Chocolate, Dinosaurs and Knights
Another weekend day with Lynsey at work left the little man and I a day to go out and have some fun. What to do, what to do? Having had the battle to get dressed and clean teeth, the battle involving running around the house while James played 'chase' and I tried to work out whether rugby tackling a toddler is acceptable, we sat down to decide what to do. James' idea was to sit and watch the TV all day followed by a negotiation over whether we could go out later. Into the buggy and off we went, we would do it on the fly. After a bus ride into town it was off to the York Chocolate Experience. £8 for me, a third off for York residents on a Sunday, and James free as he is under four meant a cheap experience and what an experience it was. We arrived in time for the first tour at 10am and the group was only seven strong. This resulted in a lot of chocolate. James was in his element taking his 'samples' when I was not looking resulting in yet more games of chase and this time wrestling to get the chocolate off him. Luckily he is good and there were no tears when he could not have his millionth quality street. The highlight was making your own chocolate lolly, or two in James' case. A great hour spent, definitely worth it for the chocolates and the lolly.
After this, it was off to the museum gardens to burn off some of the chocolate that had just been eaten.
After a run around in the museum gardens it was off to the Museum itself. Being a YMT card holder, £11 per year for York residents, it allows access to the museum for free. They currently have a dinosaur display on. There are some good fossils and a few clever interactive displays but for a toddler full of chocolate there was not a lot there for him. Surprisingly, he found the medieval display interesting, primarily because there were lots of skeletons. James was amazed by them and kept pointing at bones and trying to match them back to his own body with about 50% success. Coming out of the museum, we had another hour or so running around. This time it was finding sticks so that he could build his own skeleton.
After making his 'skeleton', which was more like a bonfire waiting to be lit than a body, it was off for a sausage roll and gingerbread man for James and sandwich for me. Once the gingerbread man had had every limb amputated and been decapitated, ironically looking better than I had after staggering out of the Chocolate Experience with a chocolate powered toddler in tow, James announced it was home time. Too weak and feeble to argue, onto the bus we hopped, home in time to see mum get in from work.