Or ‘The one where Nic and Ady break more of their friends’.
Yesterday morning we took in a couple of parcels, the remaining ones have also now arrived so with the exception of collecting the hamster in the morning all shopping is done. I’m really pleased with the stuff we’ve got the kids this year, no tat, all useful or practical and stuff I think they’ll be really pleased with :).
We packed up the car and headed off to Portsmouth, via Tescos to collect a bottle of wine or two to take with us and return the top I’d bought the night before because it didn’t fit me.
We were visiting Tom and Ingrid, ex workmates of Ady’s who have become good friends over the years. It was Tom’s parents house that Sploosh and Lucky went to live at and we have had some great times with doing outdoorsy stuff. This time we were staying at their house in Portsmouth and had arranged to arrive sometime after 2pm.
We were greeted with home made pizza and glasses of wine – always welcome 🙂 Plus presents for the kids and for us – Scarlett got one of those growing crystal fuzz on a penguin kits and Davies a UFO mystery thing which came with a DVD. They both loved them and spent ages setting them up while Ady and I caught up with Tom and Ingrid. Three of Ady’s other old workmates called in over the course of the evening and he spoke to a couple more on the phone so it was a really nice reunion for him and as I get on OK with them all too it was all very sociable. It was good to be telling our story of this year and explaining what we’re planning next – it got us all excited anew :).
The others left and we had a very nice dinner of roast leg of pork (from Tom’s parents pigs) which we cooked as a team in the kitchen while listening to their ipod music and testing the buy-ability of their collection of cookbooks based on a very scientific method of opening them at three random recipes and voting on whether we’d cook that or not. Rather surprisingly, as we are not big fans, Jamie Oliver’s book won that challenge hands down.
Plenty of drinking and merriment before we all settled down to watch Paul, which we’d not seen before. Thought it was alright but certainly not Pegg and Frost’s best work (I suspect they will never better Shaun of the Dead for me). Tom and Ingrid both fell asleep on the sofa during the film… the youth of today, just can’t keep up with us ;).
Davies & Scarlett shared one bedroom, top and tailing in a bed where Davies stole the covers all night apparently. Ady and I slept in the other spare bedroom where Ady also nicked the covers all night. I can’t think he’s ever done that before so clearly something in the Pompey air 😆
This morning we were cooked a lovely full cooked breakfast by Tom and Ingrid who are very lovely friends 🙂 They invited us to stay longer and although we probably won’t be taking them up on the offer it was very lovely to have it extended :). We had a bit of a photo slideshow and some more anecdotes from our travels before bidding them farewell as they had last minute Christmas shopping to do and we had visiting to do.
First to Bruce, to drop off a bottle of whiskey as a special Christmas Thankyou for having Willow. He wasn’t there but we did pop and visit Willow who was looking very snug in the cowshed. We miss her 🙁
Then to Chris and Juli’es for a couple of hours pre Christmas get together and present swap. They have all been ill for weeks and are still not totally better – the kids have been diagnosed with Whooping Cough now although the GP said they are fine to be sent back to school 😆 🙁
Back at home Ady and I called into the pet shop for the hamster cage and Sainsburys for dinner stuff which we came home and I cooked. Dad and Ady went out while I stayed home, got the kids to bed and then dealt with the fall out from my parents latest row. I can’t even be bothered to blog about it, just one more in a long line of hysterical nonsense from two people who really shouldn’t be together but seem utterly incapable of putting the wheels in motion to split up. Not my concern or something I have time or energy to invest in after too many years of mediating. I did then end up sitting with Dad for a bit when he and Ady got home and now it’s stupidly late again and I’ve got the alarm set for 730am!