Knitted gardens & Lepe Country Park

Tuesday & Wednesday were filled with French lessons, book work, computer work, programming lessons and lots more that I can't remember. Really need to write things down a lot quicker!

Thursday we had planned to visit the knitted garden exhibition in town with a couple of friends and picnic at the park after. So that's what we did.

So many knitted items, you had to walk around a few times so as not to miss anything.

A couple of hours later we came home and then spent the afternoon chalk drawing out in the garden.

C's Graffiti

Friday

As soon as dad got in early from work we headed off to Lepe Country Park. We had the intention to follow a 2hr trail which went along the beach and through woodland passing some interesting buildings on the way.

We walked the first part along the beach 

Past the lighthouse

We discovered lots of mermaids purses on the way ( we have been looking for those since last year) *Will have to get a pic of those later. 

We followed the trail until we got to a road, at which point there should have been a gate to go through, however we couldn't find it at decided we would be better off following the road back to the country park. We passed a couple of dead pheasants on the way, horses in fields and generally had a pleasant walk even with the dead pheasants.

Once back at the country park, we stopped to have a drink and play at the park before heading off in the opposite direction to go and explore the D-day part of the beach. 

Roughly half way there we stopped for dinner on the beach, home made soup from the flask and French stick. No complaints from the kids as they were all shattered and starving by that point. 

A little more walking and we made it to the remains of some structures that were used to load the boats for D-day.

We had been walking for hours and finally made it back to the car around 6.30pm, a lovely afternoon. 

Saturday

After breakfast we left the house to go over to Portsmouth Museum to have a look at the Tricorn Exhibition. The only way I could describe the Tricorn would be as huge concrete eyesore, the first thing you saw when you came into Portsmouth. Was some sort of shopping centre and car park. It was knocked down around 10yrs ago. That's the way I remember it anyway.

The kids aren't old enough to remember it at all and I certainly didn't remember it for anything great, so I wasn't too sure what to expect from the exhibition. We spent at least an hour looking further into what the Tricorn was built for and what it was like when it first opened. It was a huge shopping complex with shops on different levels and a car park at the top which was accessed from a spiral car ramp built in 1966. From the pictures, displays and planning drawings we gathered that it was envisaged as a modern shopping centre. It had a nightclub and laser quest among other things. We learnt about brutalist architecture and despite attempts to turn it into a great shopping centre things just didn't seem to take off with the largest store not getting any tenants followed by further problems through the years. Things we would have never have known before. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tricorn_Centre

They had one of the original signs on display and some concrete parts of course. Along with quite a few bits of art based on the Tricorn. All of the kids enjoyed the exhibition particularity the boys which was a bit of a surprise as I wasn't too sure they would be interested in it. 

M had gymnastics and we spent the evening watching Disney's Frozen.

Sunday was most definitely a chill out day, however H squished in some minecraft programming and the kids spent time playing with dad.