr L and Mr R; Mr K went to get our car; and Miss E, Mr M, Mr C and I went to the ice cream shop. In the freezing, pouring rain!
I happened to mention to Miss E that Daddy likes to try new things as I was choosing an ice cream flavour for him. Mr M's mind is clearly in the gutter because he thought this was the funniest thing ever and we've spent most of the evening making smutty jokes and comments about Daddy liking new things which were all the funnier because they went right over the kids' heads!
We had such a fun night - a fabulous campfire, toasted marshmallows and astronomy lessons - I said it was Mars, Mr K and Mr M said it was a plane. It was Mars!! (See extras)
A brilliant day!