Pollok Country Park & Tollcross Children's Farm and Park

This bank holiday weekend while Gareth was working, Curtis and Steph made the most of some sunny weather and got out to a couple of nearby parks. Each within 10 minutes drive from our door, we really are spoilt in Glasgow for leafy green spaces, it really lives up to its name 'the dear green place'.... in fact, it has 90 parks and formal gardens, and we just happen to live near 2 of it's best. On Saturday we met with Jamie, his dog Milly and his mum Pat (a.k.a Curtis's Fairy Grandmother) for a sun filled stroll around Pollok Country House gardens. Despite being Glasgow largest country park (and voted Europes best park last year) it never feels over-crowded here. We had such a sunny, chilled out time wandering through the maze, along the paths and tulip beds, findings secret garden areas here and there and sitting down beside a huge wooded slope of bluebells. Curtis had a great time. He walked about for almost 3 hours (usually in the opposite direction to us!), climbed lots of stone steps, peeked over walls, pointed and 'ooohed' at the things he saw, fell into a bed of red tulips whilst trying to touch them, got very excited when he and Milly found a cat sitting in one of the gardens, squeeled with excitement watching a young boy (aged 6-7?) climbing walls and riding his bike but froze with fear when a 14 month old girl walked boldy over to hug him!

Curtis loved having Jamie, Pat and Milly for company and showed them many of his new skills....he spun round in circles and fell over with dizziness a few times, he jumped on mummys back and shouted 'go-go-go' to make her run, he showed Jamie how he 'talks' on the telephone, he even said Milly a few times and gave out a few kisses before we all went home. What a lovely day we had.

On Sunday Steph and Curtis took a trip to a park they hadn't been to before;Tollcross Park and Childrens Farm, and were very impressed. The childrens farm had horses, ponies, goats, sheep, pigs, rabbits, chickens, guinea pigs, rabbits and lots of birds including a pair of peacocks. When Curtis stumbled (almost literally) upon Mrs Peacock taking a nap behind a small wall he seemed to think she was hiding there to play peek-a-boo, so he jumped back and forth from the other side of the wall roaring 'aaahhhhh' every time he appeared before her...luckily she was very chilled out and just let him get on with it. He probably spent as much time spinning in circles over the round drain covers, wobbling the wobbly bin, putting his hands in the hand washer to make the water start and pointing at the grouting in the brickwork as he did looking at the animals - but he thoroughly enjoyed it all. We then ventured out into the park now knowing what was his and found that there were also large paddocks of highland cattle, sheep and goats as well as Glasgows resident baseball team (didnt even know we had one!). We found a good slope to pick daisies and have a game of football then went into the Victorian Winterv Gardens to find they had a great indoor play area for little ones with big connect four, little tikes slides and tunnels as well as a lovely outdoor play park. A great day was ended by Curtis coming home and eating a huge dinner of fishfingers, potatoes, peas, carrots, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, breadsticks (of course!), yoghurt, cranberries, sultanas, along with a few handfuls of cheerios and honey pops! For the boy who tends to focus on 1-2 foods only for a few days at a time this was some feast.

When I finally get around to buying a small compact camera which is less luggage than the SLR and it's bag, I'll be able to add some photos of Curtis from our trips out!