Sunday was Mother’s Day, and we were meeting my parents for lunch at Dandelion and Burdocks, a lovely little vegan restaurant in Sowerby Bridge. It’s really beautiful in that neck of the woods, so we left sun-kissed Romiley to have an adventure in Yorkshire.
As it turned out, the sun hadn’t stretched quite so far north, and I was slightly under-dressed in my summer dress and cardigan. We all had wellies on, and Ebony had waterproofs to protect her clothes so she didn’t turn up to the meal covered in mud.
We parked up for the restaurant, and then made our way to the canal for a walk. There were lots of ducks and geese on the canal, and Ebony wanted to sit down and watch them for a while. The ducks were very interested in us, and seemed to be trailing us for most of our walk.
The canal path was muddy, and Ebony was running around stomping through puddles, trying to get close to ducks, and hiding for cover from passing dogs. She has developed a real dislike of dogs recently, and no longer wants to say hello to them.
Ebony has developed a slight obsession with mounting blocks, and now wants to climb up whenever we come across one. There was one by the side of the canal, so we were stuck there while she climbed up and ‘jumped’ off a few times (not jumping at all, but being lifted down while saying ‘weeee’).
As we walked further down the canal, and away from civilisation, we noticed an increase in flies. They seemed to be aiming for Laurie’s mouth, and to say he was getting a little annoyed would be a massive understatement, so after 10 minutes of trying to reach the end of the flies, we decided to turn back. The ducks who had been following us, stayed still as we turned back on ourselves, and ended up right next to Ebony. They were fine with her saying, “helloooo”, but fled to the canal when she lurched forwards to stroke them.
When we reached our starting point again, Ebony wanted to investigate the barge parked up on the canal. She ran along next to it, trying to peer in the windows, luckily the curtains were closed (sorry, barge people). At the end of the boat was the lock. It was a huge lock, much bigger than the ones she has seen before, so Laurie took her (because, it turns out, he really likes locks) to see how it worked. As he was explaining the finer points of lockery (not a real word) to her, the Lockmaster invited them into the ‘authorised personnel only’ section. I followed, and immediately regretted it, the drop down into the lock was HUGE, and I felt beyond terrified every time Laurie leant over to point something out to Ebony. What kind of person leans over a perversely high drop carrying a child?!
After that it was time for lunch, so we made our way over to Dandelion & Burdocks for a truly amazing Mother's Day lunch.
Have you been on any great adventures this week? ,
