I had planned to go camping with the boys this weekend, but the forecast was so bad that I decided to take them on a walk and have lunch cooked on an open fire, followed by swimming and bowling at the Havanna leisure centre in Sandnes.

Around noon, we set off on a walk to Dalesnuten. I had packed dry wood, kindling, etc. and my billy cans along with the all the food in my rucksack. Somehow the boy's waterproofs got left in the car and by the time I realised, it was too late to turn back. Still, the rain held off almost until we were under shelter so it wasn't so bad. Otherwise, we all shared my anorak which didn't make for very fast progress!

About 500m from the car, just off the path there some crude shelters in the woods where you can sit and eat lunch when it is raining. We dropped the backpack off there and continued up to Dalesnuten, where you normally get a fantastic view of Stavanger and Sandnes over Ganskfjord. Yesterday, we were in the clouds before we got half way up. It was great to get some exercise and fresh air.

On the way back, it started raining just before we got to the shelter. The fire was difficult to light in the rain, but we managed by building a shelter over the fire which also held the wire to hang the billy can. First we cooked sausages by poking a wet stick down them and holding them over the fire. I cooked chicken legs on a frying pan in the flames and heated up baked beans. Together with potatoe salad it was quite a feast. For desert, I heating up milk over the fire for hot chocolate and we toasted marshmallows on stick over the fire. Then we soaked the toasted marshmallow in the hot chocolate... Mmmm, well what a combination!!

Next stop was Badeland, where they have swimming pools with water slides. On the biggest slide, you one spiral down from the roof on bigger rubber rings. I carried Daniel on my lap and you pick up quite speed with two in a ring, I can tell you. They also have a slide where you go down in the dark.

After that we had hamburgers for supper while we played ten-pin bowling. Daniel won both games, even though his ball took 5 times as long to go down the alley as mine and Erik's!

We had a great boy's day out. These are exactly the things I miss not being able to do in Nigeria, which made it even better! It'll be nice to do something similar in the Isle of Man, when we go back there in few weeks.

Jeremy