But I was fine 😉
Had a lovely weekend so far. Chris and Alison arrived around 5 pm last night, followed not that long afterwards by Ros and Kirsty. And them plus their assorted children added to my two meant we had 11 children in the house for the evening. Well I say house, they spent a fair amount of time in the garden actually!
We’d had a nice low key day in preparation for what I forsaw to be a late and full on night (and oh, how it was!) and had been to Tescos in the morning for last minute supplies – mainly alcohol 🙂 Then home for lunch and some film watching for the children while I brought all the veg into the lounge and sat and peeled and chopped it there with the children ‘helping’. Got two vats of beef stew cooking by about 1.30pm – one with wine for adults, one without for small people, made copious amounts of dumplings and put them in the fridge, did some half hearted tidying and then learnt all about humanism! Had also purchased a ready bed each for the children in Homebase which was the source of much excitement and delight.
So the house and garden gradually filled with people, we drank, we laughed, we ate, we drank some more, Ros and Kirsty rounded up their children and headed off, we drank some more, Scarlett keeled over asleep (the drinking that did it! 😉 ), Chris, Tilda and Ady went off to sleep, Poppy sort of went to sleep and Lije and Davies ran up and down the stairs, Lulah wandered about and me and Alison continued to drink and chat. At 3am the boys finally went to sleep so shortly afterwards I staggered upstairs to bed and Alison and Lulah went to sleep too.
This morning was a very s l o w start. Ady and our two children were up first. (Davies on a grand total of about 5 hours sleep!), Lije was sleeping in Davies’ bed until Tarly stood on the stairs yelling ‘Lije is sleeping in Davies’ bed, Lije is sleeping in Davies’ bed’ Lije is…Oh! Lije is awake now!’ By the time I got downstairs, feeling surprisingly un-hungover but rather tired – everyone but Tilda and Poppy were up.
Ady made endless rounds of bacon sandwiches and tea and coffee and we all very slowly came to. Eventually we were galvanised into getting ourselves together to go out. Chris and Alison had brought along gadgets and instructions for a geo cache expedition so we headed off to Shoreham for it. Had a good play in a truly excellent playground there for a while before heading off with the gadgety thing to find the stash of stuff. Don’t know what the etiquette is of even talking about it further so I won’t (seems to be cloaked in secrecy and free mason style handshakes and don’t want to offend the high elders of geo caching by inadvertantly refering to something I shouldn’t!) but it was fun. 🙂
Home again for further playing, chatting and some slightly more reserved drinking. Watched X Factor, enjoyed a very nice indian takeaway (despite me spilling mine on the sofa and then scooping it back onto my plate!) and then they headed back home as the children began to get tired and fractious. Scarlett had already gone to bed, Davies was the living embodiment of the head, hit, pillow phrase falling asleep probably before they reached the end of the road.
We’ve done some putting the house back together, Ady’s just had a bath and headed to bed, I’m about to do the same.
Thanks for an excellent weekend guys, really enjoyed your company and looking forward to doing it all again very soon :-).
fanking you…..for not mentioning the s…..
Comment by Chris — 08 October 2005 @ 11:55 pm
sounds fun, if somewhat exhausting!
Comment by Sarah — 09 October 2005 @ 7:22 am
Sounds good to me 🙂
Comment by Joyce — 09 October 2005 @ 8:12 am
was lovely. Thanks for having us! Really hoping James can make it down at Halloween too 🙂 Marcus woke up this morning saying he can’t wait so I really must get there somehow!
Comment by Kirsty — 09 October 2005 @ 8:58 am
Oh yes thanks for not mentioning J…S… or any of the other embarassing stories I managed to tell without the aid of alcohol LOL!
Comment by Roslyn — 09 October 2005 @ 10:05 am
That’s about when Lije and Lulah fell asleep too 🙂
Never mind the S or J, thanks for not mentioning all the W! 😀
Was ok I suppose – Ady could probably go a bit further to make people feel welcome 😉 See you soon xxx
Comment by Alison — 09 October 2005 @ 1:03 pm
He’s a bit self obsessed isn’t he? He doesn’t read this so i think I’m safe 🙂
Time for Tuesday?
Comment by Roslyn — 09 October 2005 @ 3:04 pm
it’s no good, I’m insatiably curious about the W, S, J … and s, if that’s a different s to the S … put me out of my misery, please, Nic! 😉
Comment by Sarah — 09 October 2005 @ 4:25 pm
She can’t S, we all took a vow of silence 🙁
Comment by Chris — 09 October 2005 @ 6:17 pm
s’not fair!!!
Comment by HelenJ — 09 October 2005 @ 6:30 pm
protected!!!!
Comment by Roslyn — 09 October 2005 @ 6:46 pm
You know that episode of Friends with the jellyfish?….
Comment by Nic — 09 October 2005 @ 7:43 pm
rofl- so who peed on whom? (is that right?)
11 kids sounds horrendous- glad you all had fun 🙂
Comment by Heather — 09 October 2005 @ 8:22 pm
ah no it’s not a clue as to what happened, more an example of how you will never know unless you were there! 😉
Ady says he’s not self obsessed (I called him in from hoovering the back garden to show him your comment Ros!) 😉
Comment by Nic — 09 October 2005 @ 8:49 pm