The most family unfriendly?

We went out for a meal to celebrate me passing my exams tonight. we had all the kids with us, but I didn't fancy just another chain place, so we wandered down to the local Italian. Mstr A adores pasta, most kids eat it happily, Italians are noriously loud, friendly and family orientated. It seemed likethe perfect solution.

We went there for lunch when it first opened, shortly after we moved here, and found it friendly enough if not specifically orientated towards young children. We'v been for a couple of lunch-time meals since then - mostly in the winter when it's quiet:-) Aggie and Nanny A took mstr A there for lunch last week for his birthday, and he was enamoured. So when we arrived at The Mask of Venice at 6.05 this evening (just 5 minutes after it opens) we expected much of the same.

The waiter was a bit flustered that we hadn't booked. I looked arund the completely empty restuarant and wondered why, but h soon recoverd and we were seated at a nice table at the back of the restuarant. We sucessfully ordered srinks, including an expensive (for me) bottle of wine for me and Aggie. We asked for the starter Mstr A had a few days ago at lunch time, but despite it being a particularly asy dish to make (mozarella chesse on toast) and the menu specifying "if you do not see what you want on the menu please ask your waiter and our chef will do his utmost to assist", we were told that was impossible. But we managed to find another suitable starter, and main course for everyone.

While waiting for it to be cooked LMD fed her stuffed Tasha doll some bread. She asked me to cut Tasha her own piece - I didn't understand quickly enough and she wailed "cut it mummy". Immediately the chef sormed out of the kitchen, and asked us to make her quiet. By the time he arrived at the table she was already calming down as I cut her piece of bread up! I reckon she wailed for maybe a maximum of 30 seconds. there were NO OTHER customers in the restuarnat at the time.

i thought it was a bit rude, but ignored chef, and soon the food arrived. It was nice. maybe not £60 worth of nice, but nice.

A few more customers arrived - one other family with two small children, an older couple and two men drinking at the bar. The waiter came over - I thought he was asking of the food was OK, as it had been served only 10 mins earlier (and his English was not good), but infact he was asking if he could take the plates away. LMB had decided not to eat hers, and Aggie had finished as I was busy sorting out LMD I had barely started. he cleared LMB's & Aggies plate away while we were still eating. then came back for the glasses - almost snatching them out of LMD's hand, and loitering until I I shovelled the rest of my food in and let him take my plate too.

Once her plate was gone, LMD gt down from the table, and promptly bumped her head. She cried. Obviously. She's two! I picked her up and gave her a cuddle. By the time she made it onto my lap chef was there telling us to shut her up and she was disrupting the whole restuarant. Again, she cried for a maximum of 30 seconds. As far as I could see, no-one else noticed.

Overall, I never been made to feel so unwelcome in any establishment, ever. The Mask of Venice is a place to be avoided at all costs if you have children, or even just want to chat and have a laugh with a group of friends. I am amazed they are so keen to get rid of their local trade! And their main summer trade - weston is a family resort! Perhaps that is why it was so empty considering this is as high season as we get! I will certainly never go back, I would recommend any visitor to the town does not go, and I will be commenting on every website/review that i can find! as I said to the manager when we left, they should put a large sign in their window saying "family unfriendly". At least if they were truthful about it they might get a few customers who were looking for an adult only restuarant!

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!

Out of the mouths of babes..

The queen is coming to Mstr A's school next week.


My boss asked if we wanted the afternoon off to go see her, which me & colleague thought was hilarious - although oviously we haven't actually turned him down. an afternoon off may be useful;-)


I tried to catch Mstr A's taecher to ask him about it, but he's off on a course all week! As I've got the time availabe, I was going to offer to assist with Mstr A during the visit. we don't need a repeat of his first school harvest festival in the church..... All the children trooped in, sat quietly, listened to the sermon, and then the vicar?priest? said "let us pray", and all the children bowed their head readfy to sit & contemplate their toenails in silance for a few minutes, except Mstr A who jumped up & called out "I don't need to pray, I don't believe in od" and wandered off to play:-) I mean, full marks for making your own decisions and standing by your beliefs, but possibly a little more social awareess amy ahve been in order:-)



Or when Germaine Jackson came to visit. Big kudos to the school - he only went to half a dozen around the whole country, but Mstr A wouldn't shut up about how he talked funny (US accent) and who was he anyway? It took me WEEKS of explaining that once he had some pop hits, but mostly he was the brother of someone else, who once had some pop hits but was mostly known for doing dodgy things with little boys, and no, i don't really know how that makes him a spokesperson for an anti-bullying campaign, and no, you can not watch the big brother programme they were all talking about!


So without any advice available form the school, I decided to broach the sunject with him. He had been told, so happily entered into conversation about it...

"Mummy, the queen is coming to my school next week"

"I know darling. Will that be fun?"

"yes, it's very exciting"

"Do you know who the queen is?"

"yes!"

"who is she?"

screws up face. Taps teeth. Stares upwards for a while.

"it's quite difficult to explain"

"Do you know what she does?"

"she lives in a palace"

"Do you know what she looks like?"

"no. But I can imagine...." (I feel he is likely to be disappointed)

"Do you know why we have a queen?"

"no"

"do you know why she is visiting your school"

"no"



Me neither!

Lazy Sunday afternoon......

......I got no mind to worry
I close my eyes and drift away....

Well, The Small Faces my have meant it in different way, but that pretty much sums up how I feel today. I just can't seem to kick start my brain at all today.

And, no. I did not drink that much yesterday!

I have managed to do a couple of things, but it's all been really hard work:-( I'm hoping I can persuade the kids jut to sped the rest of the afternoon playing out in the garden and let me veg in front of the computer - although, tbh, I haven't even got the brain power to go blog-surfing today.

Yesterday went really well though. We had a good shoot - I only shot about 20 arrows bcause my fingers are still too soft, and when they start to bleed, I stop. Unlike CQ who carried on shooting until her arm looked ready to drop off! You can see a pretty picture on her blog here if you're so inclined:-) Beginners bruise is fairly common - especially for girls, but most people STOP when it hurts! The BBQ went down well too, and for once I didn't over-cater too much. Well.... there's enough for us all to have BBQ for supper again tonight, but, I only cooked the right amount yesterday:-) Then, in the evening, all the kids were in bed before we even left, so there was no problem with CQ and "the baby who hates her" (LMD). We strolled down to the theatre in a lovely sumer evening way. Rich Hall was good, but not at his best imo. It was then end of his tour, and I think he was getting a bit tired:-) But we did get a bonus warm-up act in the shape of Greg Campbell - a Canadian, now living in Devon, who was hilarious. Then a brisk walk home in the rather chilly, ooops I forgot it was only April, evening:-)

I do like living in town. It was one of the reasons we moved here. We are within walking disatnce of a theatre, cinema, train station, beach, shops, museums....... Cool huh?