T-Bird Anni Rides Again

The Good Bits

Having Jo come the day before camp and therefore having much gossip time even before Melrose began 

Helen’s rather yummy veggie and fruity meal which was even better once it ahd "matured" in the fridge overnight - that’s my year’s vegetable portions sorted then

Playing with Fimo

Swimming - and watching her confidently ducking under to get toy seals off the bottom of the pool as well as swim lengths here and there too.

Dynamic Earth

TomTom not getting me lost (except that one time when I picked the wrong destination of course….)

Watching her fall back in with friends she hasn’t seen for ages as if it had only been a few days.

Watching littel packs of little girls marauding round the hostel

Baby cuddles

Gossip

Finally getting to Melrose Abbey (it’s the 4th time we’ve been to Melrose and never got to the Abbey!)

Hot chocolate at Tebay

A whole week without being woken up by the SnoreMonster (aparently he slept really well without me beating him up all night too!)

ACtually finding time most days to do half an hour or so OU work 

The Giggles

SB coming into the dining room on full wail hotly pursued by Jade still trying to make her point and SB explaining that Jade was *making* her beleive in God.  Now, i know we shouldn’t all have fallen about at such assaults to one’s dignity but I really couldn’t help it (sorry SB!)

me selecting the wrong "unnamed road, Galasheils" and ending up at the swimming pool instead of Asda - see?  I fessed up to it!  

Aprilia saying "Look Mummy, Merry has put lots of Fimo out to buy.  I’ll just go and play somewhere else for a bit should I whilst you chose my birthday present" then frisking me and searching our bags later on.  Little did she know…. Mummy Bean bought it insead

The Bad

Journies, well, okay, I’m being over dramatic here, they weren’t THAT bad really I supose….

Aprilia taking poorly on the last night (she’s much better now, amazing what sleeping the clock round a few times can do really!)

Not being able to get Cherry Coke at Tebay - normal stuff is just not as nice but it does have the same wakey wakey effect so it had to do.

The Ugley

Hmm, that award would have to go to my current laundry pile I beleive.  Ho hum, Life returns to "nromal" on Monday and I’m sure it can wait til then! 

The Post Mortem

 I think I enjoyed this Melrose better than any of the others.  Can’t really pin down why but it just seemed so much easier this time.  It seemed to go by really fast.  I’m sorry I didn’t hang round to say byee to peeps this morning but having been up since just past 5 with a hot, intermittenly sobbing child I felt taht just giving "our" bathroom a quick once over (in the hopes it wouldn’t get too grubby in the following few hours!) and sweeping our room (cos that’s a lot quieter than vac-ing at 6am!) and tucking her up in the car was preferable to having her drooped over me whilst I tried to do anything more.  As it was she still managed to get herself shut outside in her PJs when she went looking for me in the 2 minutes I wasn’t visible (bad mama, going to the loo!) which reduced her to a total wreck, poor thing.

So now it’s on to the next excitements… a Wedding and a Birthday!   

Okay, I’m keeping the journies in a seperate post as otherwise they may well spoil the good feel of the rest of the holiday

All was going (reasonably) well on the way up.  TomTom was being nice, J (who was following me) didn’t get cut up too often so we didn’t get seperated and the weather was dry if a little blowy.  Then we hit the A7 arrond Kingstown (I think) which had signs saying that the A7 was closed at Langholm except for local traffic and pointed you at the diversion.  Now, those of you who are NOT directionally challenged and know the area will know that Kingstown is quite some way from the offending town and would probably thought "hmmm" but, not being from round tehre I was a good little girlie and lead poor J on a 50 mile round trip heading west through Gretna, past Lockerbie and eventually to Peebles where we headed back East to Galashiels on small A and B roads weaving over and arround the A74M which the diversion signs repeatedly pointed you away from just to make sure you couldn’t get a head of steam up and get anywhere fast.  Now, to be fair, we saw some very pretty countryside until it started drizzling here and there and got dark but it didn’t seem to justify adding 60 miles of twisting roads (1 and a half hours worth) onto the journey really.  Especially when half the signs seemed to have been kicked over/moved/"borrowed" by drunks last Saturday night etc.  But we got there and compared notes with other Western side of the Country travelers who had all had similarly entertaining journies except for one who had gone 10 mins down the diversion, thought this couldn’t be right and ASKED SOMEONE.  Smart Alex(ia)    She got the insider info that hte diversion was a load of ***** and so saved herself the trauma altogether.

 My mood on that particular episode wasn’t improved when I saw the signs in Galasheils saying that the diversion was only for HGVs

So, after the week of pleasantness we headed off home safe in teh knowlege that the A7 was only shut for HGVs.  Not that you would know that to look at most of the signs… then I got to the road block and briefly paniced!  Twas okay though, you just smiled sweetly at the bloke in the yellow coat who presumably is there to stop any illiterate HGV drivers, and drive on through some gloriously empty, rather sweeping roads.  Eventually you get to Langholm and take the small (ie 3 streets round the back) diversion round the 10 yards of road that is actually shut for roadworks and off again on more gloriously empty road until you get to the roadblock on the other side.  Was obviously feeling very smug by this point…. until of course I got on the M6 which was closed between 42 and 41 where a tanker full of acid had hit hte central reservation.  TomTom threw a small hissy fit about me exiting the motorway but once it worked out I wasn’t going to "turn around when possible" it routed me down the A6 and back on again after the accident (with some very trusting souls following me )  And so it was that when Duke texted me to warn me about the M6 I was sat gazing over the duck pond at Tebay South slurping hot choc adorned with cream, flakes and mini marshmallows whilst a droopy and very flushed child slumped opposite me making feeble attempts to slurp hers.  She slept all the way home, woke just enough to lurch onto the sofa and slept another 2 hours and is now merely reclining in limp manner waiting for the next dose of Calpol to work.

will blog more once i’ve found my spces (must be in the car somewhere….) but suffice to say gret week, minimal poorly people but sadly Aprilia has failed at the final fence and is now asleep on the sofa with a raging temp.  She WILL be better for the wedding….. or at least she’d better be