Bowling crew

Fridays are always the most hectic days here. The mornings start out well enough - get Grace to school, Ophelia to preschool and then trundle up to baby and toddler group with Arwen. I like to take a half hour walk between school drop off and first activity but today was rubbish weather so I ended up pushing the buggy as fast as I could for thirty minutes or so around the different housing estates instead of heading up into the hills. At lunchtime it's time to pick up Ophi and we then had a quiet couple of hours as Arwen slept all afternoon. Ophi had a little play on the laptop. She's recently become adept at managing the touch pad mouse and is remarkably coordinated.
Then the real fun begins: the after school trip into town for Grace's swimming lesson. Somehow, despite arriving in town almost an hour early, Grace still was late for her lesson. We had a whizz round Waitrose beforehand, still had ten minutes to spare, then of course Grace needed the toilet half way through getting changed. Such a palava ensued. It got a bit messy.
Anyhooooo after the lesson we met with our friends at the bowling alley which is on the same complex as the pool. Two adults and six kids aged five and under trying to eat tea and take turns bowling at seven pm on a Friday evening. Hmm. It had seemed like such a lovely idea when we'd planned it!!!! Actually it was lots of fun. Pure and utter chaos, admittedly. But fun. In between repeated trips with them to the loo, rescuing fingers from being squished by the returning bowls, rescuing toes from being squished as eager three year olds tried to pick up the bowls themselves, solving squabbles when the two year old wanted to take another turn, holding the baby under one arm and carrying a bowl under the other (and remembering to bowl the right one)...and generally keeping an eye on all of them from straying - yes, in between all that they somehow got nine rounds of bowling in each. The kids were actually very well behaved. There were no major tears or tantrums despite the late hour after a busy week. This photo was taken at the end of the 'match'. We were the last lane to finish bowling at almost 8pm.
Needless to say they were soon off to sleep when we got home. All except Arwen who is up all hours again at the moment (which is the reason why I'm publishing this entry at just after 3am...). Ahhhh...
67/365 completed!