Telford Weekend

Sorry for being so behind again, I had a heavy weekend after which I got ill so I haven't really had the energy to to do much in the evening - Tom has been wearing me out!

On Friday we dropped Matt off at Ribblehead Station on Friday lunchtime for his week in London (ITI Conference at the weekend and interpreting at Chelsea Flower Show for Mr Kuroda on the Wednesday).  We then headed down to Telford for the weekend.  Sammie wanted to plan a surprise weekend for my 40th, but it didn't work out so I thought I would visit them instead whilst Matt was away.

We had a surprisingly easy journey down to Telford, considering it was Friday afternoon - took under 3

Tom and Mae

Hugging

hours.  Tom was under strict orders to fall asleep - I told him he could sleep in the car or not be allowed to stay up late, he decided staying up was the better option and nodded off for an hour.  First stop was to see Rachel, Mae and Lucy (as Sammie works on a Friday) so we went to their house for a play and dinner and then Tom, Mae and Lucy had a bath together and got into their pyjamas whilst I waited for Sammie to give me the nod that she was home.

Tom and Mae still recognised each other and played really nicely together.  It was lovely to see them - they both have gentle natures and recognise this in each other.  Mae tried to get Tom to dress up as a witch, for the first time Tom said no, because boys don't wear dresses: male stereotyping has begun (although it isn't too bad, his favourite colour is still pink!)  They both ate up well for dinner as well - Tom even ate olives that Rachel gave him - which I know he's not all that keen on - well done him (although I think he adores Rachel so much he'll do pretty much anything for her)

Bedtime Bouncing

When Phil came home, Mae introduced Tom to her wrestling Daddy game, before too long both of them were giving him a hard time - both were giggling and giggling  - poor Phil - he had to work very hard.

Sammie didn't get home until 7.30 - so we said our goodbyes quickly (Tom as is usual these days didn't say goodbye very nicely as he was enjoying himself so much) and headed over to Ketley to see her.

On arrival to Sammie, the kids went mad - Sophie and Jen were very excited to see us and Tom latched on to the excitement and went mad too.  In a bid to calm them down, Sammie put Kiki on and ordered them to sit still on the sofa and watch it.  They did.  In fact, Sophie fell asleep on me - but it was 10pm - yes 10pm before they went to bed, Tom was still protesting that he wasn't tired, but submitted in the end.

Saturday morning we spent with Sammie, Jen and Sophie not doing much - just hanging around, playing.  One of Sophie's toys is a microphone - all the children had a go at performing their favourite songs on it.  I wasn't sure that Tom would go for it - but not only did he enjoy it - he tried to monopolise it.  I couldn't quite believe it - so filmed it for you - have a look at the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLNqJzxwtac

Jen had a dance performance in the afternoon, so we said our goodbyes to them at lunchtime, headed over to Asda for a quick lunch and then a long drive to Wonderland.  I say long drive to Wonderland because Tom was very short on sleep and not particularly well behaved in the morning, I needed him to have a good sleep before meeting up with Mae and co for the afternoon so he would be on good form.  It worked, he fell asleep and managed a good 1.5 hours before Mae turned up.

Tom and Mae on the train

Jake, Tom and Mae

In all our time in Telford, we never went to Wonderland, Rachel has a season ticket to the place and some money off vouchers, both Mae and Lucy enjoy it, so it seemed the most stress free option for the afternoon, also Mae wanted to show Tom around.  It was really good and lots of fun.  The place is full of mini rides, all of which are included in the price of the ticket, so you can go on as many times as you please.  That's exactly what the kids did - in fact some rides, Tom didn't get off, he just stayed on and went again and again.  He really enjoyed himself.

I was hoping to meet up with Helen and Jake whilst in Telford and was lucky in that they found a window on Saturday afternoon and came down to Wonderland to meet with us.  Was lovely to see them all - including not so little Thomas who is certainly a very bouncy baby.

Sometimes when you get 3 children together, two go off and one gets left out.  This didn't happen which was so good, one minute Tom and Jake were playing together, then Tom and Mae which lead to a very harmonious afternoon.  We all had fun, the kids had fun, it was a great afternoon and the time went very very quickly.

On the caterpillar ride

On the carousel

Before we knew it, it was time to say goodbye.  Was sad to say goodbye to Mae and Lucy, but Rachel has promised to come and visit over Summer.  I'm so happy that Tom and Mae still get on so well, they just click back into being friends again when they see each other - lets hope this continues.

Huddled up on the sofa

We got back to Sammie's in time for the kids to make homemade pizzas - they then huddled on the sofa together to watch the rest of Kiki and were early to bed.



This was good as at 7.30 Rachel and Sarah came round for a girlie night in,  it was also Eurovision night, so we ordered in a Chinese takeaway, poured ourselves some wine and sat back chatting about everything and nothing, critiquing Eurovision and generally having a good giggle.  Was a lovely evening - I miss my girlie chats at the moment, it always takes quite a while to get to that stage in a friendship.

Anyhow, I rolled into bed happy.

Tom and Becca

On Sunday we said our goodbyes to Sammie and the girls and then went to visit Rose, Paul, Hannah & Becca for a couple of hours.  They were all well - Tom went off with the girls, whilst I sat and chatted with Rose and Paul in the garden - yes in the garden as the sun was out - hurray.

We headed back up North at lunchtime, the plan was to detour via Morecambe as it was so nice.  The motorway had other plans.  It was blocked from junction 17 to 22 - so we came off and went cross country.  Not much fun, but at least we kept moving.  However, it added 2 extra hours to the journey, so we didn't make the beach and just came straight home.  Such a shame, I was exhausted (2 nights of bad sleep) so we went to the Co-op bought a ready meal and went early to bed.