Oh no, what's happened to my castle

I had a busy morning getting stuff sorted after the Edinburgh trip, then we had to go to Whitley Bay while the box office was open to get panto tickets. Last year I made the mistake of booking by phone and the call centre said was I ok with £5 booking fee. He did not explain that was £5 each ticket, so I had a big bill. This time it is £20 a head for the children and £22 for adults. It's part of my Xmas present - I'd rather get a doing gift than stuff. But I still had to go to a cash machine as they charged 3.5% for even a debit card. No booking fee though.

We picked up Nathaniel. Ella was at a week of drama class, and heir mum needed to get on with preparing for next term. The tide was very high with a wild sea, so we were soon forced off the sand, but not before he had fun building a castle and having it wash away.

Then we picked up Thomas and James from nursery and we all played in the park. They ran and ran, climbed and climbed. James is very competitive and Nathaniel isn't at all. He just doesn't care "you win", or he wanders off and does something else. We bought them fish and chips for tea and they had them in the garden - I was puzzled as to why Nathaniel's seemed almost all eaten so quickly as he is a slow eater - James said he swapped - which seemed to mean he kept taking Nathaniel's and piling eating it, leaving his.portion.

When we got him home Ella was already into bed, and he was asking for dinner.