Sleepover

Caitlin, Tom and a mammoth

This weekend was quite busy.

Friday night I went out for a drink and dinner with Sal, Jo and Liz from school.  I hadn't been out with them before so was slightly nervous, but wow, did we have a good time.  Alcohol flowed, conversation didn't dry up at all.  We had a quick appetiser at The Old Post Office, then tea at La Cascada and then back to The Old Post Office until closing time.  I then got physically dragged to The Bottom Club where some young lads bought us some drinks as it was past 11pm.  I got given a pint of cider and black!  I haven't drunk that since I was 20 something.  In fact we all got given 'student' drinks - and spent the rest of the night laughing about things we did as students / 20 somethings whilst the young lads looked on at us (we - well I was a good 20 years older than them!)

Yawning lion

Considering the amount I drank I think I did very well on Saturday!  Tom and I got the bus to Settle to do some birthday shopping for Matt.  I was still very much over the limit so not willing to drive anywhere!  Matt's cricket was rained off, so he drove to Settle to catch up with us - we then went to Feizor for lunch - sausage and egg butty for me to try to soak up the excess alcohol.  Somehow we left with another Highland Cow?!  Percy is now making himself at home in the kitchen.

Snotty orang utan

At 5pm, we had a visitor - Caitlin.  She was coming over for a sleep over in return for the one Tom had with her during half term.  Now, I am not a natural when it comes to having friends round for a play - mainly because other children have different boundaries to those we have set with Tom, which means that they are hard to control!  We've had horrendous eaters round, children that are happy to destroy our property, that don't stop when asked to etc etc.  Don't get me wrong, most of the children are delightful, but they get really giddy when visiting other people's houses so lots of bad behaviour comes out.  Caitlin is the exception to the rule though.  She didn't get giddy, ate up her (pre-ordered) lasagna very well and then she and Tom spread out on a sofa watching Jungle Book - we didn't have to intervene at all - in fact it was relaxing having her around.  They went to bed very nicely (and once Tom stopped talking they went to sleep).  They stayed in their room in the morning until 8.30 and then were well behaved even though they were both tired (they didn't go to sleep until 10pm). 

Silverback gorilla

We went to Blackpool Zoo for the day as we had vouchers for it.  It was a lot bigger than we expected and had pretty much every animal going including an elephant.  Both children were well behaved, but very different.  Tom wanted to look and watch the animals, whilst Caitlin was more interested in ticking off what she had seen on a list.  Anyway, the time went extremely quickly whilst we saw giraffes, tigers, lions, oragutans, gorillas, deer, zebras, kangaroos, wallabies etc etc - so much so that we had to scoot round the last bit in an attempt to get back home at a reasonable time - it was a school night after all.  We had a bit of a eventful trip back as Caitlin got travel sick - but she was so calm about it and once out she was fine.  We dropped her off at Grandma Jan's where we had a chat before returning home ourselves, as we had a grumpy boy on our hands.  A quick tea of smoked salmon and cheese and biscuits and Tom went to bed telling us how awake he was - he was asleep within minutes.

Giant anteater

So, a success, it was nice to spend the day with a girlie.