As requested, I’ll actually get us up to date for once, with no mention of phone networks either.
We had a pleasantly hassle free journey up north once we’d actually packed (:oops:) to my room mate Paul and family, gradually gave T all the birthday and Christmas presents we’d not got to him (:oops: – although the rocking elephant would have been tricky to post!). It’s all a bit of a blur, but there was much wooden railway, lots of great food, a stomach bug (unrelated to the food!), swings in the rain, bubbles and bird feeding in the back garden, a few pieces for accomplished pianist with under-5 orchestra (dancing while playing optional but encouraged), trying to explain Quicksort to an obliging linguist and bemused wives using T’s set of alphabet books even though sleep deprivation had addled my brain, J exploring Uncle Paul’s tripod and the timer on our camera, and generally having a wonderful time as usual. After a bedtime story from Auntie Carol it was into the car in pyjamas and heading in the direction of home but stopping first with the Raines in Sheffield for B’s party.
We finally met Chris and the identity of the mystery ex-MethSoc Kate who knew both Barbara and us was revealed: Kate who did Japanese. Barbara kindly extended her culinary repertoire to include a very nice veggie savoury crumble and then we did the obligatory staying up late chatting and hoped that the the children wouldn’t be up too early the following morning.
The day started far too early given how late we’d stayed up talking, although much less full-on than it could have been due to children’s TV. I was treated to the impressive sight of R eating a large fraction of her body weight in Weetabix, then everyone bigger had a very pleasant breakfast, hurried dressing and off to church for most of us. This involved a lot of questions about the bells and smells, which weren’t the non-conformism that our lot were more familiar with. But they all behaved very well and an educational experience (R.E.: tick) was followed by a theological discussion with J on the way back to the car, about how different styles of worship stress different aspects of God and our relationship to him, and all the mystery of God is best communicated through something like a Catholic Mass.
Back at the ranch we gained some more children, shuffled seats between cars, built a dinosaur, watched more children’s TV and then headed off to Nottingham. Nice conversation with B and his mate T about B’s new watch, steel, and why Chesterfield church’s spire is twisted (as it passed by on the M1), and I was given a long list of things that people apparently didn’t have in the olden days.
We arrived in Nottingham, bounced around the centre for a bit playing hunt-the-car-park and then were completely underwhelmed when we actually found it due to the long game of hunt-the-space, followed by bonus games of hunt-the-working-ticket-machine and hunt-the-change-machine and also hunt-the-pizza-hut.
Barbara started down the slippery slope of baby slings, Chris showed R how to adapt the eating-a-large-percent-of-your-body-weight trick to pizza, and then off to the theatre to see The Gruffalo. It was excellent – everyone enjoyed it. It was lovely to see J, K and L all laughing and smiling, plus Katy and I liked it too. 3 extra MuddlePuddle families arrived for the theatre bit and it was great to see them too. Given Nottingham was on our way home, we headed straight off from Nottingham (although not before Barbara had tried a different sling) and put three tired but happy children to bed.
Was lovely to have you. Guess the Beans now know what’s on the menu for when they arrive later this month 🙂
And I think the ‘olden days’ conversation was continued on the way home too. Although I was assured that they did have lights when D’s dad was little, and didn’t have to rely on candles.