Day 9 2023, another new country and an ice cream

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A much calmer start today. Yesterday, the first I knew of Ash being awake downstairs (long story) was him coming up to tell me he had heard strange noises in the night and again in the morning and he was sure he could hear tweeting. When he went back downstairs, almost immediately I got a picture message of a bird in the glass fronted log burner. No idea how it hour in but we definitely needed to get it out. Ash opened the door downstairs then set it free from it's firey confines. Sadly the sparrow didn't want to leave and instead flew upstairs. It chose not to go out of either velux and so as a final last ditch attempt not to have to live with a bird for a night, we opened the full length window in mine and Seth's room (where we had barricaded ourselves behind the weird glass door) and kept our fingers crossed. The sight of a half dressed Ash clearly scared it enough by then and off it went! No such drama today unless you count tidying up and deciding where to put the rubbish (it was a very difficult decision). Off by eleven, we headed south to Prague and another new country for Seth (his 23rd). After a good journey with excellent sandwiches made with dinkel bread (🤣🤣🤣) we arrived at the Botel. Ash and I have stayed here before and it's amazing, an old boat with the most beautiful rooms and location. And this time the best room with it's own balcony. After a brief rest it was time for a wander. First to glow golf (fully booked but we're going tomorrow) then to 'joystick world' which I'm sure was fine but it's location down a back alley right under a Thai massage parlor kind of put us off. We both felt like we were first timers here as we walked through areas neither of us had seen. For Seth this meant the added benefit of Hamley's Prague. Who knew?! And this Hamley's had a slide from floor one to floor zero, a merry go round, a games arcade (we didn't win many tickets) and a whole lot of other crazy stuff. After both Seth and Ash having a go on the huge snake slide, we staved off hanger with pizza and pasta at the same chain as our Berlin lunch and then got a 'chimney ice cream' (essentially ice cream in a cinnamon bun cone) to walk to the astrological clock with. This ended as you might expect with all three of us covered in ice cream as we tried (and failed) to help Seth out of his sticky mess. The more we tried to clean things up and eat the ice cream, the more we got covered. I think Seth declaring that he wanted to leave to live with grandma and grandad may suggest this is the first real time we've embarrassed him in public given that we laughed more and more with every bit of ice-cream that landed on us or the floor in what, with hindsight, was a very busy street 😁. Eventually cleaned up, we took a scenic route back to the boat for drinks on the balcony and a lovely evening.

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