All the fun of the fair!

It's the Monday and Tuesday after the first Friday of October, and by 400 year old tradition, that means it's time for the Ock Fair, one of the longest street fairs in Europe and all on our doorstep. Well - not on our doorstep these days, but on our doorstep and in our front garden when we lived on Ock Street, these days a rather more peaceful distance from our door but still very much here. Traditionally a hiring fair, these days it's your more average rides and games and candyfloss affair. We missed it last year, Mog was in hospital, Little Fish was with Grandparents, and I was tired.

So this year, never mind the rain, never mind the rapidly disintegrating plaster casts Little Fish needs to wear until her AFOs are ready (note to self: call orthotics and ensure appointment has been made), we had to go and have some fun.

Mog came home from school shouting and shouting and didn't stop until she had her warm jumper and a blanket and was loaded in the bus and ready to go. Little Fish wasn't sure what we were talking about, but decided it might be fun and would definitely be good to see Grannie.

We walked through most of the fair and then found a "hook a whale" stall. Take one pole.
Jiggle the end whilst your mother tries hard to thread it over a hook in the back of a plastic whale.
Caught one! Turn the whale over, ask the kind lady behind the stand what we've won, and wow wow wowweeeee - it's Upsy Daisy!
One very very wet happy little girl.

Next stop a hook the duck stand for Mog, where she was rather less impressed with her Dora the Explorer. Oh well.

We walked back through the fair
to the Market Square, where we had to have a go on the merrygoround.
Don't ask me why Little Fish's tongue is hanging out; I think she liked the breeze. It was certainly more of a hit than her earlier attempt at a little children's roundabout. She wanted to ride the train. Until it took off. And then she made it very obvious to all of us that she really really did not want to ride the train at all. And so the fairground lady stopped the roundabout and we hauled her off, where she sobbed for the next five minutes. However. This ride, she liked!

And then she got very tired, and wouldn't queue for candyfloss, and wasn't interested in the flashy light stick things with butterflies on, and didn't want to do anything except hold my hand tightly and cry. So we went back to the van, loaded up, and came home. At which point she decided that the fair was the best thing ever, she was adamant that she had had a wonderful time, that riding the train was really good fun, and that she wanted to go and do it all over again.

Sometimes I really wonder about her.

Mog meanwhile managed very well and didn't start her evening crying until she was in bed and already dosed up. And before she got into the full yells, her feed pump finished, and indicated its empty state by setting up its irritating intermittent beep. And as it beeped, Mog stopped crying. And so I left it to beep, and she stayed not crying. And after five fifteen minutes I went to turn it off before the neighbours came to shoot us, and she was fast asleep. Hurrah for feed pump beeps and fairs. The former I can arrange for every night, the latter might take a little more doing!

Tia