What a weekend

It was LMB's birthday on Friday. So obviously, we were up pretty early, and she was fairly excited! We bought her a little CD player/radio and a couple of CD's. Which she has had on and danced to cnstatntly since. i thought that three CD's full of music would see her through for a while, but I was absolutely bored to tears of Barbie Girl by half way through the weekend and Aggie had to burn off another few CD's for her!

It also means that Cousin G came for the weeken, along with sister S and my mother - who invited herself along with sister S - much to sister S's charign:-) The journey didn't go well! Fortunately, my mother ahd been persuaded to stay in a B&B overnight rather than in the house which meant that we had a couple of hours peace in the evenings and she got a full night's sleep.

Which is more than I managed! LMD chose Friday night to be sick. She couldn't just be ill during the day, or even whe n she went to bed! Oh no, she had to start throwing up at midnight. Just as I had fallen asleep. So up I get, change her, calm her down, strip her bedding, find the febreeze and clean the mattress, turn the mattress, make the bed, settle her back to sleep and fall back into bed. the whole thing takes about an hour. I then lie awake for another 30 minutes listening for her before finally dropping back off to sleep about 2pm. At 2.30, she does it again. I change her, shower her, strip the bed, febreeze the mattress, make the bed, put her back into bed, settle her back to sleep, stay cuddling her for a while, whereupon she throws up once more all over the bed, me and herself. Lovely. clean her, clean me, put the washing on again, give up on her bed, bring her into bed with me. Where I fail to sleep at all for the rest of the night. Fortunately in a way as it means I was able to catch her each time she started cramping again and avoid vomit in our bed!

So Saturday m orning I was not at my best! Sadly that was irelevant as I still had to play hostess (badly) to my sister and niece, and remai civil to my mother, and prpare for LMB's party. We'd invited about a dozen of her friends, and only three had replied - 2 yes's and one no. I even gave out reminders asking them to let me know, but to no avail *sigh* so i ahd no idea if I was catering for 6 or 20! In the end, 3 came along, which with the 4 already here was fine. And the weather stayed dry, if not sunny, so they mostly stayed out in the garden. but it was still hard work - just arranging food, games and care for 7 three and four year olds is exhaisting. the nafterwards my mother decided that we ought to take the kids out for a walk (as they ahdn't had any excersise or fresh air by running around the garden all orning!) and walked us miles around town! I was knackered by the end of the day!

Then another night of broken sleep - LMD was OK, but I woke at every sound or movement:-(

They all left fairly early this morning, so we decided to take the kids off to the new local attraction: Puxton Park. there was a big fuss when it finally got planning permission and was set to open for this summer, then everything went quiet. i had seen somewhere that it had opened on time, but had not seen any advertising/marketing about it since so i was unsure what it would be like. Actually, it was quite nice. only 10 mins drive away for us, it had good parking, was clean, airy and fun for the kids. It's basically a good size soft play/ball park type place, with a few farm animals. Apparently there was spposed to be lots of animals - but then just as it was due to open Foot and Mouth hit the UK. All animal transport was banned, so they decided to postpone. Which is obviously why the marketing never happened too. And why it is still quite cheap to get in. We brought an annual pass - before they put the prices up next month:-) so it will be a good place to take the kids whenever they need somewhere to go!

And now, they're just about going to bed, and I would be delighted to join them - even if it is just 7pm! But perhaps I'll just slob here and watch LOTR on the telly and learn how to use this stupid facebook thing that i've been persuaded to sign up to!

Summer Holiday time

Schools out and Weston is heaving:-) The annual influx of Brummies and Scousers have arrived - and will stay for the whole six weeks of the school holidays (although not the same ones, obviously). We took the weekend off re-enactment as LMB is only just over her chicken pox, and LMD is still waiting to break out in cocoa pops, so we thought it would be sensible to stay near home.



Which meant that we had a whole weekend at home with no real plans:-0 Aggie decided to try socialising for once, and went off into bath with a load of other scaly people for a psoriasis meet. As we have such a enormous tank of a car, and he can't drink anyway because of some drugs or other (i can't keep up with what he's taking anymore), he was designated driver for the day, eventually lurching in some time in the early hours of the morning! It sounds like he had fun, which is great, because I don't think he's been out properly for at least several years.



The kids & I decided to listen to the weathermen and took a packed lunch off down to the beach yeaterday morning. Having packed eveything up, argued with Mstr A about what he should wear, and traipsed down to the beach, we settled down near the pier, and I handed out buckets and spades & picked up my book. LMD looked 100metres to the left & saw the donkeys, sceamed blue murder, clambered into my lap, grabbed both my arms and hugged them around her and refused to move. LMD doesn't like "horses"! No amount of reassurances that they were going the other way would budge her, so we sat like that for a while, as the early morning sun dissappeared and the brisk cool breeze picked up into a howling gale blowing straight off the sea, that was somewhere off on the horizon, collecting sand on it's way across the miles with nothing but us in it's way!.



After less than an hour, I gave it up as a bad job, and offered to take them to the park instead. LMD was delighted, LMB was persuadable, Mstr A was not happy. Some swift negotiation later, we packed everything up again, and walked up to the park. Up being the operative word. I know where the park near the beach is, and that it has a play area at the top. So I got us to the park and then allowed Mstr A to show me the way to the play bit. He chose a route that involved approx 200 steps! I carried the pram, and packed lunch and spare nappies/clothes, books, buckets & spades, fold up chair et al all the way there, and the kids all had a great time playing. We stopped for lunch, and were joined by a red squirrel - who popped right under the fence & lurked just a metre away from us. I threw him a grape, and he picked it up & nibbled it in front of us to the delight of the kids (and me). He gained himself a half dozen more grapes, before getting bored and bouncing off to go digging for worms or something.



The weather rapidly went downhill though, so by mid-afternoon we called it a day and headed home. I decided my own holistic navigation would be a better bet than Mstr `A's directions, and found a lovely slope straight down! Typical! We made it home before the`rains - just!



Today - which the weatherman said would be `awful, turned out gorgeous. I kicked Aggie out of bed about 10ish, and we went for a wander down to town, but ended up on the beach again as` it was `so hot and sunny. This is what living in a holiday resort is all about - it feels like your' e on holiday even when you're not:-) Even LMD consented to stand just a couple of meters away from the donkeys - in my arms obviously.

Oh yes, and I got a new computer (well, not new, obviously, but new to me) so hopefully my writing will not miss out quite so many letters now:-) Although the space bar is tiny, so it's going to take me a while to stop hitting / and ' instead!