I thought today was going to be an uneventful day with nothing to write home about as we were due to spend another day by the pool in the glorious Tuscan sunshine. But the male Bray’s have given me a couple of stories to tell, thanks Warren and Adam.
I’ll get to these soon enough though.
The first week of our stay at Park Albatross was quiet as the families who surrounded us at our caravan located on Via Levante were almost unnoticeable as their kids didn’t seem to move until about 09:00, however as the second week has progressed we’ve had a number of families with younger children who either winge and wail more or seem to wear heavy boots whilst walking through their caravans and as we are all reasonably close they seem to be walking through ours! This all seems to start at about 06:30! ?
Anyway I met Warren at 08:55 so we could place or towels on our sun loungers, this time we decided to be adventurous and instead of all lying in a row we had 3 on one row then 3 on another row in front of the first. Oh how we live life on the edge.
The large pool seemed cooler than previous days even though the sun seemed hotter so Adam and I retreated to the pool by the sun loungers which was warmer. Warren ventured over to the large pool but came back explaining that it was completely full of people doing water aerobics, bear in mind this pool is a 50m pool so that’s a huge amount of people all doing their exercise.
After a morning of chilling, then lunch I went off with the Bray’s to show them where the Co-op was and to stock up on a few last provisions for the couple of days remaining. I’m not sure Warren’s taken to the European driving experience too well as I’ve been out with him twice now in the car and twice he’s tried to get in the passenger seat to drive!
In the afternoon Warren, Adam, Josh and I paid €7 each to complete the jungle trail which is Park Albatross’s version of ‘Go Ape’ very impressive but only about half as big. Adam was first up into the trees, followed by Josh. Both boys seemed to take to it very quickly. Then it was Warren’s turn up the scramble net walk way to the first high point ledge, he seemed OK, then on the second section you had to navigate a series of log steps then an open section whereby you had to walk across two 15mm wires in a train track formation before another section of log steps. It was at this point that I’ve seen Warren at his most vulnerable. Part way across he seemed very unsure and at one point I thought he may give up and ask to be rescued! But he carried on and got to the next ledge. I was following and do agree that the second section was awkward to navigate and seemed to be not built for men but children as the top wire you hold onto seemed to be far too low and was uncomfortable to hold. Other sections too gave you the impression that there was too much sag in the wire and you had to lean forward not backward to complete. The last section was one of the zip wires (one of four). And like all the others you had to grab a rope at the end to stop you going back to the middle of the zip wire. Adam missed the rope and ended up having to be rescued by the man in charge who took great pleasure in grabbing his legs and removed his shoes and socks to tickle his feet! All the kids that missed the for got this treatment. Back on ground level Warren regained his color but only after having a beer!
Later that night the Bray’s invited us over for a BBQ and a few beers so we could plan our trip to Florence for the following day. Adam had us all laughing as he spotted a large bug on their car and went to move it, as he got close to it he had to pad the awning of the tent and as I ruffled the tent fabric Adam flew backwards in terror thinking it was the bug!
So today was not quiet after all.
