We were away; you probably didn’t notice. After the disastrous family Christmas of a couple of years ago, my Mum bravely rented a cottage for us all, to celebrate her 60th birthday. It was near Ashbourne, itself a bit of a dump; but located on a small estate with many daffodils and small horses.
On Saturday we all arrived, and fell to experimenting with the Rayburn. My brother and I divided the catering between us, and he had first go at it, which must have been pretty daunting.
On the Sunday her entire step-family visited, we barbecued and played tennis, and the Small Boy was admired for his delightfulness and his pluck. This had something to do with his love of running across a crowded tennis court to give someone a ball.
On Monday we went to Chatsworth House, which was actually pretty magnificent, but too big to visit in a day in a group of seven people including one toddler and one pensioner in a mobility scooter. Bernard’s favourite bit was the enormous sandpit, complete with built-in diggers and older kids driving the younger kids with whips. Pete cheated at the maze, by looking at a photo of it on google maps and apparently committing it to memory. He and Bernard walked straight to the centre, leaving mum and me to wander round in frustrated circles.
On Tuesday we had lunch near Carsington Water, and then a short walk among the midges.
On Wednesday, we left the old people at home and met up with Lisaand her girls at Blackbrook Zoo, half of which was under renovation, and all of which was very Mighty Boosh: staff standing around staring at you in the coffee hole; pelicans giving you filthy looks; penguins pooing to entertain the toddlers. The only food available was hot dogs so we headed into Leek for nice Italian food.
On Thursday we stayed at the cottage. In honour of Easter, we dyed some eggs using onion skins, decorated them with felt tip pens, and then hid them in the garden for Bernard to find. Sporting bunny ears from a cbeebies magazine, he located them all; and then we rolled them down the drive. I told him all about Ostara and spring festivals and stuff, but he wasn’t listening.
On Friday we drove to Pete’s mums and stayed there for the Easter weekend. There was a lot of chocolate, and stomach flu.
It was a long time to be away from home, and we were glad to get back on Monday. One result of the holiday was that Bernard now sleeps in his own bed all night (albeit with at least two calls for Mama during the night). It’s nice to have Pete back in bed with me.
Yay for holidays and successful bed sleeping
An internet friend of mine went to Chatsworth last week, too! Is this an astonishing coincidence, or, I wonder, do you two know each other and thus one followed the other to my modest blog?
Don’t mazes often have a pattern (asks the woman who’s never been in one), so perhaps CheaterPete had only to memorize a pattern? (I was going to say something about a cheating peter, just for the nice rhythmical sound of it, but recalled in time that ‘peter’ has a whole different meaning over there…)
Oh I do like coincidences. No, the only internet friend I met last week was Lisa, and that wasn’t at Chatsworth. I hope your friend enjoyed it as much as we did.
I have no idea what this different meaning of ‘peter’ is. Am going to have to look it up.