A Week at Nanna & Grandpa's

Daisy and I just got back from a lovely week at my Mum & Dad's. We left last Thursday and drove to Manchester - the journey was fine; she slept all the way and when she woke up I pulled into the nearest service station and fed her, then we got on our way again - and we spent the afternoon with Grandma & Grandad (aka Rob's Mum & Dad), Auntie Kath and Uncle Tom, then we went round to stay the night with my friends Catherine and Ben, their dog Betsy, cat Chester and as-yet-unnamed 24-week-old foetus. The following day we drove up to Mum & Dad's, and Jen arrived after work for the weekend. Mum had arranged to have people round for a meal that evening before I decided to come, so there were 8 of us for dinner. I got Daisy up at 23:00 for her bottle and everyone cooed over her.

Saturday was my birthday, and I got the best present from Daisy - she didn't wake up till 06:20! Saturday was also the day that my old recorder teacher, Jane, was in town from her home in Peebles with her husband and son. I haven't seen her since her wedding day over 7 years ago so we arranged for them to come round for lunch. We also invited the four girls I used to play in music groups with - first I was in a trio with Lisa and Anna, then Anna and I joined Laura and Louise in a quartet. Lisa and Laura couldn't make it, but Louise and Anna came round with their girls - Anna has Tamsyn and Louise has Eden and Saffron. I haven't seen Anna for 10 years and Louise for 15, since I left for university, but neither of them has changed all that much, except that Louise has done what I've done and ditched the high-maintenance blonde highlights in favour of chocolate brown :).

We made a few attempts to have a group photo, but with 5 kids aged 6, 4, nearly 3, 9 months and 11 weeks, it wasn't all that easy :). This is the best we could do - there's another reasonably good one but Eden is mid-fidget and has come out very blurry ;).

Back: Jane, Timothy, Louise, Saffron
Front: Me, Daisy, Tamsyn, Eden, Anna

Later on my uncle, aunt and cousin arrived from Huddersfield, so there were 7 of us for dinner that night, and again for lunch the following day.

Sunday morning we went to church, thereby killing lots of birds with one stone as we saw quite a few people who wanted to see Daisy. On Sunday evening Mum & Dad babysat while Sarah, Jen and I went to the cinema to see a recording of the 25th Anniversary Concert of Les Miserables, which took place at the beginning of October at the O2 Arena. It was fantastic - Jen bought me the DVD for my birthday but it isn't released for another couple of weeks; can't wait to get it and watch it again!

On Monday my Godmother and Aunt came round for dinner (that's 6 for dinner that day, for those keeping count - Mum did a wonderful job feeding everyone!), on Tuesday morning Suzanne came round, Tuesday afternoon Jen and I went to visit Carlie and her boys (Noah is 2 and Ben is a couple of weeks younger than Daisy), and on Wednesday we went round to see my friend Sue and her son Theo, who's just turned 1. Jen went back home on Wednesday evening as she had to go back to work on Thursday, while Mum, Daisy and I went up to Durham to see Susie, who I worked with last year in Winchester and who is now at the university studying Music. So not exactly a quiet week, but we had a really lovely time and are looking forward to seeing Nanna, Grandpa and Auntie Jen again in a month.

I took this photo while we were there; makes me laugh every time I see it ;).