Road Trip: Day 3

I was slightly tempted to describe this as "Night 2" as the night-time events assumed a disproportionate significance in my mind, not to mention contributing significantly to the fatigue levels experienced during the day. Let me introduce you to the bed I was confronted with when I decided to attempt to achieve blissful somnolence:

Where do I go?

I did, mostly, manage to wrangle LittleBear's legs back into roughly his half of the bed, but they showed a marked reluctance to stay there, introducing themselves to my stomach, back and legs for much of the night, and to my face at least twice. There was also a notable occasion  on which I heard LittleBear reach over for his water bottle and take a drink. When I didn't hear him put it back, I rolled over to tell him to do so, only to find him fast asleep, snoring and cuddling his water bottle. It appears he was able to undertake the whole process without waking up. Which I wish I could say for me.

But it's OK, I didn't have to withstand this for long. We woke up at 6 as the light streamed through the very pretty, but wholly inadequate, blinds.

Fortified by significant quantities of coffee, plus scrambled eggs and smoked salmon for breakfast, I felt better equipped to cope with a non-travelling day on our road trip. Well, not car-based travelling. We did spend 7 hours out and about around Lyme Regis, the bulk of it fossil-hunting, and covered 3.5 miles on foot when measured in a straight line (i.e. not including the dashing back and forth, clambering up and down and darting hither and yon that all outings with LittleBear involve).

It was a beautiful day, which was a pity...

A beautiful day

... because beautiful days mean quiet seas and no rain, which consequently means no fresh mudslides, no dramatic erosion, no turned over boulders, and little chance of interesting finds. We came perilously close to deep distress as the second hour of hunting ticked past with no new finds by LittleBear, and even chocolate and Haribo failed to completely raise morale. But all was not lost, as LittleBear adjusted to the idea that it was OK to find things that we couldn't take home with us, and then all was well again, because he was really good at spotting those.

Too big for Mummy to carry

(For my non-geologist friends, and I do have some, the hammer is there for scale, because otherwise that rock could be 2cm across or 2m across and no-one would be any the wiser).

And then we reached Black Ven, and LittleBear turned out to be a dab hand at finding belemnites. And then he found a beautiful little ammonite. And, of course, I have the added advantage that the three men running the fossil-hunting trip are all friends of my friend J, and my friend J had told them we were coming, so they were especially kind and friendly to LittleBear, and gave him a lovely belemnite with its tip intact, and a nice chunk of fossilised wood with calcite sparkling in it. To be honest, they were lovely people anyway, and very good with all the little people on the trip, but LittleBear was definitely the Littlest, and definitely appreciated the sense of being known by the men in charge.

And then we staggered home. Well, I staggered, weighed down not only with my rucksack of essential provisions to cope with All Emergencies That Could Befall a Bear, but also an alarming number of rocks. LittleBear ran, obviously. And wept when I couldn't (or wouldn't) run to keep up. And then he wept when I told him to blow his nose. And then he wept when I told him that if he was rude to me I'd send him to bed without any dinner. And then he wept when I told him not to throw my clothes into the shower. And then he wept because he couldn't remember why, but he wanted a cuddle. We were both a bit tired. But we had cuddles and ate chocolate chip cookies, and I said sorry for shouting, and he said sorry for being unhelpful, and we agreed we'd had a lovely day but were awfully tired.

But we washed our fossils and ourselves:

Clean fossils. And some rocks that we liked

And then, just to prove he really is one of my family, LittleBear sat in the bar with me playing cards before dinner, and I felt a glow of maternal pride.

My boy