Elvis and Us

"Did you know that Mamma liked Elvis?" I asked Chips,as I dived to put my coat on in the mad rush that is the eight o'clock getting ready for school and work scene.

Elvis had been on my mind all morning and the tune that was playing through my mind was American Trilogy mixed with If I Can Dream. I'd watched an Elvis documentary the night before and it had really got to me.

Chips turned to me,looked me straight in the eye with an almost exasperated look and answered "Yes,I know Mamma likes Elvis."

I was quite shocked and said "How do you know?"

I had not discussed my mums love of Elvis to Chips and I was really intrigued to find out how he knew. 

"She has a Elvis calendar," he replied in a very matter of fact way. 

And at this point I smiled. 

Of course. 

He had noticed the Elvis calendar that my mum has up in her house. The calendar that my dad buys her every Christmas and has done so since I was a child. 

You see my mum was or should I say is a massive Elvis fan and my childhood involved a lot of Elvis. I know all his songs,probably off by heart,I've seen all his movies and one of my earliest memories is sitting in my grandmas bedroom looking through my mums copies of a little magazine called Elvis Monthly,well I think it was called that,it was a long time ago! 

When he died it really hit my mum hard,it was such a shock and our household really felt the impact of it all. 

As the years went by it was not so noticeable how much my mum had liked Elvis. If you looked carefully you would see a Elvis picture in a frame and of course the Elvis calendar was always there but my mum did not talk about Elvis really,you are more likely to hear her talk about sport these days and that's what made me stop and smile when Chips had known about my mum and Elvis. 

Later that afternoon I told my mum and she really smiled to learn that her grandchild had picked up on her love of Elvis. We chatted about the documentary and marveled at just how Chips had picked up on this fact. 

It just goes to show that children are observant and they often know much more than we think!  

 A Gentle Kind Of Day

Everything about our visit to the farm was gentle,laid back and just plain old nice. Sometimes the word nice is made out to be boring but I think it describes something that is good and our day at the farm was definitely good. 

The weather was great,a real autumnal day. We did not even need our coats on. 

As I sat and watched Chips playing on the go karts,leaves were gently falling onto the ground. It was as if it was snowing leaves. The leaves slowly twirled to the ground,it was so peaceful to sit watching the leaves dance their way onto the soft grass. And I just felt so at ease,out in the fresh air on a warm autumn day,away from our usual weekday stresses,as I said before nice.

Halloween decorations were hanging from the trees and bright pumpkins were grouped everywhere,giving a bright orange glow to the farm. 

Spooky Spider

Dead,stripey thingy

We played quite a few rounds of crazy golf,looked at the farm animals,held a silver mouse and a fidgety guinea pig and stroked the cutest baby llama called Bob ~ he was 15 weeks old and had such soft fur. We loved Bob. 

The meerkats amused us. This one looked as if it was on duty as it stood glaring sternly at everybody.

Im back at work now and Chips is back at school.
The weather is damp.misty and foggy.
Im glad that we made the most of half term and had lots of little adventures.
Memories of them make me smile as we get back into the routine of life.