Feeding ducks and chasing trains...

What a fun day we had Tuesday, the last remnants of the summer storm hung over us, the day was warm and windy with more rain forecast for later on in the day.

We had promised Emma and Lucca that we would go down to the pond and feed the ducks, I had been collecting scraps of bread over the last few weeks, so the bag was full.  As I was busy with the "grandies" Evette took photos.

Not far from where we live we have the Glenbrook Vintage Railway, and as Lucca is a full on" Thomas the Tank Engine" fan Poppa and I were very keen to take him down to see the train come in. We drove down  and waited for the train, and we waited, and we waited and nothing happened.  No train coming around the bend. Poppa decided we should drive to where  the train left and we could  then follow it into town, what a lot of fun it turned out to be, with both Emma and Lucca shouting out with excitment every time they spotted the steam coming from the train. We drove like typical "possessed" grandparents to get them to see the train come into town. I felt like a character from a Robin Williams movie.

Eventually we arrived back into town and met the train. The excitement on Lucca's face was priceless, he was grinning from ear to ear. He just kept on saying: "look Nana it's James, it's Gordon " going through all the characters and naming them......

And then it happened, Lucca looked up at me and said" we go on the train Nana?" I looked at him and the full force of what was going to happen dawned on me. Here I was with no money, and having to explain to a "Thomas" fan that he couldn't go on the train. Oh no, I could just feel the tension in the air as I told him we couldn't go on the train, I could feel his frustration staring to rise and I prepared myself for a full on meltdown.

One of the conductors was watching all of this, and kindly said that we could take the train to the end of the line, and Poppa could drive and meet us there. I couldn't believe what I was hearing, he was really going to let us go on the train!!  So that's what we did, we got on the train and rode to the end of the line.

Check out the smiles on the tourists faces behind us, they couldn't stop laughing at Lucca's excitement at being on the train..

 This is Diana the engine we rode behind...

With Poppa, waiting for the train to go to bed.  Emma was looking a little bored by this stage, but Lucca was still "super excited".