Whinfell Weekend

Mummy and Daddy head out to Whinfell Forest on Friday night (just after 6pm) to celebrate with Dafit and Jilly for their 15th wedding anniversary. We arrived at just before 8pm and walked up to the apartment with our gear. Like most times, daddy got it all wrong and so we should have simply driven up to the apartment and then brought the car BACK to the car park but nevermind.

The boys were staying at home in Ossett and Granny Cuckoo and Nard came over to look after them.

The weather was simply terrific with sun all day on Saturday even that far North πŸ™‚ so sunburn a plenty πŸ™‚

We had a few cheeky beers as the day progressed, but only two before setting foot on the Segway experience – my word how much fun can be had on two rugged wheels πŸ™‚ Dafit managed to have Simon crash and burn in the first 10 minutes as he was not paying attention as Dafit slowed to a stop in front of him…. 😐

45 minutes later we stepped off the Segway X2’s with that moment crossing each of ourminds – “Wonder how much they cost….” soon forgotten as we head back to the nearest bar for the start of the rest of the afternoon.

We made it to dinner somehow having spent an hour or so sat out on the grass with 90’s music blaring and beverages and peanuts a plenty being consumed. Dinner was lovely with four steaks and you guessed it – more beverages.

The Sports bar was our next target although Dafit decided it would be a good idea to show his “willies” – he meant wheelies on his bike but of course we weren’t letting him get away with that one – somewhere there is a recording of his efforts although to be honest it isn’t worth wasting your time to watch it πŸ˜‰

The sports bar gave Jilly the chance to shine with her karaoke (we took our own music on a phone and just sang along) and dancing – the running man being particularly impressive πŸ™‚ There were several families who will not be forgetting the performance in a hurry. In fact Vicky has just this evening received a text from Jilly who has been accosted by an unknown female at the resort who was congratulating the dancing from the previous night – great result πŸ™‚

Finally we head over to the Lakeside Inn for a final scoop – as Simon was selecting his chosen tippled, Dafit decided to try to read the name of it from the bottle. It was a Jennings Sneck Lifter from Cumbria – accordingly to Dafit’s eyes, this was actually a Snatch Lifter – had the barman in tears as he removed the lid from the cheeky bottle of Snatch Lifter πŸ™‚

It was a BIG day so when we all hit the ay at just after 12:30, I don’t think any of us remember much until almost 10am this morning.

We had booked ourselves into the Field Archery at 1pm so plenty of time for a mega breakfast at the Sports bar – thankfully no-one from the previous night was there so we avoided any issues over dancing or karaoke.

The field Archery was INCREDIBLE – the guide (Alex) was spot on with lots of laughter and puns along the way. We would definitely do the archery again should we find ourselves in a position to be able to do so.

Then it was the 2 hour drive home in Charlie to get back to the kids and Grandma / Nard.

Fish finger sandwiches and ice-creams sorted dinner out, bath and then bed for the boys.

Sadly poor Olly seems to have a temperature so we have a feeling he may not be available for school in the morning – let’s just wait and see.

Finally, we have found out that Granddad rugby tackled one of Oliver’s classmates dads at a birthday party that both boys attended on Saturday – we are wondering if we are going to need to apologise or perhaps we just won’t bump into him next week…. 😐

Apparently he was cheating at the game they were playing so a rugby tackle was required to stop him and allow Elliot to take the flag for victory….

Weekend in London

We have just returned from 30 hours in London town, having left on the 7:18 train on Saturday morning from Wakefield to Kings Cross.

We had a SUPER busy day on Saturday starting with Bacon butties, croissants and homework – that’s right we made them do their homework on the journey down – let’s face it, they had precious little else to do since we had also banned iPads from making the journey (well except for daddy’s which was to be used for the online homework that Olly had to do :-)).

Straight on the tube and over to the Tower of London and Tower bridge (writing this makes me realise we missed London bridge… (doh), before getting back on the tube and heading over to the London Eye for a trip up into the clouds to see the city from way above. The boys were really apprehensive about the London Eye but seemed to really enjoy it once we go up there πŸ™‚

We went through the 4D experience at the Eye before walking over to Big Ben for the clock to strike 12 – then watched a couple of marching bands playing down Whitehall πŸ™‚ This of course meant that Whitehall was closed off to the public so we walked along the banks of the Thames before heading back “inland” to Trafalgar Square for lunch.

From there we walked to Leicester Square for M&M’s World (a fantastic 4 storey M7M’s shop) where we found out just how much stuff a company can make around s SINGLE brand item πŸ˜€

We even managed to get some personalised goodies for a certain birthday that is coming up tomorrow – hope they are liked πŸ™‚ The process of personalisation was very interesting to be part of but the cost was utterly outrageous really… πŸ™

Then, we jumped on board a 453 bus to take us over to Madamme Tussauds to get tickets arranged for the following morning, only to find that we could go right in – we decided it would enable us to have a much more relaxed Sunday morning so dived right in.

We were in Madamme Tussauds for a little over an hour and a half and had begun to wonder if the cost was worth it – THEN we got a ride through the ages (from 1600’s) which was really good and then finally onto the Avengers 4D experience – it was utterly awesome.

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Back on the 453 bus to take us to (the boys main event) Hamleys, the 5 floor mega toy shop. By this time, the lunch was trying to run from daddy’s lower body – shegits a plenty – thankfully there was a suitable disposal unit, sadly it was on the fifth floor…

The boys actually behaved impeccably in the store and that is some going given we were in there for well over an hour πŸ™‚

We made the 1.0 mile walk to the hotel (Marriott Grosvenor Square) through a reasonable amount of complaining (that was easily rectified with a statement that the toys could always go back to Hamleys πŸ™‚

The hotel was lovely – we had a suite so the boys would potentially be sleeping on the foldout bed in the main room and we would be in the bedroom – it ended up with Elliot in with mummy and daddy (as neither of them were sleeping) and then mummy went in with Olly as he was crying from about 11pm πŸ™

Dinner was at our favourite Pizza Express just off Oxford Street (near Bond Street) and then back for bed. We were all shattered as had done a ton of walking around the city and had pretty much worn ourselves out. The Limoncello and pink champagne helped mummy and daddy with their tiredness πŸ™‚

Today was just a case of heading out after a relaxing bath for breakfast – we found a really cute little waffle house called Pure Waffles just near the hotel and they did some wonderful waffles for us. We then walked on to Oxford Street to find most shops didn’t open until midday (an hour before our train home) so that left us a little out of luck. As we wandered down Oxford Street we found a store that was FULL of sweets from america (among other places) and they had TWO floors of candy !!! So we were in there fore about 30 minutes as we perused their goodies and selected a few little gems to take with us πŸ™‚ We found some mint double stuffed Oreos that we used to LOVE in California – they were a mere 9 UK pounds – so only 4 times the cost in the US !!!! We will have to lock them away, else they will be gone before the day is out πŸ™‚

Then a number 10 bus as our feet (and mummy and daddy’s ears) had endured enough, we got off at Kings Cross Station, found some sandwiches and crisps for lunch and waited for the train.

We really had a fun weekend despite the expected whinging when not in a toy shop or while walking πŸ™‚ – next city, Edinburgh in the summer we think.

Take a look at some of the photos from the weekend below:

Home » Weekend in London » Holidays » London Trip - April 2015
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Photo’s from Bridlington weekend

Here’s the selection of photographs that we managed to snap while away – hoping to combine these with the photos that the others took to get a more comprehensive record of the weekend πŸ™‚

   
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Fantastic Weekend in Bridlington

We have just returned from a fantastic 4 day / 3 night stay in a wonderful house in Bridlington to celebrate Caroline’s 40th birthday.

We all arrived at the John Bull Rock Factory on Friday lunchtime for a bite to eat in the cafe, followed by a tour of the rock factory (and roll our own rock πŸ™‚ ), before a quick hour in the play centre for the kids to burn off excess energy. Finally at around 4pm, we headed to the house – Foremans Cottage near the town of Bridlington – a house that would be home for the following 3 nights and that could comfortably fit all 10 of us πŸ™‚

The house was immaculate and we immediately all felt at home with the kids all disappearing off to play and explore the rooms while the adults flipped coins to determine who was going to sleep in which rooms before unpacking and preparing dinner and beers / wine πŸ™‚

On Saturday the girls all went out for a 4 hour Spa session at a nice Hotel Spa in Scarborough and the boys (and kids) off into Bridlington for some time on the beach. Of course Elliot almost immediately got himself soaked in the waves as per usual πŸ™‚ The boys cricketed for around an hour with Gracie and Jessica while Elliot and Oliver played with the sand toys and (of course) water. Lunch was of course Fish and Chips and the boys then head over to Scarborough to find the restaurant (where we would have dinner later) to deliver some party goodies (balloons etc).

We all met up again at the cottage at around 3pm to relax a little before heading out to dinner for a 6pm start. Just before departing Simon got the Parrot AR Drone out – flew it for all of 4 minutes and the wind caught hold of it and whipped it away into the farmers fields over the barn by the side of the house. After checking with the farmer that it would be OK to try to find it, Lee and Simon went in search – no avail. They even searched for 40 minutes the following day covering about a square mile – no joy πŸ™ Oh well, the thing only seemingly was getting used once a year so tough luck…

Dinner at Giovanni’s in Scarborough was lovely and we were soon back in the cottage for more wine πŸ™‚ We learned about shimmying up on Saturday night as well πŸ™‚  

On Sunday we all went out for a lovely walk in the morning (lots of whinging from the kids – tired legs. bored etc etc) and we covered about 4 or 5 miles across the fields near the house. Then in the afternoon the sun came out and we all played swingball and various other games outside with (you guessed) it more beer and wine flowing. It turned out to be one of the nicest (if not THE nicest) weather days of 2015 so far and it was certainly the nicest day of 2015 – very relaxing in the sunshine in peace and tranquility with great friends.

Monday soon came around and was pack up day as we needed to be out of the cottage by 10am, so we head back into Bridlington for some arcade fun – well we thought it would be fun but of course those grabbing machines became our evil enemy causing all but one of the kids to shed tears due to not winning anything…. We will never learn from our mistakes with these things…

A quick game of crazy golf for the kids and lunch and it was soon time to head home. We nipped over to Flamborough Head to checkout the lighthouse quickly before venturing onto the roads home.

The journey back was pretty eventless and relatively quick (certainly quicker than our trip in the opposite direction just 4 days earlier) and we are not nicely relaxed and ready for a mega sleep tonight before work re-commences in the morning.

Massive thanks to the mummies for arranging the weekend and to the kids for behaving almost impeccably all weekend. Here’s to doing it again soon πŸ™‚

Weekend at CentreParcs in the Lakes

We set off right as school finished on Friday, dropped off Pepsi for a weekend at Grannie’s in Halifax and then got on the way to Whinfell Forest, just next to Penrith in Cumbria.

A weekend of frollocking and fun with the Thompson’s was on plan and the kids were SUPER excited.

We stopped to get the boys some McD’s in Skipton and got back on the road heading North. We arrived at the location just before 7:30pm and WOW, what a great place – checking was a drive through affair where there was very little to do other than confirm that we were indeed the Rust party of 4 (they already had the car details so knew who we were well in advance) and take our keys (little hand straps to open doors, lockers and even pay for things in certain locations) and the map and we were on our way. It was a little dark around the park, so finding our way and then unpacking the car in the dark was a little painful, but all done in just a few minutes. Sadly daddy had not properly secured his bike so it had clattered against mummy’s bike on the way and broken off the water bottle holder and the bike lock that we were to use for locking the bikes up at the lodge.

The lodge was AWESOME – a two story affair with 4 big bedrooms and a massive living space in the downstairs. We took the upstairs and quickly the boys and mummy got settled in while David showed daddy where to dump Bruce for the rest of the weekend.

We had a lovely meal (the adults) and the beer was flowing nicely so we all retired at just before midnight as a big day was going to be starting soon. Then it happened, Olly was up at around 2:30am and so we took him in with us for the remainder of the night – then he was up again at 6am, being sick – not good. Then he told us that he had been sick in his own bed, and sure enough the poor monkey had been a little. So after cleaning it up, it became clear that poor Olly was not well and was unlikely to be getting better any time soon πŸ™

He wanted to stay in bed so we knew immediately that this was to be a problem for us all πŸ™ Mummy staying in the lodge with Olly while daddy went swimming with Elliot and the Thomson’s.

The facilities at the centre were all undercover which was really nice and the pool area was really really good. Elliot and daddy made use of all the slides and pool areas, including the outdoor slide (which was really hot considering it was so chilly out) AND the outdoor pool which again was really hot (almost like a bath) and fun.

When we returned to the lodge, it was clear that Olly was still very unwell (he had managed to get to sleep so we left him to sleep for an hour or so) and that he was not going to be coming outside today πŸ™

Elliot and daddy went to the tree top trek with the Thompson’s while mummy stayed in with Olly (mummy didn’t fancy the trek so was OK with being couped up longer) and we rearranged the SPA session that Julie and Mummy were supposed to be enjoying for Sunday afternoon.

We had a great time on the trek and whil Elly was unsure in the first half of the session (he and daddy went last in the group of 6), he wanted to lead the second (the BIG section) and once he got going, there was no stopping him – hopefully the video that daddy took with his SunnyCam glasses (new ones were returned to him just this week following their breakdown in Llandegla in January) will be spot on and show him shooting off like a pro.

The final zipwire was a load of fun and all had a great time.

We managed to get Olly out for dinner at Hucks in the village centre, but sadly he was sick again in the night πŸ™

We managed to get all of us out on the bikes on Sunday morning for an hour or two and so got some fresh air which definitely helped Olly.

We set off for home once mummy had been to relax in the SPA (about 5:15pm) and got home at just before 7:30pm, in time for bath before stories and bed. Daddy nipped back to Halifax to pick up Pepsi just in case we had more sickness with Olly overnight (hence we would not have been able to collect the poor old mutt πŸ™ ) and the weekend was over.

So, sadly, we were not able to really enjoy the park for all it was, although it was still a great weekend with great friends – just hope that we haven’t put them off doing it again some time…