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Up to Knebworth this morning, mainly to go to the adventure playground but it also gave me a chance to check out at least some of the half marathon course and it does look like it will be pretty hilly! But we managed to forget about that as we played in the fort and then investigated the wider playground that we’d never properly noticed before, but which was good value. The best bit was a seesaw that whenever it got used shot water out of two adjacent poles and showered anyone nearby. You just had to find this out for yourself - there was no instructions or mention of it anywhere. You just sat on the seesaw and rain followed. It might be better if it rained on the seesawers rather than the people nearer the seesawers, but I guess then people stop seesawing so they probably knew what they were doing when they put this together.
My boy wanted to go in one of the swings with the enclosed cage seats. I worried that this would be another shopping trolley experience where he suddenly discovered he was too big, but he just about got in for now. His sister then wanted to join in, but alas she is definitely much too tall now. She took the death of her toddlership well. And she’s a whizz on the monkey bars now and she was useless on those when she was one, so I guess with a playground that it’s swings and roundabouts.
There was also a pipe system where you could talk into a horn and someone twenty metres away could hear (even if you whispered). My son spoke into one and then ran to the other to hear what he’d said. He is, in many ways, a fucking idiot.
The sky potato doesn’t float too far away from the tree.
It’s great to be going out again and hanging out with this maniacs. They make me laugh endlessly, many times when I am supposed to look serious and tell them off.
Then bedtime puppet shows continue and Ernie really wants to see Ally before he goes to sleep (which I think would be most people’s worst nightmare). I am terrified that this somewhat boisterous kid will damage this 129 year old dummy (as if I can talk), but it’s satisfying that the fifth generation of Herring kids are enamoured by this Matt Hancock haired monstrosity.
Once the kids were asleep, two weary parents managed to watch the first episode of Succession (yes, that’s how far behind the zeitgeist we are) which is shaping up nicely (I think it could do quite well) and then I watched a bit of football, but was too knackered to get into the whole extra time business. Saturday nights are not what they used to be. They used to be me sitting in a flat on my own playing Civ II, so this is a vast improvement.
