A Boy and his wolf

The Boy Wonder has been an absolute star all day.

This morning he said that he wanted to come with R and me on a walk around the nature reserve, where we made a full circuit of Flagham Fen, and took several detours down to Somerford Lagoon and into the beaver enclosure. You can only do the latter at particular points, where there's either a double gate set into concrete to prevent the beavers digging their way out, or a huge X-shaped stile to take you up and over the electrified fence, and needless to say, the Boy wanted to try both. We explained the electric fence to him, pointed out the warning signs that hang on it at intervals, and guided him very carefully up and down the steps of the stile to make sure his hands strayed nowhere near the electrified wire. 

All went well, and we were just passing the last section of the enclosure on our way back to the village, when he suddenly said to me, "Remember, Grandma, not to go near that fence, because it's electric, and if you touch it you will get a shock. Do you remember that? See - there's a yellow sign there about it. It says, Danger: Electric Fence, and can you see that triangle in the middle? It has a picture of thunder in it to warn you about the electricity." I thanked him gravely for the reminder, and shared a smile with R once he'd skipped on down the path.

By the time we got back to the holiday house we'd probably walked a couple of miles, and we did at least the same again in the afternoon, when we went to the Cotswold Wildlife Park at Burford. It was a warm day, and I fully expected the Boy to flag during our meandering circuit of the park, but he kept going right to the end of the visit, queued uncomplainingly for quite a long time for a ten-minute trip on the narrow-gauge railway, and even found the energy for some really sweet big brothering towards B minor. 

I took this photo in the viewing gallery above the wolf enclosure, when the Boy was checking the screen of his camera to see if he'd managed to get a photo of one of the wolves - which he had, to his pride and delight. A few minutes later, as we were walking back into the main park, he realised that his camera battery was dying, and the only complaint I heard from him all day was when he thought he was about to lose this precious photo. Which of us hasn't been there? Luckily, L was able to reassure him that there's a memory card in the camera, so even if the loss of power wipes its internal memory, the photo should still be saved on the card. Once that question was resolved, B went straight back to being his best, bounciest and most amusing self.