Y3 - 174/365: Good Day Sunshine

Home again today with that blond kid, whom strongly resembles my husband, and I thought we'd continue to make the most of our time, so around half-ten we walked down to the train station and took the train just over to Old Hill and headed for Haden Hill Park.

Looking back, the distance walked to and from each of the train stations was probably the same that it would have been to just walk to the park itself, but Waterfall Lane is really, really steep and I didn't fancy attempting to push the pushchair back up the hill, much less give the effort to control the downward pull either. £1.80 return so it wasn't bad.

Ryan had an absolute blast on the under 5's playground! He enjoyed the swings, of course, but really loved the slide most of all. Now that he has conquered the steps at home, he wants to climb up any he sees and these were no exception.

When I could see he was getting clumsy I knew it was time for us to go because he was long-overdue for a nap and we still needed to make it back home. We took a little jaunt through the rest of the park, exploring the paths and the lower pool with the ducks and geese, and then headed to Old Hill train station.

By this time he was fast asleep and I had to carefully navigate my way up a flight of steps to the train platform. With signs posted that instruct people to "collapse pushchairs" before using the steps, they certainly didn't account for sleeping children...so a little PSA: Old Hill is not push-chair friendly! Bless the woman coming down who saw me struggling and offered her help. "You alright there, Mate, d'ya need a 'and then?" It's nice that with all the stories in the papers about violence and aggro towards people with pushchairs that there are still many who are thoughtful enough to lend a hand. I really appreciated her help.

I had gotten a phone call while at the park from my agency offering me a day's work for tomorrow, so definitely snatched that up without thinking twice...but low and behold, shortly after returning home my phone rang again. This time it was the new agency I have just signed on with offering me a day at a Catholic school in Tipton. Considering this agency pays a bit more for daily work I was completely ready to accept it and turn my other offer down, but because they're still waiting for my security checks to come through, the school couldn't chance it that day because they had meetings that afternoon with the school governors and to have a teacher without cleared background checks wouldn't have looked very good. Still, they said they may have work for next week to offer me, so I'll keep my fingers crossed.

After a brief kip in the early evening, Ryan was awake again just before Matt returned home from work. Perfect timing to start his game of "Read-me-this...now this...and this one again" between the pair of us. Knowing now that I have to be up early in the morning to catch a train and I will be away from darling son, I'm so glad we spent the day in the sunshine the way we did!