In a post last year called 'The River Wild', I explained how we had realised that before long we would have to expand into two canoes to be able to take Little Sister with us and allow James and Little Brother to become front paddlers in their own right. A stepping stone towards this was for me to get used to paddling at the stern.

Sometimes, you just have to accept that attempting to do anything outdoors with small children would just be sheer madness. No matter how committed you are, when the wind is 35 mph gusting 42 mph, you just know it’d be best to find something to do indoors instead. On one such day recently, we decided it was time to visit the climbing wall.