Birthdays And Boulders

A week ago (12/11) Alfie turned three.  We had chosen the day before to celebrate his becoming of threenager.  For months this seemed like a good idea.  Alfie likes to climb.  So we'll take him to a climbing wall for his birthday!  Tash found a suitable venue, and then a few days beforehand Ammie and I realised we could do a bouldering intro course there too!  I've wanted to get into climbing for a while, and having a go at the more physical and unroped strand of this sport really appealed to me.

We all met beforehand for at a local pub some food.  And lots of present unwrapping!

Homemade and thoughtful presents always win hands down over lavish expenses in this household and my Dad's present to Alfie beats everything this year - and he got some great stuff too!  My dear boy has something of an obsession with bins.  And somehow my Dad managed to get hold of a small 'green' bin that they have down in Chelmsford and got it all painted up for Alfie.  Not only does it look amazing but Alfie absolutely loves it!

I had spent the morning hurriedly covering our entire kitchen with icing sugar - some call it making cupcakes.  They seemed to go down well with Birthday boy though!

And then the climbing began.  Alfie has always seemed keen to go up 'proper' climbing walls but always seemed to struggle with the footings.  Not so on this day however, and he was straight up the side of the Elephant - yup, the kiddies climbing area even had a scalable 'pa-woo', what could be better for him?!  And whilst he climbed, Ammie and I did similar!

It was a great day and Alfie had SO much fun!  It appears he can learn to climb the proper walls now too ... so I'm it won't be long till his flying up some Welsh rockface or other.  I will definitely be back for more too!

All the photos (taken by Fred and Ammie) can be found here.