My Boy

You can tell he’s my boy from the tongue out for concentration. He’s thoroughly enjoyed his birthday. Begun watching our church’s livestream because church has a rule that we only sing happy birthday in a service if it’s an age ending in a 0 and it falls on a Sunday. So Zion worked out his tenth birthday would qualify several years ago - and was annoyed when we said we’d be on holiday. But he then made a deal with our boss - Donald - that it was ok if in the livestream they sang happy birthday to him with Donald’s mic switched on (he’s not the most tuneful person in our church… so we don’t often hear him singing). He was delighted!

Then he opened presents - a chemistry set, and a book about the medicinal properties of plants and another about which plants you can forage in which months in the UK were highlights.

Then we headed to Alnwick Castle which was better than any of us had expected. We learnt all about medieval coins and the kids got to mint their own. They also got to wield very dangerous looking swords, axes and daggers (called a bollock dagger (!!)), and learnt all about pomanders - including the value of whale sick! (That was all before we even got to the castle!) Inside there was lots more fun including a dragon quest with a mirror maze, and making our own soap from a choice of botanicals which they’d told us the benefits of.

We then moved on to Barter Books where all the kids found a book to spend their pocket money on - which were entertainingly representative of their personalities and interests. The birthday boy bought a book printed in 1903 called “Sketches of Engine and Machine Details” - full of technical drawings and explanations and instructions of how to draw your own - he’s still delighted with it having started reading it - each to their own!

The day ended with a curry cooked by his dad - so two curries one for each of his birthday celebrations over the past few days!