The Tick-List

Just as we were starting our staycation, we asked the boys to take one of my teaching whiteboards and write a list of things they'd like to do.

While Ben and I were still drinking our breakfast coffee, this list (inconveniently written in yellow) appeared, suspended over the table. It's rather hard to read, so here is a list of what the boys wrote, with their ticks and explanations as necessary. INTRODUCE DAD TO SPORE, tick! (Spore is their favourite computer game at the moment.)

African Safari, tick

DAD 2 SPORE, tick!

cité de l'éspace

DAD 2 SPORE, tick!

Tour round Toulouse, tick!

DAD 2 SPORE, tick

GO ON A BIKE RIDE, tick!DAD 2 SPORE, tick

Go to the river, tick

DAD 2 SPORE, tick

PING-Pong tournament, tick

DAD 2 SPORE, tick

Swimming together

DAD 2 SPORE, tick

GO TO MUSEUM, tick

DAD 2 SPORE, tick

Watch a film together, tick (we bought the DVD of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader)

DAD 2 SPORE, tick

GO TO THE CINEMA

DAD 2 SPORE, tick

PLAY KUBB

DAD 2 SPORE, tick

PLAY CREATIONARY

DAD 2 SPORE, tick

play BANG, tick

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You can see that we managed most things, either on our own, with Son 2's friend, or with our best friends from university, who arrived on Wednesday with their sons and left yesterday morning, by train, for Barcelona. Other, unplanned and unplannable things, were equally lovely, like old friends from Harrogate spotting us in the road as they drove back to their campsite, or the double rainbow which arrived on Saturday evening after a torrential thunder downpour...