We had to walk in order to pick them up, which is about 4 miles, but we needed to take Matthew with us.  He enjoyed riding on my bike (although he is a little small for it).  After getting home we put them back in the shed with the plan to go for a bike ride today.

However, when I got the bike out of the shed I found it had a puncture in the front tyre.  After getting quite angry, but still being able to repair it I then attached a bike seat so that Matthew could ride on the back of my bike.

Our little trip nearly started out as a disaster as as soon as I picked my bike off of the wall (with Matthew attached) it fell sideways and I had to struggle to bring the bike back up again from a funny angle.  I’m not certain that the seat is entirely safe as it makes the bike very top heavy and when I slowed down (for the hills) I ended up falling sideways.

Still, it was a plesant bike ride.  We went up to the cannal at the end of a lane near our house.  I didn’ remember, the last time I took that lane, just how hilly it was.  Plus, I am quite out of shape and so I wasn’t able to peddle all the way up in one go.  I just need to get more practice in!

I think it is fantastic.  The garden to our house is a bit of an oddity really.  It was left overgrown for about 10 years and was used as a builders yard for a bit.  We still have a large circular saw in a cast iron base hidden behind a hedge.  I have been working on clearing it up for months, although I’m not making much headway.  However, one good thing about the garden is all the wildlife I see.  We have multiple species of birds, squirrels and I even saw a mouse the other day, but having a fox living nearby is just great.

The fox kept coming into the garden, cramming as much bread as he could into his mouth, and then leaving again.  So I can only assume that there are little foxes about somewhere.  I went upstairs to get a better view and Matthew was awake so I pointed the fox out to him.  He straight away identified it as a fox.  He must have learnt something from us reading him Beatrix Potter books.

This connects something I was thinking about the other day.  We usually put out some bread at night (try getting a 3 year old to eat crusts) and they are always gone by morning.  I just thought we had hungry birds!

Apart from two letters that is.  These letters are W and U.

When I say U he repeats back “me!” and when I say W, which I pronounce as “double-u” that is exactly what he hears and repeats back “double me!”.

How on earth do you get through to a 3 year old that it isn’t double you, but two letter U’s put together?  I’m sure he will work it out eventually!

It only lasts a week, but he isn’t allowed back to nursery for two weeks until the last of the scabs are coming off.  Mandy and I have both had it as children so we won’t catch it again.  Although Mandy might go spare being stuck at home with a sick Matthew for two weeks.

I’m glad he has it now as it is the best time for him really.  If you have this disease as an adult it is called shingles and is very painful apparently.

I’m quite sure he will be fine in a few days, although it does explain why he has been a bit naughty recently.

When Mandy picked him up again before lunchtime he was one of the last children to come out of the room. He had to be led out by the teacher as he was reluctant to go and he was almost in tears as Mandy led him away.  Apparently he wanted to play in the sandpit!

Mandy made a little cake for the people who I work with, which seemed to go down quite well. James (my boss) bought me a 1gig MP3 player, which is cool as I have never had an MP3 playing before. Thanks James!

Mandy and I are going to see Die Hard 4.0 tomorrow night, which is her treat to me. When my parents asked me what I would like the only thing I could think of was more RAM for my computer. The thing is when I originally bought the RAM about 2 years ago it cost me about £200 just for the RAM. The same RAM today cost £50. I think having 2gigs will speed up my computer as sometimes things get a little slow and I have to wait for it to figure out what it is doing from time to time.

Matthew: Daddy….

Me: Yes?

Matthew: Doing! (what are you doing?)

Me: I’m having a shave.

Matthew: Oh… (brief pause) Daddy…

Me: Yes?….

Matthew: Doing!

Me: I’m having a shave.

Matthew: Oh… (brief pause) Daddy…

Me: Yes?….

Matthew: Doing!

Me: (deciding that a different strategy might work) I’m using this shaver to remove all of the hair from my face so that I look smart.

Matthew: Oh… (brief pause) Daddy…

Me: Yes?….

Matthew: Doing!

At this point I had finished so I just said that I was finished and continued to get ready for work. The cute things that kids do!

So accompannied by my parents we went camping over the weekend in a town called Rhyader in Powys.

The trip down on Friday morning was stressful to say the least. Just outside Wrexham I looked behind to see Matthew not looking well at all. I told Mandy to give my mum a ring in the car ahead and tell them to pull over when Matthew was sick everywhere.

Half an hour later we had managed to get everything cleared up again and were able to get on our way. the rest of the trip was thankfully uneventful and we arrived just after noon and managed to set up our tents within an hour without too much stress. The campsite is called Wyeside and is a lovely little site right next to river (the river Wye).

During the afternoon we went for a little walk into the town (not far from the campsite) to get some supplies and stretch out legs from the long drive. One thing we had been trying to sort out all week was our gas stove. We had bought this little 2 hob thing from a shop in Aberystwyth and we had been trying to figure out how to get it working. We just guessed and got a little canister of butane and thought that would be it. However, looking at the end of the hose that came with the hob I knew that we would need a gas regulator. So Mandy went out and got one, only it didn’t fit the caniser we had bought. I went to the campsite owner (I should have asked my dad as he knew) to see if he could help me and he told me what I would need. So during our trip into town we had to buy a bottle of gas for £45! Don’t fall into the same trap that we did. The little canisters that you can hold in one hand are for the little stoves that strap directly ontop of them.

Anyway, after the town we went back to the tents and had a barbeque, after which we went to the play park to tire Matthew out a bit. He didn’t really need tiring out as he was having a great time running about all over the place and getting into everything. There was this slide at the park which was quite tall (over 2 meters) and Matthew was having fun sliding down it. On one occation I was stood at the other end and thought I would crouch down to catch him as he came down the slide. Only I proceeded to bang both my knees on the metal of the slide. Ouch! I was in so much pain for about 20 minutes that I couldn’t even walk. I think I had banged the nerve bundles in both knees as it shouldn’t have hurt like it did. Thankfully the effect only lasted a few hours and I was able to move around again without any pain by the next morning.

The only thing that spoiled the entire weekend was this group of sweaty, foul mouthed, scabby, inconsiderate, idiotic, loud and generally crappy people who where camped just over the road from our tents. They were continuously noisy and we went to bed while they were in the throws of, yet another, party of some sort. So I listened to them shout at each other until 2:00 AM when I was so exhausted that I just fell asleep anyway. At 6:00 I was woken up by them starting the day. Why is it that stupid people are always the ones who need the least amount of sleep? They pulled the same crap on Satuday night, by which time people where telling them to shutup.

On Saturday we went for a walk along the river where Matthew and I had a couple of hours of fun skimming stones!

We were lucky with the weather for 2 days and even got sunburnt a litte on the Saturday, but when we woke upon Sunday it was raining. We had originally decicded to book until Sunday and then see what the weather was like before going for that day as well. However, with the rain we decided to call it a day and head home. What with all of the noise during the night over the weekend we were all very tired and so just really didn’t have the energy to be wet. It had been very cold at night and with the rain it was just going to make things miserable as well.

The thing is while we where packing up the tents we noticed that the smeg-heads from the other side of the road (which was only about 10 meters) were going home as well. Mandy is of the opinion that they where evicted, but I’m not so sure.

Anyway, our first camping trip went very well overall. All I need now is to remember my penknife and everything should be fine! We hope to go camping again in the summer so if you could suggest a good location then let me know!

Matthew seemed to like it as once he had finished his little bowl of pasta he gave it to me and said “pasta more”. So I put some of my pasta into his bowl and he resumed eating. Mandy was on the phone to her mum at the point (and had been for most of dinner) so when he asked for even more pasta I brought Mandy’s bowl nearer and gave him some of that. This went on until he had eaten all of Mandy’s food. Mandy, by the way, wasn’t hungry so she didn’t get any more food, but she had eaten roughly half of her pasta before Matthew got hold of it.

Afterwards we had rice pudding and he did exactly the same thing here. Once he had finished his bowl he gave it to me and said “MORE”. He is going to eat me out of house and home.