Just as well I have been seeing some of you otherwise there might well be search parties out given how quiet I have been! 😉
After briefly appearing back in Sompting late on Friday and staying for all of Saturday we were off on the road again on Sunday morning.
Stopping at Costco to collect the traditional blue bottle of wine (our mission: to have one lurking in the home of every blogger before 2007!), a rather large communal birthday cake and at our hotel to drop off our stuff we arrived at Chris and Alison’s mid afternoon on Sunday. We sort of passed Merry and co in the hall really – nice but brief!
Ros and co arrived returning Poppy to her rightful owners, shortly followed by Layla and Si and with my children quickly getting to their usual wet and muddy state resulting in Tarly sharing a very long bath with Lulah we all made ourselves at home 🙂 Lovely dinner supplied partially by Ros and partially by the local takeaway pizza and thai restuarants with pizza for the children. We managed to eat mainly in peace thanks to the large chocolate cake being stationed in the playroom as a deterant to coming back to the kitchen to bother us! Davies did keep appearing keen to report back on stuff in the manner of Kermit the frog and his bit part as a roving reporter on Sesame Street (accompanied by lots of ‘der, der, DERRRRR’ ing) and Tarly ran past me several times to get to Ady doing her extra syllable, Holly Hunter style speaking (I’m a gay-url, sitting on a chay-air who needs hey-elp) punctuated with lots of ‘I don’t want YOU’s’ – Daddy’s girl this week 😉
Plenty of wine was consumed, laughter was had and Ady rolled out his only told when he is drunk and in good company story of an injury in his youth in a delicate place which I think he felt was some sort of initiation rite! Very, very enjoyable evening. Thanks for the hospitality and the company 🙂
We then went back to the hotel with me and the children bare foot and walked noisily through the foyer trying to text Ros to find out what room number they were staying in. Found them next door to us so Ady and Tony went down to the hotel bar while me and Ros rather successfully ignored the children bouncing from one bed to the other and locking themselves in the wardrobes while we chatted 😉 The men arrived back and Ros, Tony, Boo and Buzz left to go back next door. Kids were asleep around midnight, we took the opportunity to make use of the shower and bath facilities 😉
Woke later than planned the next morning so was pleased to get a text from Ros (from all the way next door!) to delay breakfast for half an hour. Ate that and planned to meet them at Legoland after they collected Pea and the dog from Alison’s.
Slight hiatus at Legoland about not having booked first to get the HE discount but we were allowed in (just as well, as they still got nearly 90 quid off us and I think we would have walked away and gone somewhere else for the day if we had not got the discount!) and had a fantastic day there. We stayed right til the end and still didn’t get round everything. Really good fun – photos here on flickr and very chuffed to have helped Ros celebrate her birthday. Worth particular mention was the Dinosaur Dipper ride which was for small people (Tarly was allowed on!) but seemed to be staffed by a loony who was clearly on his last day there and was doing all the ‘who wants to go faster? scream if you wanna go faster. I can’t hear you!!!!’ type stuff and making it spin so hard your head rattled (okay that might have just been the residual hangover from Sunday night then!). We all loved it so much we leapt off, ran round the barriers and went on it again three successive times. The final time we got him to say Happy Birthday to Ros on his tannoy and he and everyone else on the ride sang Happy Birthday to her 🙂 In retrospect as we were pretty much the only people on it I am not sure why we bothered to get off and run round to go back on when we could have just stayed in our seats, but it was all good fun!
Ros and Tony followed us back up the M4 to Costco again (Ros, Ady got you copies of some of the photos but forgot to give them to you – will bring them on Friday) and then we parted company for them to return to Sussex and us to return to Alison’s for the evening.
Kids were tired and actually so were we so although we had planned to stay the night Ady volunteered to stay sober and drive back home after all. We still had a lovely evening (thank you, again 🙂 ) with Chris, Alison, Layla and Si before heading off about 11pm.
Arrived home around 1am and crashed straight into bed (well ok I had actually slept some of the way home too!) and then today after a lazy start we headed off to Portsmouth. We got there for lunch, wandered round the shops for a bit, went to the dockyard but decided against actually going on any of the ships as it is so pricey. We called in Asda to get Robot on dvd and bought all the decorations and bits for the Halloween party. As Tarly had slept on the way there we called in on my parents for a couple of hours on the way home and took some muffins with us.
The Friday before we went on holiday my Step Grandfather died (he used to be married to my grandmother – my Mum’s Mum – and although they have been divorced for years he was like a Grandad to me from birth until teens and we still saw him fairly regularly. Mum had been asked by his partner if she would choose a song from a cd to be played at the funeral so we did that. I have also been asked if I will say a few words about him, so I am in the process of collecting my thoughts together and sifting through childhood memories in order to do such a task the justice it deserves. So we talked a little about that the funeral is next week.
I think I have pretty much caught up with my own blog and flickr and emails. I have not done so well with other’s blogs so I will make a start tomorrow! Ady is taking Tarly to Tumble Tots in the morning, then we are all going to home ed group and then I think I am taking Davies to his Tumble Tots (bliss, I can sit and read in the waiting room! 😉 ) and then we have a seriously early night planned for everyone as we are all really wiped out from a full on weekend following on from a hectic holiday.
Right, 2am and it’s my turn to get up in the morning. Hmmm, bed, I think 😉
Had wondered where you’d got to! Nice piccies, as usual, and really glad you’ve had an excellent w/e 🙂
wrt Halloween – having had a cockup with our friends over half term dates, they’re actually coming to stay the week *before* the halloween w/e, so we’re definitely going to come. Still planning to camp as (a) we have the van and (b) it allows us to make a quick getaway on the Sunday, so do you know of any good campsites near you?
Comment by Sarah — 21 September 2005 @ 6:51 am
It was such a great day- thank you!
The Dinosaur Dipper shall have a special place in my heart forever more LOL!
Comment by Roslyn — 21 September 2005 @ 8:41 am
Cor blimey – should have made Max stay – had no idea i was missing out on all that!
Comment by Merry — 21 September 2005 @ 11:17 am
It was such a fab night :-). Two thirds of the Sussex Sirens were there so it was bound to be good!
Comment by Roslyn — 21 September 2005 @ 11:51 am
twas lovely to see you all again (meaning Ros & Tony too 😉 ) THE story was one of the best I’ve heard 🙂
Comment by layla — 21 September 2005 @ 6:12 pm
lol, Merry, if I’d realised what was going to happen, I’d have made my excuses and been out 😉 As it was, I was very glad we couldn’t go to Legoland on Monday, because I was knackered!
Comment by Alison — 21 September 2005 @ 10:05 pm