Two bridges

I forget sometimes that just as I am tired at the end of the week and in need of a rest, so are the children. Their new way of operating in schools and the restrictions they work within have been tough on them too and teachers have reported a few cases of children struggling psychologically with the impact of covid.

It must be so tough for them to process the events of the past few months, there’s certainly enough of us adults who have at times struggled to keep ourselves on an even keel.

We were reminded of our early lockdown days as we set off on a walk upstream to an area by Dockray Footbridge, where on the opposite side of the river there are two posts which serve as an erstwhile goal in which to try and skim stones.

The river was certainly more swollen than it was earlier in the year, but we stopped for a while and scored a few goals with our skims. The Youngest wandered off and returned with some broken bits of pottery she’d pulled from the river, but proudly told us that she’d left the golf ball where it was.

We meandered back toward Stramongate Bridge where something caught my eye in the water and sure enough it was a large fish (the scale doesn’t really come over in the shot - see extra) covered in white stuff. I thought it was a trout, but wasn’t sure, however, having conferred with trusted fish experts I was advised that it was indeed a trout……with a fungal infection. Bleurgh!

We added it to the list of cool stuff we’d seen on our walk, which included a fat robin, a sandpiper and a dipper.

Nearing the end of our stroll The Youngest scrambled up a tree and proceeded to play it like a drum with the twigs she’d carried around with her the whole way (and also used to play everything else like a drum kit). She looked very cute and was clearly lost in her own little world, which only continued when she got home and we made a spaceship from a box. 

She spent a large part of the day in the box, fleshing it out with pillows and a blanket and looked very comfortable lying there as we watched Strictly.