This Wednesday was not in a WedEd week, but we had a fencing session booked for all the children (and were sad that K isn’t back yet as he’d have loved it too). They recapped what had been covered last time (a chance for those not there then to pick it up for the first time), then practised footwork and (foam, fortunately) sabre (including a full-on battle between Anglo-Saxons and Vikings!) before moving on to foil and learning how to referee and then taking it in turns to fight or preside. They formed two lines, each facing an opponent, and fought one point, then moved on to the next opponent along, keeping a tally of their score so far. L, H and J were among the highest scorers – J and H mostly because of extra reach and L because her small size and dexterity meant she could nip in and score a point under her opponent’s guard.
It was lovely to see Jax’s Small there too, and even better to go to the park afterwards with Jax, Small, SOA and Tigerboy and have a chance to chat properly for the first time in ages. Gina joined us there, with all three of hers, which made J and L as happy as expected but also had the surprise effect of giving H one of his best days yet in England, as he and S hit it off incredibly well and he spent much of the afternoon flinging S off the start point of the zip slide, to much hilarity. Soon other small children wanted to join in and H had a good workout swinging them all. We mums tried not to hold our breath too much as we watched small children hurtling down the zip wire, swinging wildly at the end and zooming back breathless and laughing! He was very good at judging how much speed each child could really cope with, no matter what they said, but there was still the occasional heart-in-mouth moment – and the occasional round of applause as he noticed a toddler crossing the path of the zip wire and skidded to a halt still holding the child he had been about to launch…
It wasn’t quite paddling weather, but some of the smaller contingent still did 🙂 L and E also wandered across to see what was on offer in the council-run activities roadshow and came back with smoothie that they had blended themselves using bicycle power 😀 Sadly the climbing wall had too long a queue so will have to be something we save for another time.
