the week past.

We had a sneaky beach day on Friday, what with the surprise warm weather. I remembered to take some vinegar and baking powder so we could make a sandcastle volcano - which was fantastic and drew a small crowd.

By Saturday afternoon the good weather was packing it's bags, and clouds in shades of steely grey and cotton wool white appeared. An afternoon was spent collecting in the toys and games that had been scattered about and storing them away, as well as setting a fish trap in the stream to see what we could catch (so far, nothing, but I think we've positioned it poorly.)

Sunday found every one needing something, but no one really knowing what. I knew it needed to be outside, Eb required castles, Mb and Lb a park, and Od a beach. Happily, I remembered the perfect place. Llansteffan beach has all of the requirements, plus a great tea shop for me!

Some kind person had left a car tyre on the beach, which led to much experimentation. Being the only people on the beach meant that we were able to roll it down a flight of stairs, and each have a guess at where the tyre's journey would end. Lots of talk about inertia, speed, force, wind factor, balance....bless the person who left it there.

Od found a mermaids purse which was thrilling, and as it was empty, she took it home to microscope and add to the nature shelf.

Another exciting find was a large, dead fish being eaten by three fighting seagulls - where Eb made the connection between the dinosaurs battling over a kill in Planet Dinosaur. Some one prodded it's head with a stick, and exclaimed over how hard it's skull was, which led to much prodding and poking and theories on how heavy it was.

There are no photos of the beach, because the weather was a little bit wild, and sand and cameras do not go well.

We didn't venture up to the castle in the end as the wind was so strong, I had visions of some one being blown off the edge of the cliff it sits so precariously on. So, we settled for staring at it from the beach. The castle stands on an old neolithic fort, which tied in nicely with a conversation we'd had the day before when the big three attempted a reenactment of stone circle building using the pictures from the British History book we have. It was tough! Even making a six inch high one was a challenge, so the real thing makes the mind boggle.

Monday looked like a little more sunshine - which was unexpected, so I tried out my new leaf rake and spent nearly two hours raking a giant pile of leaves - nearly all sycamores - in which every one (including me) had a running jump in.

There has also been fairy prepping:

Finding out how things work with some good old tinkering:

Some frankly dangerous experiments with levers. Dangerous in that Mb used fishing wire which is nearly invisible when strung up. Made a great cotton reel ski lift though.

Eb, although now tucked up in bed feeling horrible, spent a good while with 15 randomly chosen letters from Bananagrams and managed to make fifty words from them. I was impressed, as he originally planned to find twenty.

Add into it robot building, mask making and horrible histories and a hundred other things that I've forgotten about, and there is the week past.