How a planned wildlife ramble turned out to be a search for thrills.

Just lately I did a little favour for a good old friend of mine; he had promised to take care of his two grandchildren for a day, completely forgetting that he had a clinic appointment to keep. As the appointment was simply a follow-up one and wasn't going to be long I volunteered to look after the boys whilst he was away. Because I live adjacent to the clinic it was easier for him to bring the boys around to my house, they were quite grown up enough to take in the situation and they know me very well as we have met before on several occasions. Being a regular hiker and outdoor type I imagined that the perfect solution to pass the time would be an amble through the community nature reserve with binoculars to see what animals and birds we could identify. Once the allotted time dawned though the heavens had opened, the lengthy showers being so hard that my modest adventure was completely washed out. Because this ended up being a last minute arrangement the boys hadn’t arrived with something with which to entertain themselves, so not surprisingly it was a situation of “what can we do Uncle Bruno?” Clutching at straws I recalled my own childhood wet afte oon activities, but my proposed “game of Ludo or cards” was met with wry looks of scorn. Now whilst I've got a laptop, I don’t own any games or software on it likely to entertain a couple of twelve-year-old boys, so I proposed we take a peek on the web for experiences that a modern day child might consider to pass an afte oon (not necessarily a damp one). I gave over the mouse control to the kids and naturally within just minutes they had found a site at which you could pick numerous sorts of kids’ things to do as gifts or perhaps buy a pre-payment slip and permit the kids choose for themselves. I became quite bogged down with the quantity and selection of the items on offer; there was a gentle trek with a pony or handling owls for any bird fans; under-cover sky-diving or go-karting for the slightly more bold sorts or careering around a racetrack in a performance vehicle for the genuine trainee adrenaline junkies. I don’t think the children had ever come across anything similar to it previously so, having trawled through all of the website in great detail I told them both to pick what would be their most favourite activity. Although they are twins they have rather distinct personalities so I expected very dissimilar answers, but was still amazed at their choices. Phil is the quieter studious one and enjoys anything at all to do with the outdoors and animals; however I got a surprise when he chose the indoor sky-diving, his reason being that he wanted to experience what it was like to fly like a bird so that he might understand them greater. Kenny is by far a different character; his love is cars however he still completely loves indulging in nature throughout the countless camping weekends his mother and father organise close to the sea. I felt he would choose a ride in a Lotus or Lamborghini but finally he opted for a scuba diving experience encouraged by shipwreck diving programmes he’d seen on television. I’ve identified that this is the best approach to enjoy the company of young people – use the principle of filling their brains with expensive plans and then give them back to their parents to pay for it all!

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