2016 July Yorkshire holiday.......

Well fancy starting a holiday with panic packing! It was Wednesday and I happened to check the holiday rental friendsN&T had booked and discovered we were going Friday when all along I'd thought it was Saturday and put it on the calender as Saturday to Saturday! We were out all day Thursday so washing ironing and all the packing happened Wednesday......I work well under pressure hahaha

Friday 8th - friendsN&T picked us up at 10am and after the usual "load the car jigsaw" game we were off. Services coffee/comfort break, later found a lovely pub for lunch. Arrived at Gunby Hall Cottages about 4pm. Just two semi-detached cottages set remotely on a working farm, and lots of wide open space and fields around us :-)

That brown box at the side is the hot-tub and after unloading the car and having a cuppa we all got in the bubbling warm water, yes even me (for anyone who doesn't know me personally that's a big deal for many reasons).

View from the bedroom is very distracting! Horses, foals, pheasants, moorhens and lots and lots of swallows.

We'd had a meal rather than a snack at lunchtime but thought we'd go and find the local pub which had rave reviews in the cottage guest book. The menu looked so good, as did the food on the tables of other diners that we all had another dinner and the reviews were not wrong!

Saturday 9th -

We imagined how Skipsea Castle had been while looking at the grassy mound in the rain. Thanks to my two strong men I made it over the stile. 

Bridlington beach - lovely long prom and beautiful beach, all very clean. 

Flamborough Head - wild and windy but great. 

FriendsN&T ventured all the way there, I actually stopped at the sign as it said very steep path for 3/4 mile, Hubby kept me company. Seems I made the right decision as they told us the vegitation they had to walk through was higher than friendN so I'd have been totally lost! 

Getting back after 6pm and tired, two jumped in the hot-tub then the men went out for Chinese takeaway and there was masses! 

Sunday 10th - Late start as very heavy rain first thing followed by little showers so we didn't rush. It was decided to be a no-drive day so when it brightened up we'd find the nearest pub walking through the fields, think it's about a mile away. 

Sun out, great walk, fantastic views! Shame when we got there the pub didn't serve food, but two drinks each and two packets of crisps and a packet of peanuts between us made it all perfect lol. 

Sat for ages outside the pub, enjoyed the walk back just as much in glorious sunshine. T used the hot-tub even though it had started raining again and we all relaxed with me knitting, N reading, T sitting in the corner on his ipad so he could stay plugged in and Hubby watching Andy win the Wimbledon men's singles. Dinner was in a village called Escrick at the Fat Abbot pub, Sunday roast yummy! Very slight detour on the way back, mainly because N forgot to look at the satnav even though she insisted that she was showing us all the village duck pond lol. 

Monday 11th - Castle Howard

Tuesday 12th -  A sunny, warm dry day yippee! Today we did the Moors, Whitby, Robin Hood's Bay and lots of points between :-)

Having had a Whitby fish and chip dinner at lunch time we bought snack food for an evening in after the daily hot-tub session! 

Wednesday 13th - Had another busy day, today was in York. So much to see and a buzzy happy atmosphere. The Shambles and The Castle Museum of course! 

Another local pub for dinner and as it had a dart board we used it, wife swapped to make our teams then won one game of 501 each team so decided to leave on a draw! 

Thursday 14th - We decided on a relaxing day because of the early start and long drive home tomorrow. So just a little local drive to our neighbouring air field as we've watched all the light aircraft overhead. Unfortunately it all looked very private so we didn't stop. We did however stop at The Jug And Bottle which is a booze and deli shop highly recommended in the visitors book, and we bought some goodies for lunch and some to take home. After lunch it was lazing outside in the sunshine, reading for us girls and snoozing for the guys. Such lovely weather I even put my shorts on! 

This afternoon a couple of games of KUBB 

The girls lost (I'm the biggest handicap)! Hahaha facebook brought up the memory of us four playing KUBB a day later one year ago! 

Another lovely pub dinner (apart from the ladybird in my salad).

Friday 15th - All packed early, time for breakfast to use up bread, milk etc that won't keep and pack up the rest, then on the road and a good drive home. Comfort/tea/coffee stop in a service station, then later stop for lunch at Krazy Horses motorbike retailers in Bury St Edmund that has a great American style diner. Then home having had a great holiday. Thank you friendsN&T we love you both x

So so tragic that tonight instead of feeling happy, relaxed and content we are reflecting and worried about the attack in Nice killing so many and the news about the military coup in Turkey!   :-(

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Pigs, Plays, Parenting, Presents and new Projects.........

And obviously procrastination as it is taking me sooooo long to write this post!!! Now in panic as tomorrow we go on holiday so I'll have to start the next post!

Yet another busy week (edit to say I'm talking over a week ago), Daughter with E and O are Tudors again for the whole week so as usual R moves in with us.

Last Saturday Daughter was home briefly with O for drama as it was their final rehearsal day, then they left to return to the year 1593 while I stayed to watch R's performance. It was very good, especially as they had lost many of the cast, had very little rehearsal and were tackling The Tempest to just an audience of four! Starting the play telling the story with shadow puppets was very clever.

That Saturday afternoon was our street party to celebrate the Queen's 90th. Thank goodness for large gazebos as it got wetter and wetter the tables and chairs got closer and closer under shelter, but everybody stayed and we had a great time.

We didn't do a great deal all week but did go out every day. Wednesday R had her college induction day ready to start September. She loved it.

Another day we went into town as pigs had invaded our town centre along with yarn-bombing

Just a few of the 69 pigs.

I've been busy crafting for babies. NieceVJH received her parcel by post

Now I'm busy working on the baby gift for my friend's newest grandchild who caught me out as she arrived five weeks premature (no photos until they've received it). And there's another family baby due in September I need to craft for next.

The following Saturday was O's first drama group performance, thankfully to a larger audience. Here he is in costume

Amazed at these flowers that were bought for me a month ago. I had them a week then as we were going on holiday (that was the Wales Holiday) I gave them to my neighbour to enjoy, when we came home so did my vase of flowers, and today, four weeks after they were bought, they look like this

We fitted in a visit to nieceVJH (long drive to Surrey and even longer drive home) but all worth it for lots and lots of cuddles. Big boy just four weeks old and so snugly! 

Hubby had decided to fix the shed which is letting in water by recladding the outside, and he decided to do it six days before we go on holiday. Monday we had our usual coffee morning so he lost half a day. And our trip to Surrey lost him another whole day. He removed the planks from the front to discover lots of the frame was rotten making twice as much work! I didn't get close enough to take before/during/after photos as I was a bit peeved he hadn't waited till after our holiday so I didn't have so much to do by myself, like setting up garden coffee morning (beautiful sunny day) which means moving lots of furniture etc, and all the washing ironing and packing, which then took on some urgency when I discovered we were going on holiday Friday and all along I'd thought we were booked for Saturday. So lucky I noticed in time not to keep our friendsN&T waiting on the drive while we frantically packed lol

Also today we had a lovely lunchtime meet up with friends

Hubby finished and secured the shed 10 mins before leaving home for this lunch and tomorrow we go on holiday! This evening Hubby is out on a bloodrunners fundraising event and I've finished packing, charged up and packed all our gadgets, emptied the fridge and all the bins round the house and put the wheely bin down the drive for the morning, watered the house plants and spent a little time with Daughter when she came here to teach a recorder pupil....and write this. 

Phew, think I've caught up at last. 

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Happy Birthday Ma'am......

Despite the heavy rain we celebrated the Queen's 90th birthday, street party style (squashed into our garage and thank goodness Hubby had use of two large gazebos)

Theatre: A Midsummer Night's Dream.......

Sir Trevor Nunn returns to his home town to direct William Shakespeare’s comedy of mismatched love.

Patron of the New Wolsey Theatre, and former Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, he has thus far directed 36 of Shakespeare’s 37 plays, with this production completing the collection.

A Midsummer Night's Dream is one of the Elizabethan writer’s most popular plays, enjoyed worldwide by audiences and school children alike. A play dedicated to magic, amazement, theatrics and passion - it showcases the poetry of Shakespeare in an entertaining and accessible way to all, with plenty of humour and audience asides.

As well as marking the theatre’s 15th birthday year, and concluding Sir Trevor’s repertoire of directing Shakespeare, 2016 marks the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, and joins many theatres across the region and UK who will be marking the celebration with groundbreaking productions and festivals.

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Slight change of plans as I'd said yes to a ticket when Daughter asked about two months ago, as it was her and all three children and me so a fun family outing. However the night before I got a call to say Daughter and two children needed to be elsewhere so I was to take R and collect tickets at the box office. I had a quick phone round and neighbourJ said she'd love to use one of the spare tickets but I couldn't find takers for the other two.

Well the three of us loved this performance. It was set in the 1920s in colonial India but with full Shakespeare script. All the actors were brilliant, leads down to children faeries included, and brought each character to life. It was hilarious! The costumes and sets were very well done too.

We went to the matinee and nearly all seats were sold, and there were two large school groups in the audience and by all the cheering at the end they thoroughly enjoyed it too.

Well done to all involved.
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Wales Holiday, 11-18 June 2016.......

All packed and ready Saturday morning, R and O should have gone to their drama class all morning but it was cancelled so we set off a bit earlier than planned. Both Daughter and Hubby were recovering from colds. No traffic problems and we arrived in Wiltshire in good time. This is where Son and his fiancé live and we were en route a bit more than half our total journey to south Wales so a great place to stop and also as R and E were seeing their dad for the weekend it was an easy place for a people swap as their other grandparents were coming up from Dorset to collect them......are you keeping up with all this?

Son and fiancé made us all very welcome of course. Their cottage is very small and they laughed at this being the most people they've had in their home at once. They have a little dog and even invited the other grandparents in for tea along with their dog so she wasn't left in the car. The girls, their grandparents and their dog went off and a bit later Daughter, O, Hubby and I left having been well fed and even came away with food for later  :-)

We reached our holiday cottage in Llansteffan, Carmarthenshire, Wales about 8pm and was met there by the owner who showed us around. By the time we'd cooked and eaten the pizzas Son gave us, and unpacked the car it was time for O to go to bed and actually we followed up soon after.

Sunday started too early for Hubby still full of cold, and O joined him so they both had breakfast long before Daughter and I came down. Definitely no rush as it was raining quite hard. As soon as it eased up we went out for a walk, found the local shops and onto a wonderful beach just minutes away. Loving the location!

We found the biggest barrel jellyfish any of us had ever seen, and there were lots and lots of them over the sand

Lunch on the beach, we each had something and chips from the kiosk. Back home for a cuppa then Daughter drove off to collect R and E while Hubby, O and I watched tv had some dinner then due to the lack of books here O and I told made-up stories for bedtime. After they got back and a quick snack Daughter and the girls went out for a late night walk to the beach and didn't come back until it was really dark.

Monday and another slow start as another wet grey day. Out by about 10:30am and off to see the caves and dinosaurs

Unfortunately my aches and pains got the better of me, so as I'd done the first major cave before lunch I stayed in the cafe with my book while the others went off to do the rest. Even that had its consolation as I'd noticed a young mum struggling with a baby over her shoulder while trying to undress a toddler, so I offered a helping hand and she immediately thrust the baby on me saying I was a life saver, the toddler had had a major drink spillage incident just as her husband had gone off to the toilets, so I enjoyed bonus baby cuddles! Supermarket stop on the way back and then an evening of games and the Captain America film.

Tuesday and I stayed home in the morning while they did the steep walk up to the castle (still raining this morning too). R didn't go with either deciding that her bed was far more inviting. Here are a few of the photos Daughter took

When they came back we all had lunch and while we were deciding what to do for the afternoon it rained and rained, so decision made we stayed in. Actually Daughter and E went out as E wanted some art materials. Dinner tonight was in the local pub and very nice it was too.

Wednesday was a busy day as we went to The National Botanic Gardens of Wales and it rained and rained and rained so lots of running between buildings. R and O couldn't resist the straw maze solving the puzzle then jumping over 

Plenty to see inside the tropical dome too 

We came back and threw pizzas in the oven for dinner and it suddenly got really sunny and warm so after eating out in the garden we took a walk to the beach and while we went for a walk Daughter and E made shell art

Thursday was a bit of a longer drive to Aberdulais Falls and tin mine museum. It's quite compact but really interesting. 

Then it was into Swansea for a mooch around the shops (guess what, still raining). We came back with large dinner of Chinese and Indian ready meals plus vegetarian oven things and ready to bake tear-n-share garlic bread from Tesco which is just when the microwave decided to stop working. Daughter then did an amazing jiggling around to get it all through the oven and onto the table.

Friday we woke to a lovely sunny dry morning but as we'd had two busy days we decided to stay local and let the girls have a lie in. After a brunch/lunch to use up as much food as we could it was time to go out.  R has now got the head cold Hubby has just got over so she decided to stay in today anyway so without her we all set off for the beach, although I didn't get very far before realising my knees were too painful for me to ignore so I turned back insisting that Hubby, Daughter, E and O go on. Tonight's dinner was a bbq in the garden, still so lovely and warm! 

Saturday and it was all up, packed and ready to leave by 9:30am and as luck would have it a dry day, which actually we were pleased about for Daughter driving all that way home. We made just one comfort break at a motorway services and bought food to eat in the car. Home about 3pm!

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