We began the day by following the Roman wall from where we parked, along the river and back up into town. The children were willing to listen and learn from all the plaques along route and I think they discovered quite a lot from them. The route led us through the Roman gardens, where there was a 'little ampitheatre' where they used to have coq fighting, and also here were the roman baths and a model (pretty authentic) of a hypercourse system, which J2 was fascinated by and the others thought climbing on was fun!
Next stop was the ampitheatre itself and all the children were amazed by it. There really is not too much to see, but I had warned them of that fact, but they were stunned to think they were standing were gladiators had fought and died (and just had to have a go at being gladiators themselves of course!!) around 2000 years ago!! Jake just kept wishing they had revealed more and I can remember feeling the same myself as a kid when I went to places like this, but he was able to understand the fragility of the remains and therefore the need not to expose it unduly.
After a quick stop into Game to buy rechargable battery packs for the Wii controlers, we headed back to the car and drove over to Pizza Hut for lunch. If you're going to have a day out with lots of kids this is always a good bet as they eat stacks, behave nicely (because they are too busy eating) and it actually is not that much more than MD's for much better food. My boys sat with plates full of salad and I haven't seen E eat so much in ages!! P had a mountain of ice-cream which she nearly finished, but not quite! They were all so pleased to have lunch there :)
And almost lastly, across to the road to the infamous Toys 'R' Us. I have never taken 7 children all at once into a toy shop before, but I was thrilled at how well they behaved! We didn't lose any of them and they were all very controlled and carefull with their choices. Sadly P and I were not so well behaved or self controlled! N & C had £48 left from Christmas money sent to them & A had some left over birthday money from last year in the bank. However, the others, because most of their money had gone toward the Wii, only had £15, so we had said we were only going to spend £15 on each of them today... BUT of course we didn't!! I think we spent almost all of C's money in the end, but he was pleased with what we got. Sadly the pram that A bought herself and the RC car that Caleb chose are both faulty and need to be changed/refunded :( Ho-humm!! P will probably do that on Saturday - alone!
Last stop was Sports Direct where P spent his last bit of money on another new shirt. To give him his due, his work have started requiring formal dress recently, meaning he needs more shirts. J1 & J2 both needed new trainers, so those were duely purchased and well, it was 5.30pm and the day was done!!
P dropped me at music practice and came on home to un-package all the new things, and then get the kids calm enough to go to bed!! Thankfully it was a sandwich tea :)
And here are the BIG pics of our day, or you can watch my mini-slideshows! ...
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