Skip to main content

Happy birthday Grumps!

The end of yet another whirlwind weekend - I'm really not sure where they go to but one moment it's Friday afternoon and then the next it's Sunday evening.

We had planned this weekend (unknown to Mum & Dad) to hot foot it down to Somerset on Friday evening in order to join the birthday boy for a 70th birthday dinner at a pub in Langport. Amanda had booked a room for us all with the expectation of us being there between 6 and 6:30... quite how I thought that was doable on a sunny Friday afternoon in September I don't know. Even the girls commented as I picked them up at gone 4pm from school that we didn't have a hope of making it. The pick up would have gone smoother had the kids appreciated the sense of urgency I was feeling. Abi managed to appear relatively quickly, even finding the time to get a drink from Gabbies on the way, but Izzy took ages. Having rung her 5 times I finally discovered she was waiting in the normal pick up spot rather than in the car park as requested - arghhhh! By then the queue to get out of school was enormous and so it took us another 5 mins to get out. This all meant that my mental calculation of getting away at 4pm had to be adjusted to a 4:36pm departure time - not ideal! We then had to battle the A303 which is never great at the best of times. In the end we switched the Waze App on and it took us down some interesting (very narrow) diversions to miss the worst of the traffic, along with the other 30 cars all following the same App no doubt! By some miracle we arrived only a few minutes past the allotted 6:30 window feeling a bit flustered by in one piece.
Why this surprises me I don't know, it's always a bit of a rush to get to Somerset and I never feel completely relaxed - a weekend never feels long enough given all of the other things I want to squeeze in before it's time to go back to work / school. Anyway, Dad was chuffed we were there and we had a lovely meal before heading back to Amanda's for the night. Before bed we decided to have a 'quick' game of Scattagories which turned into about 6 games. At 11pm I had to give up and we left Abi and Laurie playing - gone are says when we used to get them into bed so we could have some time alone!

Saturday dawned clear and sunny and after walking the dogs and breakfast we settled in to shout at Laurie and Abi to get dressed and eat something so we could head over to Mum and Dad's. Blimey they are alike - they'd got stuck playing some game and didn't want to move! Hearing Amanda shout at Laurie is just like hearing me shout at Abi - pretty much word for word!  We finally got them motivated and went over to Stocklinch for coffee and birthday cake before leaving to go to Langport to put their canoe in the water and spend a few hours messing about in a boat. We really couldn't have asked for better weather, in fact it was baking hot and I caught the sun. The standard of canoeing did differ slightly (an understatement if ever there was one) but everyone got a go (apart from Mum who I think is still waiting for her turn) and all the kids loved it. We managed to get a decent sandwich in Langport before turning the boat round and heading back, with Amanda braving the boat with both Abi and Izzy in it. Clearly there was no way was I going to do that - i'd have been shouted at within the first 30 seconds regardless! 

Conscious I wanted to get back we finally got the boat out where we had parked the cars (we had to wait for a couple having wedding photos on the slightly muddy bank of the river - random), said our goodbyes and let the Sat Nav take us what seemed to be a long way round until I realised it was heading for the M5 rather than an apparently very congested A303. Turned out this was probably no bad thing as just before Junction 16 the car started making a very ominous grinding noise from the front driver's side, so much so that I decided we would have to pull over. We rang Glenn who got us to ring the AA, only to hear it would be 2 hours before they expected to be with us. Fortuitously (according to the kids) we had stopped right next to a Costa so they were happy for the first 10 minutes before realising it was going to be a long wait. Luckily Glenn came to our rescue and turned up first, had a quick look and declared it driveable so he took it with Izzy while Abi and I jumped in the Mini to come home - hopefully the Landrover isn't too broken. My professional opinion (Google) is the wheel bearings but who knows what that actually means!

Today was a case of getting through the washing, my normal 10 mile run, the Bike Show for Glenn and Segway races for the kids (we finally have 2 of them!)... oh and also trying to remember it is Glenn's birthday as well today. Let's face it, he doesn't want us to make a fuss so we haven't. In fact, we didn't even bother with cards as he would have only put them straight into the recycling. We just aren't very good at birthdays!



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cough, cough

Izzy - can't do a photo without rude finger gestures It's fair to say that the last couple of weeks have been rough. I managed to get the cough Mum had a while back and it has been horrible! Both Dad and Glenn seemed to get a very mild version of it but Mum and I got the full dose and I can safely say that it has been a stark reminder of just how bad a viral infection can be. It also illustrates the whole Covid experience - some get it worse than others. For me it has meant that for over 2 weeks I have had the worst cough which has left me unable to sleep properly. I still can't sleep lying down fully, and have to be propped up on pillows on my back which is not my favoured sleeping position! It has also meant that Glenn has spent the last 10 days in the spare room because I have been coughing so badly he is unable to sleep in the same room. Thank goodness we didn't all have it - we'd have shaken the house to its foundations! It has also meant that I have been exhau
Post a Comment
Read more

It's beginning to feel a bit like Christmas...

I was sure I write the blog last week.... but, it seems another 2 weeks have flown by and now we are staring down the barrel of the Christmas holidays and the end of the year! Currently it's all about Doug and what a star he has proved to be so far. He has now been with us for 3 weeks and he is (so far, I keep thinking at some point it will change) a pretty chilled out puppy. As a second dog he has been thrown in at the deep end and has been to Sunday lunch with Alan & Sarah (which he loved), socialised at home with friends and their dogs, met babies (he loved Elsie) and started to go for walks. The walking has been a bit different to our previous approaches with new dogs. In the past we have ventured out carefully, making sure that our new baby only walks a short distance so they can experience all the new sights and sounds. Doug's first walk was after Sunday lunch last week, just him and 8 other dogs for bout 45 mins - he loved it! In our defence we didn't let him wal
Post a Comment
Read more

March!

Betty kisses! Blink and 3 weeks have sped by - just like that! The good news is that it's a) beginning to feel like Spring (well, some of the time), and b) that means we are nearly through year end at work which is a blessed relief - that last couple of weeks have been pretty intense.  Although it's been busy, we have a good few weeks, including a lovely weekend where Glenn and I managed to get away on our own for the first time in 2 years - amazing! We only went to a cottage in Devon for 2 nights but the cottage was really nicely arranged and we settled in very quickly. We did have to adjust a bit t the fact that it was in the middle of nowhere - us and sheep - but Glenn had Wi-Fi and the rugby and I had plenty of time to walk so we were both happy. Kerrie and Elsie came and stayed with the kids so they had a great time also, with lots of time to realise that a young baby might look like fun but it's a lot of hard work! Betty and Doug went to Mum and Dad's. They surviv
Post a Comment
Read more