All the fun of the fair

On Tuesday The Artist and his family popped up to spend the day; wow did we manage to catch the weather or what? Monday - Rain; Wednesday - Rain; Tuesday - Sun. So we went down to the riverside for a picnic. Myself and my parents, them with Devil Child and Chewie.


They enjoyed the main playground area with the 'obstacle' course and with three sets of four swings there wasn't a problem with them on those despite the numbers of people around.

Then we headed away from that area and had something to eat; then headed over to the fairground. A lot more people on this side and plenty just sitting around the paddling pool on the grass. Unsurprisingly no-one sitting on the concrete slabs that used to house tables and benches; because hey not as if anyone wants to sit down or anything is it; sigh.

Through to the fairground and DC knew exactly what she wanted to do as they'd stopped by this morning and her parents still had tokens to pay for the rides.

She went on the Dragon ride roller-coaster with her father; then dragged me up the steps of the smaller helter-skelter to hold her hand as she slid down and I walked back down. Then did it again on the big slide. Chewie liked the little moving rides, but not when they were moving; so that saved some change.

I thought she wanted to go on the bigger helter-skelter, but  her mother wasn't happy with her doing that. Seemed there was no-one else either as the operator seemed bored out of her skull.

Then I was dragged to the dodgems. Nothing of the ride itself to say how much it was; it was all on the ticket booths. Someone said it was 5 tokens per person. So I went and picked up 10 tokens. Annoying as some grandparent was buying some for his grandkids and was trying to calculate how much it would be for both to be able to ride on all the rides. The operator said "wristband" just as I said "wristband" and he turned to me and I just shrugged and said "for what you want you want a wristband". Okay so sure people aren't sure, but in this instance I didn't want to miss the dodgems which was acquiring people.

Turned out to be 5 tokens per car; tcch. The nearest one was purple which was nice, but the operator guided us towards a different one. "Can't we have the purple?" I asked. "I'm having problems with it" he replied.

So we scrambled over the other cars to get in, Devil Child following me rather than getting in the right side. She wanted to drive, but couldn't reach the pedal so scooted over. I got in and checked I could fit knees around the steering wheel. Then looked around and saw others with seatbelts. "seatbelts" I said as the operator powered us up and we jerked forward. Nice. So we scrabbled for our seatbelts and got them on. Before joining the fun.

Ow! So Devil Child was being thrown around in the car and everytime it bumped my side the unpadded metal kept digging in under my ribs. Not saying it hurt but I couldn't get any sleep that night due to not being able to turn over. The pain's died down now though; but I'm not going on those again.

Anyway we had fun on them though some decided to drive the wrong way despite the signs and the operator just looked disappointed at them. Awesome levels of responsibility there.

With tokens left over DC said she wanted to go on the ferris wheel with me. Okay I don't like heights, not a fan particularly of the looking-down bit, but hey I try to please. So up we went. and then stopped near the top and rocked back and forth as someone else got on. DC was happily pointing at things I was more concerned my mobile was going to fall out my side jacket pocket. In this case it wasn't so much the height that bothered me it was the movement up and down and DC pointing at things down below. I fixed my eyes on the horizon and once again thought "Why do they have it facing the town and not the river?"

Add in the pain in my side and I was thankful to get off.

With some tokens left Chewie and my mum went on the teacup ride while DC and her mum went on the waltzer. Then DC on the ferris wheel again with her father who looked so thrilled while going round. Even DC looked bored after the second circuit.

Then home again, home again. Where DC wanted to play tag in the slippery grassed garden. So much fun.