So this week’s Thursday Thirteen comes to you on Friday, becasue yesterday I was busy taking 4 children aged between 8 and 15 out for the day. More below.

1. I have one son, 2 nephews and 2 neices and over the years I have taken various combinations of them all out for days. The elder of my nephews is the same age as my son so he was the main travel companion in the early days but lately I have taken the younger ones out more frequently. Yesterday the party comprised: Matt 15, Abi 13, James 11 and Laura 8.
2. When deciding where to take them I was influenced by reading Aginoth’s blog after the weekend. We have loved visiting various castles over the years and the weather forecast told me that the weather would be better slightly to the northwest than to the south. So we headed up the M1 to Kenilworth.
3. My brother didn’t arrive with the children till after 11am, so we arrived at the castle with everyone feeling extremely hungry. Luckily I had packed an ample picnic and there was plenty of room to spread out. Luckily also the sun came out and was pretty warm.
4. After the picnic we wandered around the medieval village which was being re-enacted within the castle grounds. We saw water being heated up over coals to make a cup of tea, a minstrel playing and a lady making shoes from leather amongst other things. The children were suitably impressed with the whole thing, though Laura (8) was most impressed by the sheep and lambs in a small enclosure!
5. Next to the castle, much of which is ruined so there was lots of climbing up stairs and through small doorways. We sat for a while at the top of one tower area. I was admiring the view but James soon made friends and was busy having a sword fight before rolling down a most massive hill before I could stop him.
6. Time for a drink at the castle cafe then a decision to drive the few miles to the home of Sheakspeare, somewhere I hadn’t visited before and thought it might be nice to go to for a couple of hours before hometime.
7. In Stratford on Avon, we manage to part reasonably easily and take a stroll towards the stratford canal. The children saw a lady selling icecreams out of a canal barge and made a beeline. Who can blame them, I guess they have an inbuilt device to find icecream. Incidentally it was very nice.
8. Next we walked along the river bank and spotted people having boat rides, some were rowing and some were driving slowly along in little power boats. I said that I would happily go in a boat but wasn’t in the mood for the rowing thing. So we hired a power boat for £10 for half an hour.
9. All the children had the chance to drive after I had got us going. Matt declined, he is getting just too cool these days! Abi went first and soon got in her stride, though she was a little nervous. James was confident and rightly so, he did really well and drove a second time at the end to bring us into the dock. Laura kept over steering so we tended to go from one side of the river to the other. We had a near miss with another boat under a bridge but no damage was done!
10. We left Stratford just before 6pm and headed home. Luckily the traffic was good and the weather clear and sunny making for a pleasant journey home. They snacked on some of the picnic remains, so my car is now covered in crumbs!
11. We stopped off at KFC and Macdonalds (I know I am too soft, and should have made them all have the same) on the way home. James and Laura’s mum was waiting to take them all home (Abi is staying with my mum this week). So by 9pm peace was restored.
12. Just time to clear up the picnic remains and sit down with a nice coffee and watch big brother. Looks like the house mates are now fighting nicely!
13. Pictures of the day:

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!