That’s the sound of the men working on the trains…

Has been a pretty good one today actually. Up exceedingly early with the children (well about 6.30 actually, which would not be so early if Scarlett has not woken up just as I was about to go to bed at midnight last night, come up to our bed with me and persisted in trying to get into Davies’ room to wake him up to play with her until she finally fell asleep at about 3.30am!), and we got out the various Christmas crafty books I got from the Book People and made the igloo, swiss chalet and advent calendar pull outs from inside them in our pyjamas – very festive feeling 🙂
I then went off to have my haircut which I always enjoy having done, and I got my fix of what ‘the youth of today’ is up to from the teenager who does it, which made me feel about a hundred! Appparantly they still drive up and down in their cars of an evening on the same little convoy circuit that I used to participate in 13 years ago, and she gets ‘really, really drunk’ on half a bottle of cheap white wine and some archers – I probably should be worrying about the fact this will be Scarlett in about 12 years time, but for now it gave me a little glowing feeling of nostalgia 🙂

Back home again and my parents (who are *always* late) were already waiting for me so we loaded everyone up in the people carrier and set off to Bluebell Railway. Mum sat in the very back with Davies, Dad sat in the middle with Tarly and me and Ady were the grown ups in the front! It was very expensive to do the full return trip in first class on the steam engine (£63) but luckily my Dad is made of money (well he always asked if I thought he was and frankly I still think he might be!) and paid for it. I have a selection of fairly poor photos as for some reason neither of us seemed capable of getting a good one today!

And one okay one!

Ady’s arty steam shot:

A typical Tarly picture – check out the mucky face, the dirty knees and the windblown hair!

Finally these two which although are poor photos being over exposed really show how alike their features are (although not as alike as some Puddle and Portico children I could mention!)

Still with me? Good!

The kids quite enjoyed the train actually, at the end of the line we stopped for a cup of tea and a run around, then back on again to the main station for some lunch. The carriage we were in was a real old fashioned, murder on the train type one, it had cute little lamps which came on when we went through a tunnel and as Ady had the window open the whole time we were all covered in little spots of smog when we got off from the steam billowing in. Dad told us all about how he and his mother used to travel from North Wales to London on the train twice a year to visit his aunt on trains just like that one, very romantic to listen to, but I imagine really quite an epic to have done!

Lunch was okay – overpriced and not the most delicious meal ever but hey-ho. We then stood about for a while watching trains chug in and out and get loaded up with coal and water, which held the kids attention for a bit, then home. We all sang along to big band songs all the way home to keep Tarly awake – great fun having a car loaded up with six people all singing Mac the Knife 🙂

Davies has fallen asleep while I am typing (result! it’s only 7.30!) and Scarlett is also in bed so a nice evening ahead with Mum and Dad staying for curry. I also had a chat with Dad about finances and stuff and I am going to try and remortgage the house after Christmas to sort out our dire finances again, hopefully I am about to start bringing a small amount of money back into the house again soon as well and Dad has said that if the bank won’t help then he will, which at least means we don’t have any worst case scenarios to worry about too much. So in all a good day – won’t be able to watch X Factor or I’m a celeb as Dad hates both, but never mind eh? I only get all ranty about them both anyway!