Rainbow Polar Bear

Today we were discussing eyelashes. Abigail then proceeded to have a rather in depth conversation about them.

Apparently if you pull your front eyelashes you can see things from you imagination. I said that all I could see was the back of my eyelid. I was told, "No Daddy, you  have to use you're imagination!".

On asking her what she could see, she told me that she could see a castle. I asked, "A castle like the one at Arundel, or a castle like a princess has?", She replied, "A pink castle. A pink castle with grey bits, and inside the castle are bears.". So I pulled my eyelid down and said "I can see a bear, a purple bear and a yellow bear". 

"No Daddy, she said, they are rainbow bears. Rainbow polar bears, and it is in the room with us on the bed". So of course I honked it's nose, probably shouldn't have done that! "Don't worry it's a friendly one" she said and there is a mummy one and a baby one that's only this big" she then gestured a bear about the size of a coke can. Of course I couldn't let this go, and said they can't be here because I can't see them. "They are invisible rainbow bears Daddy!" So all I can say is be careful of the invisible rainbow bears, they are our friends, but...........

My life with seagulls

Sammy, Cedric, Samantha, we have names for them all. Each one has their own character and they seem to get more and more bold each day.

They live on the roof, and have a nest in next doors chimney. You can hear the squeaks of their babies emanating from the rooftops. So where do the bread crusts go? My wife loves the gulls and insists on feeding them on the flat roof of the play room. Within 30 seconds of the crust going on the roof we seem to have about 30 gulls thumping around on the roof.

Abigail loves them, she's only four and is the one who has insisted naming them. She gets excited when they come into the garden.

So, a daily belly full of food and what do we get in return?

Well these seagulls are very giving. So what do they give me:

• The endless entertainment when then play in the air in the high winds, yes it's fun to watch.
• They wake me up each morning at about five 
• They are also really generous with their poo. They put it every where. On my shed roof, but most of all they like to coat my car in it.

But, they are such characters, and the spring and summer wouldn't be the same without them. I hope they come back every year. 

Diagon Alley

Wow! couldn't believe it! I thought the great hall was good, but Diagon Alley was pretty stunning.

Not normally the kind of person to get excited about films and only really going along to the Warner Bros. studio tour for the kids, there was something kind of Magical about walking down Diagon Alley.

Not because of "Harry Potter walked down here", but more of the scale of the whole thing. The shops looked real and it was like a walking back in time, except all the other people with their walk about electronic tour guides strapped to their ears.

The kids were mesmerised. The four that I went with didn't leave their cameras alone. Kara took more photos than me, and pretty much spent the day snapping away. It was probably the most enthusiastic I have seen her about anything apart from her Bunny!

She spent the day walking around with her friend Evie (the Harry Potter enthusiast complete with robes) clutching her Magic wand that Grandad had made for her. Every so often she would nearly take someone's eye out with it whilst taking a photo and thrusting the wand above her head.

In Diagon Alley they spent the time looking in the shop windows taking photos and then taking more photos, from the Weasley's joke shop to the wand shop, even the owls cages were hanging up outside the store.

What I found great was the attention to detail and the craftsmanship that went into the entire set. Even down to the dust in the street that was put in the correct place, something that we probably wouldn't see on screen. 

It was such a magical place, but it was such a shame that I wasn't standing there with the other members of the cast in the hustle and bustle of the filming. We had a great day and it was well worth the time and energy spent going there.

http://www.wbstudiotour.co.uk/