Thomas and the Barn Owl

Despite not falling asleep will gone 10, James had Thomas awake at 5.20 am. They played quietly till 7 thankfully.

After breakfast we headed off the Kielder. The boys are happy in the car which is good as it was about 1.5 hours till we got to the car park. James was desperate to get to the play park so we did that before it rained. We had a picnic in the car then when it cleared up a bit we walked up to the Birds of Prey Centre. The boys were excited to see all the various birds and Thomas found a falcon feather. We were told to go back at 1.30 which was the time the birds flew so James went to the park while Thomas and I had a wander by the reservoir collecting more feathers.

We were back at 1.30 but the birds couldn’t fly as by then it was pouring. Thomas asked the woman about his feathers and she said she’d see what she could find. He was so happy he got one of Milly’s, the white-tailed eagle. We were advised to come back at 3pm in case they were able to do a flight then.

We went to Kielder village to investigate the maze but it was shut due to Covid. However we had an accidental meeting with #1 daughter’s oldest school friend who we’d not seen since the funeral 13 years ago. It was quite an emotional meeting. We caught up on news - she lives in Hexham now with 3 children though she and my daughter both lived in Suffolk as teenagers. She said she had been thinking a lot about Vicky with her 50th birthday coming up soon. We thought our meeting had been meant for that reason.

We had to rush off as we didn’t want to disappoint the boys by missing the chance of the bird flights. This time we were lucky and they saw Milly the white-tailed eagle fly.
Then they got the chance of having the barn owl land on their arm. They loved that though Thomas said watching them fly was the best bit. The owner said there’s no law to stop irresponsible people buying such birds and when they discover the work required they no longer want them so he buys them.

We had a great day but I do hope they sleep earlier tonight!