Bells And Whistles

I do not usually type blog posts at 2am, but if I lay down, my cough returns, so here I am, sitting up in an armchair, swathed in blankets, with a laptop on my knees. Please do not start feeling sorry for me – the cough is getting better, and we’ve had a fabulous few days…

After a great Christmas Day with Steph, we left Leicestershire on Wednesday morning, collected Liz and Jon from J’s family in Nottinghamshire, and drove to L&J’s place in London [160+ miles] Once there, the five of us had a Christmas Meal and exchanged presents.

On Thursday Bob, Steph and I went over to her new house in Wimbledon [which is fab] then all five of us spent the day in Kew Gardens – including a picnic lunch. Normally this would have cost us EIGHTY QUID in entrance fees. Liz had managed to get us the free Christmas tickets. [that’s my girl!!]

In the evening Bob and I drove to Cornerstones[115 miles], calling in briefly on Adrian and Marion on the way. So we did much travelling. Five adults with a lot of luggage was going to be a squash, even in our capacious Skoda Octavia – so we borrowed a roof box to accommodate some of the bags [thank you Richard and Rachel] We discovered that when you get to 70mph on the motorway, it WHISTLES! Furthermore, one gift has a bell on it – and when we went over bumps, the bell JINGLED!  The M11 was certainly more interesting than usual.

We decided to stop for something to eat on the journey. We pulled in at the Barton Mills ‘Little Chef’ [the one where Prince Harry once had breakfast with a load of his army chums] It was 7.20pm, and the sign said they were open till 8 for ‘evening meals’. Once inside, we discovered that this meant we could have a hot drink and a toasted teacake, but no other food. We left!

We’re here in Norfolk for a few days break. When I unpack my camera I shall post some pictures, but now I am going to try to get to sleep. Don’t expect anything coherent for a while…