Apples amaze

Adrian came over from Glasgow again today. Sharon was doing her Great North Run training (4 weeks to go!) with Hannah and managed the full 13.1 miles today. The last few km were tough going but she managed it. Not content with that she spent the afternoon getting a one-to-one Thai cookery lesson over in Liberton. Adrian and I certainly enjoyed the fruits of her labour at dinner in the evening!

Ad and I took the boys down to Peebles, but as they all fell asleep in the car (yesterday's secret beach outing catching up with them) I drove on to Traquair House. You wouldn't believe the time that could be spent playing in a walled garden, mainly lobbing windfall apples into the pond. Angus just loves splashing with water at the moment. He regularly drags a kitchen chair across to the sink and starts filling it so he can "wash" things. Generally he ends up with a very wet front.

Next stop was the maze behind Traquair House. It's a good size and far from straightforward. The challenge was keeping tabs on Rowan who kept running off. It's fair to say a methodical approach to finding a route was not high on his list of priorities. We eventually made it to the centre and out again. The playground occupied the bigger lads for a while but Angus didn't get past the "chickens". He was fascinated by the hens and the goat and the pigs.

We returned to the walled garden for more play with the fountain where Finn had the bright idea of putting a smallish apple on the end of a stick and trying to stick it in the water spout. Lo and behold we managed to support the apple on a column of water, much to everyone's delight. It was still there when we left. It can be cool, defying gravity.