December

           

Even though we were mega busy in December, we managed to have some fab weekend breaks.

The first weekend saw us in Doncaster at the Yorkshire Wildlife Park for their winter illuminations.  This was Matt's 3rd attempt at a 50th birthday present from his folks.  The first atttempt was a cricket match that got rained off and the 2nd attempt was a Diesel train driving day that got delayed because of Covid and then canceled due to rising energy costs.  I had a sudden light bulb moment and suggested this to Matt at Bob's request to get something sorted and Matt was very happy at the thought.  We had seen the illuminations advertised, they looked good, so we got tickets and booked a night at the new on-site hotel.

  

     Well, the illuminations blew us away - they were amazing.  We were expecting something good, but this really was excellent, loads and loads of illuminated animals, including polar bears (Matt's favourite), frogs (yay) and well pretty much everything else.  It stayed dry for us, so we were very happy, spent a good 3 hours looking round and enjoying them all. We went in to the park the following day to see the real animals and had a great time - the polar bears did us proud by coming up to the fence to say hi, dig a hole and sit in it!  I have a feeling this will become an annual trip - they were 1000x better than the Blackpool illuminations.

The next weekend we were visited by Martin, Vanessa, Ben and Mia from Australia.  Apparently last time they came to England and stayed with us they remembered that staying with us the best bit as it was like a proper holiday - what a compliment!  No pressure!!!!!  I managed to get ahead with my choccies to be able to spare a day to clean and tidy the house up (it was a tip!) and they arrived Friday evening.  It was cold and the next morning to all of our surprise we found a thick layering of snow on the ground.  We were in the midst of a Winter Wonderland!  They haven't seen snow in years and years so were very excited.  We had two days out with them - on Saturday we visited Bob and then went to Malham for a walk to the cove (we ran out of daylight to do anymore)  Ben (who is now 21) and Tom had a 2 hour snowball fight as we went round (you wouldn't have known there were 8 years between them!) We had the place more or less to ourselves.

On the way home, we thought to go and visit the Highland Coos on the high road.  The roads were pretty much all clear, so we thought it would be all right.  We were wrong.  The bottom of the road was ok, but it turned into a skidding rink and Martin's hire car ended up across the road.  No damage but it took a while for us to work out how to get it turned round and down again - we could barely stand up on the road - it was so slippery.  Luckily there was a grit bin just where we got into trouble (hummmm!) so we scooped up loads to put down by the wheels and then Matt gradually got the car down and turned around.  A little adventure to add to the day!

The next day we decided to go to Morecambe for a walk by the sea (they live a long way from the sea in Oz!)  It was a wonderfully clear day - blue sky and sunshine, just lovely.  We ambled down the prom, had lunch on the Stone Jetty and ambled back.  We had to stop at the amusements for a go.  Martin and Vanessa introduced us to a whole new way of playing the 2p drops.  They loaded the machine and put loads of coins in at speed, this then meant that they won big time too, never seen anything like it.  They won loads of tickets which translated into bags of 'cheap' lego which we got and donated to a local charity for Christmas.

On the Stone Jetty

It was a lovely day - just ambling, talking about nothing in particular, just being friends together.  Ben and Mia have grown into lovely adults.  Last time we saw Mia, she was quite difficult, refusing to eat pretty much anything and not joining in with anything, well just being awkward.  All that has gone now, she was a delight to hang around with. Oh we all said hello to Eric - got this funny photo of us all!

Bring me sunshine (Matt's the golden child!)

We drove back home, the boys went sledging and then we bought ourselves a Christmas tree to set up and decorate.  I got out all the Christmas hats, put on Christmas music and got ourselves in the mood. I had made a gammon, so we had (sort of) Christmas dinner with crackers etc.  Made loads and it pretty much all went (the gannets!).  It was a good weekend, couldn't have asked for better weather for them.  Our turn to visit them next!