Grannie and Grandpa Move up.

Wow!  We have had a busy couple of weeks, so I'm afraid this is going to be a summary rather than a full description of what we have been up to.

Visiting Santa at Ingleborough Caves

Frank, Finn, Fred, Tom and Sierra

So on Sunday 13th, a gang of us went on our annual pilgrimage to Ingleborough Caves to see Father Christmas.  This is the 3rd time we have done it.  Usually we get there dead on 10am in time to do the walk up to the cave and be first in the queue at 11am.  This year, many other people had had the same thought so we weren't the first and we did have to queue.  Not a problem though, the children were in good spirits and didn't seem to notice they had to wait.  The Santa experience here is very good - first of all you have the walk up thorough the nature trail to the caves and then elves take you through a story of what Santa has been up to etc as you go through the caves.  The children then get to meet Father Christmas who is very good and choose a present - which means they all get something they want.  Anyway it was a lovely experience.  We ended up in the cafe in Clapham for lunch before heading home, then a quick tidy up before Matt and Tom headed to Oxenholme to pick up Grannie.  Unfortunately her train got delayed, so they were stuck waiting for her on the station for a while, but she finally arrived and got home just in time for roast chicken.

Walking Indie

Grannie and Grandpa Move Up
Grannie came up on the train because this was the week when Grannie and Grandpa were moving up to Settle.  Finally all the paperwork was in place and they completed.  Bob stayed behind in London to supervise the packing up of the house, whilst Grannie elected to come up to us to stay away from the chaos.  I had lots of work to do (my last week to get Christmas orders and a big birthday cake finished), so Matt took Grannie out on Monday.  They went to Settle so Matt could show her around and she could familiarise herself with the town as it had been a while since they went house hunting.

Golden Wedding dinner

On Tuesday I managed to clear my work schedule so we could all go over to Settle to help.  Bob was driving up from Warwick, the removal men left London early in the morning and we were on standby waiting for the phone call to say that we could collect the keys.  By 10.30 we hadn't heard anything but as we were all hanging round we decided to head to Settle so we were at least in place when the phone call came.  We got there, went to see the Estate Agent, no joy so we went for tea and a bun.  As we were tucking in, the removal men phoned to say they had arrived and the Estate Agent phoned to say we could collect the keys.  Hurray, so we quickly finished our snacks and headed to the house.  The house was in a better state than I was expecting, they had at least vacuumed downstairs.  However, first hurdle: no electricity and no heating.  It took me and Matt quite a long while to get any electricity to work - all through trial and error but we got the lights on and some sockets working.  We had no luck with the boiler at all, but found a note with a name and number saying to call if any post addressed to her arrived, so we gave her a call.  Turns out she was the last tenant - from New York of all places, she turned up pretty soon after we called her and showed us around the house, telling us all about the quirks it has.  She tried for a long while to get the boiler working - but with no luck.  So, no hot water and no heating.  She did know of a heating engineer though who agreed to come out on Friday to have a look.

The lads

In the meantime the removal men were keen to start unloading and also Bob turned up - he hit the ground running as we were sorting out boiler, electricity and talking to the American lady all at the same time.  The removal men were very good and unloaded the vans pretty quickly.  Matt went back to Ingleton to collect Tom from school whilst I unpacked the kitchen stuff.  By 4 o'clock, we had got as far as we could, so we said our goodbyes, went to Booth's to get a quick dinner and Bob and Pat booked into the B & B across the road.

The rest of the week was spent finishing off my orders and helping Pat and Bob.  Matt went over to Settle on Wednesday, he and Bob then went on a mammoth trip down to Warwick to get the cats on Thursday whilst Jude and I went to see Pat.  Pat and Bob then got a call from the heating engineer saying he wouldn't be coming after all on Friday!  On arriving home, I got straight on to social media and asked for help.  Loads of advice came my way and by the time we went to bed we had an electrician heading for them at 8am Friday morning.  Friday we both stayed at home - I had people dropping by all day to pick up their Christmas orders.  Friday evening we headed back to Settle as it was Pat and Bob's 50th Wedding Anniversary - so we all went out for dinner at The Craven Arms - very nice it was too.

Dressed up

We had a quiet weekend, then on Monday we all headed down to Southport for Shelm's funeral.  It was a quiet and understated affair, but the grief was all too apparent, it is never nice to see loved ones upset.  Luckily Tom wasn't upset, so he helped cheer up people and was an easy talking point / ice breaker with members of the family we haven't seen for a long while.  We then headed back up the motorway, we dropped Matt off at Caton, and then Tom and I headed up to Penrith and Center Parcs at Whinfell Forest where we were sharing a house with the Bickerstaffs. It was past 6pm by the time we checked in, dropped off our stuff, parked up and walked back to our lodge.  Luckily the Bickerstaffs were on cooking duty and curry was on the table was we walked in.  We were very happy and dug in.  It had been a tiring day - emotionally.  I got changed out of my black clothes, Tom played with Jack and Seth and we all relaxed.  The boys went to bed pretty well and we weren't too far behind them.

Tom, Seth and Jack at Center Parcs

Tuesday was spent pretty much all in the pool.  Tom loved it and did it all:  the slides, the wave pool, the rapids and just general larking about.  We kept bumping into people we knew which was funny - Lauren and her family were there and another family from school who I recognised but don't know.  I think we were 5.5 hours in the pool in the end, stopping only for lunch (chips in the pool cafe) and children's activities: blow up speed boats for Tom and Seth and underwater jet pack for Jack.  All good, we all had fun.  We then went back to the lodge via Santa's grotto which was beautifully laid out - lots of fairy lights, real reindeer, etc etc .  I was on cooking duty - so a big bowl of mac cheese and veggies was made and demolished, the boys watched a film, went to bed and once again we weren't far behind.

Wednesday we packed up and then went back to the pool for more fun.  We had lunch and then parted and headed home.  I got home about 1.5 hours before Jude and Craig, just long enough to get the kitchen straight before they arrived.  Christmas had officially started as we had guests.