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

Snow!

After a beautiful day of sunshine yesterday, today it snowed... but more of that in a minute. Yesterday actually felt like a day of much progress. Despite Covid we managed to arrange a visit to Taunton School to have a look around with the girls and to meet the Headmaster. This was a massive relief as I had got to the point of thinking we would have to accept a place without ever stepping foot inside the school. In the end we had a very comprehensive, if a little deserted, tour of the school and the kids loved it, as did we. There may even be a small chance they might squeeze us in if we are there by the summer term - that is of course if the kids are back into school by then. The other news was that I managed to speak to Mr &Mrs Tucker - the people buying our house - and we tentatively agreed that we will try and complete during the Easter holidays which could have us moving in the third week of April. This does require everyone to have got all of what they need done, and that of ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Busy, busy, busy

Full English brunch for these two! Life is VERY busy and I don't feel like we have stopped for weeks (or is that months?) It seems like the 'to-do' list is endless and while I know we don't have to do it all at once, I have taken on the unenviable task of trying to get the Muppet to finish all the work he promised / we have paid for and that has been like pushing a mountain of water up a very steep hill. We've got to the point where I think we have got all of what we are likely to get and the rest we'd rather finish ourselves anyway. The electric gates are clearly a work of his imagination based on the gates / the electric cables he spec'd and the cheapo motor mechanism - there is no way they'll work so we have decided to not bother and source proper gates that do the job and look better as well. Knowing that we are almost at a point where we sever the ties feels very liberating. Looking back this last 6 months has been incredibly stressful and just didn...
Post a Comment
Read more

Decluttering

Girls buying baby clothes - this could get addictive! It's Easter weekend already and we still haven't completed!! However we have made some progress, most importantly with the paperwork which has not been Steve the Builder's forte throughout this process. Stags finally got their act together and got in touch with the planning office and got an update from the Planning Officer. Apparently she is broadly happy with the application, and is prepared to pass it with only a few minor modifications which we are completely comfortable with. The Building Control Officer also came and did all of what he needed to, which means the final certificate should be issued which allows the warranty to also be issued. On our side we finally tracked down the paperwork (or more correctly got the BC Officer to come out again and do a second assessment) for the outstanding BCC on our windows (which went in 6 years ago but due to an admin error were never registered) - nothing is straightforward i...
Post a Comment
Read more