Weekend one

Saturday – I worked in the morning (blimey that seems a long time ago now, far more than just a week). Ady and the kids packed the car up. I had been all organised and packed one bag for the weekend and another for the week but despite explicit directions Ady didn’t manage to transfer this level of organisation into the car packing arrangement. I then blew it further by remembering the books and ringing him in my teabreak to remind him to pack them too. This meant that we were shoehorned into the car and when we finally pulled up at our destination and opened the car doors books sprang out like they were springloaded and that I spent the journey with my knees by my chin in danger of developing DVT as my feet were resting on piles of books 😆

We were staying in Leeds with friends Jay and Mark who from various places a few of you know (Feminist Parents, Leeds nappy networks). We stayed there back in the summer and Davies bonded with their son over Ben 10 so they’ve been looking forward to continuing that ever since. Jay had also laid on a borrow of a mate’s skink and the nursery’s guinea pigs as last time we were there Scarlett had told her that ‘animals are my most favourite thing’. They have a 9year old, nearly 7 year old and a 3 year old so the five children played in various combinations over the course of the weekend.

We arrived on Saturday at about 530pm and were greeted with bucks fizz and great enthusiasm. The children pretty much instantly disappeared for Ben 10 inspired games and skink adoration. We were served a delicious, lentil free dinner with 3 courses and plenty of alcohol before settling down to watch X Factor sky plussed from earlier. The children joined us and set themselves up with unplugged in gaming controllers which they used to vote for the various contestants. I forget what they judged each as but they were fairly scathing. We all enjoying debating whether Diana is infact a puppet with just the one string attached to her hand which she brings up to her face to show animation 😆

Jay then gave me some needles and wool for me to have a go at knitting the twirly whirly scarf she was knitting and we spent a fairly raucous evening watching literal videos on youtube and taking it in turns to go upstairs and tell the children to shutup and go to sleep (which was unlikely given how much noise we were making ;)). It was a fairly late night all round, setting a precedent for the week really. Davies and Scarlett were in with Luke and Zac dorm stylee, while Ady and I had a sofa bed in the front room.

Sunday morning we woke to a heavy frost which meant Zac’s rugby was cancelled and effectively saved us all from having to leave the house all day. We did plenty of slobbing about eating, drinking tea, playing and chatting. Oh and knitting :). Jay did some baking – mini cupcakes, cookies and some mince pies and then we had some mulled wine. Mark made some pre-dinner cocktails

and we had another lovely dinner with pudding of the cupcakes topped with a candle for Tarly’s birthday and the first round of Happy Birthday to you for her.

We followed by more drinks, more chatting, more knitting and yet more telling the children to go to sleep. This time it was slightly more serious as Luke and Zac had to be up for school on Monday morning. It was still pretty late by the time they actually went to sleep though – I’m guessing they’d have had a fairly early night on Monday to make up for it.

Monday morning we were all up early breakfasting and trying to create the ‘busyness’ illusion whilst Davies, Scarlett and I all felt relieved we don’t have to pull that off every day like everyone else (Ady included). Zac and Luke left with the ‘walking school bus’ followed a short while later by Mark going off to work. We had intended leaving not long afterwards but ended up hanging around for most of the morning drinking tea, chatting and watching Cbeebies with Bonnie. Jay gave Tarly a scarf for her birthday (pink, fluffy, very Tarly) and we finally left there about midday in the end.

It was a fab and wonderful weekend. I love the internet so much for helping me meet such ace people I would never have otherwise crossed paths with 🙂