Egyptian Day + Star of the Week for Holly

Earlier this week Holly had her Egyptian themed day at school with a little trip out to visit a local mosque as well. All term they have been learning about ancient Egypt and she had being telling us lots of useful facts about how they pulled the brains of the dead out through their noses etc. Anyway for Egyptian day she went to school dressed as Cleopatra and looked so grown up it is scary. Ideally she wanted her hair died black but the spray we bought was useless and just gave her hair a tinge of brown.

Cleopatra ready for Egyptian day at school.

My Egyptian Queen.

Tripping over he dress on the way to school.

Enroute to school and looking around for her Egyptian friends.

I bet ancient Egyptian women weren't this sassy!

And even better than all of that, Holly got Star of the Week for getting all her spellings correct.

Fathers Day 2022

I feel very spoilt after a really nice Fathers day with lots of gifts from the kiddies plus a really nice family meal out at Wagamama (which was the first time their for the kids). Joshua picked a dish which he wasn't too keen on and ended up swapping with Tina's katsu curry. Brandon and Holly ate there's ok and Holly even had a go bash at using chopsticks for her sweetcorn and noodles.

As you can see from the picture below, one of my gifts was tis t-shirt which aptly says "Dad's off duty, go ask Mum". I also got a couple of other t-shirts, one with Superdad and one for Gas Monkey Garage, then some Toblerone, a new hammer and some socks.

Fathers Dat meal at Wagamama's. Holly wanted to wear a dress and put on her Mary Poppins dress.

Holly doing very well eating carrots and sweetcorn with chop sticks.

School Sports Day 2022

Well done to my little Princess for recently winning the long distance running race at her school sports day. She has been suffering with breathing lately and may have signs of being an asthma sufferer like Tina. She pushed so hard at the end of the race and could hardly breath needing to be rushed over to find her Asthma pump and calm her down. All worth it to stand on top with the gold medal around your neck.

Holly wins the long distance running race at the 2022 school sports day.

Day 5 Wales Ty Mawr - Conwy Castle

Last day of our mini half term break to North West Wales and after packing up and leaving the caravan we decided to have a day at Conwy Castle. The castle is absolutely amazing and has been overlooking Conwy for 700 years having been built in 1283 by King Edward 1.

The castle is very well preserved with some 8 towers which can all be climbed to obtain some spectacular view across Conwy and the river Conwy. I am not sure Tina and Holly were too impressed with some of the old stone spiral stair cases.

It was a nice way to spend our last day before grabbing a picnic, an ice-cream and then settling down for the 6 hour drive home. On the drive home we decided to foot the £7.20 fee for the Birmingham toll road which seemed to knock about 45 mins off of our journey time due to the Jubilee weekend traffic (so money well spent). 

Anyway this blog is mostly pictures of the castle itself.

The very well preserved Conwy castle.

7 large towers which can all be climbed.

Holly taking in some of the views.

The wall around the castle is huge and seems to cover the area of a small village!

Despite being right on the river Coney, the castle has plenty of height.

More views of one of the towers.

Me and H at Conwy.

Inside the castle is just as vast as the outside.

A shrine to fallen warriors.

The shrine fills one of the towers covering the height of about 3 stories.

Great views across the castle grounds from one of the towers.

This gives you an idea how high up you are in places of the castle.

So much of the castle to explore.

More of the castle.

Stunning view over the river Conwy.

Such an impressive castle from and architectural standpoint.

Archway over the main hall.

Looking down in to the main hall.

Out the front you can see the road and rail crossing to get across the Conwy.

Looking in to the depths of the prison block.

More views over the river.

Selfie time as the kids were all hiding from my camera.

You can see why Holly and Tina were a bit scared standing at the top of the tower.

You need to be sure footed on the dark spiral stair cases.

My lot at the top of the castle.

More views looking down in to the castle.

More views. How small do those people look below?

Josh and Brandon navigating a spiral stair case.

We found loads of birds nesting in the castle voids.

Finally with their feet at ground level again.

View over the river Conwy.

Look carefully and you can see a wire sculpture of King Edward 1.

The drinking well (dead birds floating at the bottom!).

Told you, hiding from the camera all day.

Caught off guard using his phone.

Big Josh exploring the castle.

Well that is it for North West Wales, it has been good, but time to hit the road back to Essex.

Day4 Wales Ty Mawr - Zip World Llechwedd

Day 4 and a fairly early start to head over to our second Zip World activity day at Llechwedd. The drive through to Llechwedd was just incredible with some stunning scenery. I was really interesting to see the change in landscape from the lush green mountains of North West Wales to the grey slate mines of Llechwedd. At this Zip World center we had booked the massive Titan 2 zip wire and the cave trampolines.

Titan 2 was incredible. After getting kitted up in helmet and safety gear you are escorted off to an army style truck which takes you 1200ft up the slate mine. Enroute they stop off at various locations for sightseeing and to tell you some of the history. Some absolutely incredible details facts about the slate mines - for example we learnt they were some 55 levels deep with 150 miles of tunnels and over 15,000 people working in them in there hey day. These Welsh slate mines provide most of the worlds quality slate so it is big business for the region.

Anyway at the top of Titan 2 you descend the zip wire in groups of 4 across the first 600m drop. Then after a short walk you jump on a second zip wire which takes you the remaining 400m back to basecamp. Although this zip wire is not as fast as Velocity (which we didn't do as Holly wasn't old enough), in my opinion it is better because in the seated position you really get to enjoy the scenery and take in the views as you go down. Overall time on the trip was almost 2 hours with the tour of the mines.

After Titan 2 we hit the Bounce cave trampolines which is such a weird experience. They have literally built a 5 story trampoline park inside one of the slate caves with all neon lighting to add to the experience.  There is one part of it where you are literally about 70ft up in the air looking straight through a trampoline at the cave floor below you. Tina got pretty freaked out on the Bounce and had to get off pretty quickly leaving me to chase around with the kids. It is such good fun but also very physical and you certainly don't need more than an hour on this. Despite the caves only being 6 degrees, we all came off absolutely soaked in sweat.

Llechwedd is known for supplying slate all over the world.

The Llechwedd Zip World center.

Some of the old relics from when the mines were active.

They are building a underground cave crazy golf course but it doesn't open until July (gutted).

They have one hole outside the center to try and promote this new attraction.

My clan at the slate caverns.

All geared up and ready to take on Titan 2.

It is all smiles at the moment, but will it be at the top.

Joshua with his goggles on and head cam loaded.

The goggles are definitely needed given the speed and how high up you go.

Through the slate mine we go to find out army truck.

And there it is, our ride to the top of the slate mine.

Me and B on the truck.

Things below quickly start looking very small.

The views as we climb to 1200ft are just stunning.

This lake and cave are sitting almost at the top of the slate mine.

The others didn't want to get off the truck for some site seeing so it was me taking a selfie.

The castle looking building in the distance is apparently a dis-used nuclear power station.

Time to get to the start of Titan 2.

More views at the top of the slate mine.

And more.....

Here we go.

Brandon all hooked up and ready to go.

Fearless Joshua. Me and him needed to have a mini parachute attached due to body weight.

Instead of a parachute, Holly had to have extra ballast added.

And then Tina. So the first 4 were Josh, Brandon, H and Tina leaving me to go on my own afterwards :(.

The nervous wait for the all clear and the barrier to drop.

And they are off, too late to back out now.

Holly certainly showed no fear.

Holly and josh exiting the platform.

That is a long, long way down.

Getting smaller.

And smaller.

Those little specs of colour are my family!

All lined up and ready for the second zip wire.

The gate drops and they are off again.

Joshua's parachute flapping around behind him.

I'll meet you at the bottom. You can see the landing platform here.

From the second zip wire I got an amazing view of some caves.

Then it was time for the Bounce experience.

You definitely need the hard hats in here.

Across the 5 levels you have ladders to go up and slides to come down.

With little tunnels seperating different trampoline rooms.

Tina couldn't handle the see through trampolines and being able to see the cave floor below you.

It is just so weird running across trampolines elevated in a dark cave.

Holly absolutely loved it and was the last man standing.

Holly about to go down one of the dark slides.

It was exhausting chasing her around in here.

You can see why Tina found it a bit hairy.

Joshua taking some chill time and cooling down.

Brandon running across one of the cave trampolines.

Where is she plotting to go next?

This view gives you an idea of the size and the different levels and rooms.

The lighting is constantly changing like mood lighting.

I hate to think what testing that have to do in order to make sure this is safe!

Some of the trampolines are 4 layers thick which gives you some confidence that you won't plummet to your death.

Never seen anything like it though.

If you are afraid of heights, forget this one.

Back at camp in the evening and Joshua hit the jackpot on a machine scooping about 900 tickets.

He must have been standing there for over 5 minutes  whilst tickets poured out of this machine!