Confetti fields and the perils of a staged photo

Again this is a finish up of an unfinished post from June that, due to life in general, didn’t quite get finished…so imagine it’s June…

First off, I need to have a slight gush about how utterly stunning the Confetti fields outside Pershore are. Its quite rare given how varied and beautiful the Cotswolds are, that you come across something that just stands out as being extra specially gorgeous. However, that’s pretty much what Wyke farm have managed with this. The confetti fields are just ridiculously gorgeous and even someone with my limited patience and skill for photography can get some truly stunning photos.

Obviously, it is an utter picture trap of epic proportions and as such Pose thought it would be a great place to take us all to and get us all photo’d up. We imagined that Ollie over would joyfully run through the confetti fields and look around in utter wonder at the beautifully vivid flowers clustering in all around him. Whilst running free-range in the gorgeous setting, surely it would be easy to get some gorgeous photos.

Now, before I go on I need to point out how much I love my son. He’s brilliant. The views expressed in the next paragraph are written from a place of love. Exasperated, mildly exhausted love, but love nonetheless.

Upon arriving at the fields and parking up Ollie began to make unpleasant noises and in no uncertain terms let us know that he did not appreciate us trying to wake him, he did not appreciate the ridiculous temperature and he definitely was not going to look cute in any pictures around any silly old flowers. Let’s ignore the fact that he was only tired and sleeping in the car as he felt waking at 4am on a Saturday and demanding entertainment was reasonable. This delightful mood lasted a remarkably short time in his defence and by the time we’d queued to get in he was slightly less objectionable and was willing to consider the idea that he might look at the flowers. It went well for a good 15 minutes and Ollie did get that awestruck look that only a very young child (or Pose) gets at seeing something really special for the first time. This cease fire in Toddler/Parent hostilities came crashing to a halt however when we got a bit cocky and tried to take a less candid approach to taking photos around him.

It began innocuously enough. Pose began to wander into the flowers just past the viewing platform taking Ollie with her. I was seconds away from snapping the photo of the century. It was going to be a lovely mummy and sprogling picture, Mothercare would pick it up from my Instagram account and use it in a national campaign. This optimism lasted a good 3 seconds before Ollie left us in no doubt that he was having absolutely none of it. He wriggled away from Pose and literally stomped over to a bare patch of dirt bang in the middle of the main walk way, with his cuddly toy, and sat down. He then proceeded to throw what can only be described as a world class hissy fit. It wasn’t a tantrum. It was a good deal more sullen than that and involved a lot more glaring. The understanding looks from passers by forced to step around our spawn did not help matters. Pose and I heroically set our parenting stall and calmly said to stop being unreasonable and come with us so we could clear the path. Ollie eloquently refuted that he was being unreasonable and resolutely stayed in place. It carried on and turned into a Mexican stand off scenario. It felt as though it went on for aeons. Luckily Ollie is a Toddler and has a truly gnat like attention span so after a tense two minutes he’d forgotten why he was being so ‘delightful’ and began playing with his teddy. He wombled over to us smiling shyly at this point and roared at us with his teddy. Honestly…the level of control over our emotions he exerts is terrifying. This situation ended I scooped him up and we continued on. Lesson learnt, Ollie does not like to perform and we have even less parental authority than we imagined.

Anyway, we carried on around and the Olephant’s mood improved to the point that he grudglingy conceded that some flowers may be ‘pwetty’ and he didn’t mind us existing. To be fair the incident wasn’t too bad and Ollie has the amazing power of being so sickeningly endearing that we blank out the memories of any of his utterly unreasonable toad-like behaviour and only remember him being lovely. It’s eerie.