Manchester Markets

In the man cave

Sorry folks, I have got very very behind with the blog as I've been crocheting Rudolphs with every spare moment.  They are all done now though and I'm winning with my baking, so now I can catch up - although of course I will have forgotten everything we have done!

First to report is our Manchester weekend.  Tom had football practise in the morning as usual - it took place at Burton in Lonsdale Astroturf as the pitch was frozen!  It was freezing cold, so Matt and I headed into Bentham for coffee and a cake before retrieving him - he was fine - been running around and nice and warm whilst the parents who stayed were frozen!

Tom and Rosa

We headed straight to Manchester.  First stop (of course) was Wing Yip as we were all hungry.  We ate very well (as usual) filling up with huge amounts of Dim Sum - I think we knew what most of them were as well this time!  Next stop was the supermarket where we replenished our Asian food stocks - we had our rather fab electric eskimo with us this time so we were able to buy chilled goods as well.  Next stop was Go Outdoors, where we ended up buying quite a few bits and pieces we didn't realise we needed (as usual) and then we rocked up at the Komorowskis.  Adam wasn't there as he was returning from getting some colleagues out of prison in Turkey (long story) but he got back early evening.  Leia was also absent as she was at drama school, so it was me, Matt, Karen, Tom and Rosa. Unfortunately Tom and Rosa didn't really play together so it was a bit of a wait until Leia returned, once she did Tom was off and happy.

Amazing fudge stall

Once Adam returned, he showed Matt and Tom his new man cave (shed) in the garden.  Wow!  It is a shrine to Chelsea Football Club, Star Wars and Dr Who.  All very well done and certainly a place for him to escape the girls in the house!  Funnily the house emptied and just me and Karen were in the house!  We had a very lovely lamb tagine for tea.  For various reasons we were all quite shattered so went to bed relatively early for a night staying with friends.  The kids were very good - went to bed and straight to sleep without any high jinks which was lovely.

Sunday we headed out to browse the Christmas markets.  There were loads, and because we weren't expecting to go shopping we did quite well - bought ourselves another moose/reindeer for the lounge (he's been named Barnsley), we all had bratwurst for lunch with mulled wine (for me and Matt) and purchased fudge from the most amazing fudge stall I've ever seen (for R&D purposes of course!)

We headed back home in the afternoon with a car full of purchases - we always buy more when we don't expect to!  Tom slept the whole way home!!!!!