Weekend away

Wow!  What beautiful weather we have enjoyed this week - in the high 20s, deep blue sky and sunshine

The Manor House, Eardisland

On Friday we headed down to the very picturesque village Eardisland in Herefordshire to meet up with the Chester Shell crew who we enjoyed a nice weekend with last year (we seem to have been accepted into the crowd).  Sara had found a gorgeous black and white manor house in the centre of the village for us to lodge in.  12 bedrooms, huge gardens, hot tub and very comfortable.  We made ourselves at home, met Jessica (Sara's new baby - who is 9 months old), very cute.  Before too long Maggie, Tamsin and Jenny turned up with Lisa.  We thought that Tom and Tamsin would want to play with each other again (as it was only 3 weeks ago they last saw each other), but Tom was too shy and Tamsin too full of energy.  Nevermind, we found Tom some curry and gave him dinner which he gulped down.

He ran around the house enough to accept going to bed without any trouble (phew) so we had a good relaxing evening eating curry with the 20 others in the party.

Saturday we went to the local National Trust property, Berrington Hall, it was ridiculously hot!  Had to put suncream and sun hats on.  We had a little look round the property and a picnic with the others under a tree, but then decided to go back to the house - Tom didn't sleep very well on Friday night (he was in the same room as us) and was grumpy.  So, we put him down for a nap and then went for a dip in the hot tub (which would have been relaxing if we hadn't had to share it with 3 excited little girls)  Oh well, they seemed to enjoy it.

We lazed around in the afternoon playing in the garden (there was a trampoline in the garden which Tom enjoyed playing on as long as no-one else was on it and he wasn't made to jump on it!)  The men then set the bbqs alight whilst we did bath and bedtime with Tom.  By the time we came down, food was ready which was fab.  We then had a relaxing evening before retiring to our wonderfully comfortable beds.

Sunday we had a lazy morning including two dips with Tom in the hot tub which he loved before heading back.

Nik & Tom by the River Arrow

We didn't really do that much this weekend, but it was nice to be somewhere different with nice people and very good for Tom to be surrounded by so many people - as is usual, he just began to relax with everyone as we left on Sunday.  He did do quite well though during the weekend, I on purpose took a back step and tried to back out of playing with him to try to get him to play either with himself or the other children - there were plenty of them and they were all willing to play with him, but a little too rough for his liking.  Maybe next year he will be big enough and confident enough to play with them.


Oh today he showed signs of wanting to brush his teeth rather than just chewing his toothbrush:0)