Sat 17th June

We get woken up at the ungodly hour of 7am for breakfast by an excitement that only children have from the first nano-second they open their eyes. With broken backs Fleur and I struggle to move. Bunk beds are definitely not made for anyone who weighs more than 3 stone. First holiday breakfast with family. Sausage butties for all. Wicked. But I can see that tomorrow mornings breakfast and showers for all is going to have to be organized with military precision. We have to be at the church by 9am which meant that we were all going to have to get up at 6am if we each wanted showers/baths.

By the time we all ate breakfast got showered and dressed it was time to go to the pub for lunch.

But first the excitement of opening my suitcase. I had no f’ing idea what was going to be in it and as expected only had half of everything I needed and nothing matched. I did bring one dress but I needed two dresses. One for Katrnia’s communion and one for the family portrait photograph on Monday. Good excuse for a girls-on-hols-shopping-spree.

So Dad took me, Fleur and SQ into Great Yarmouth to hit the summer sales. Dad obviously went straight to the pub. Two hours later I had two pairs of shoes and several tops from the fab summer sales, but still no dress. We had to go to meet Dad and he told us we had to bring something to eat for everyone in the pub. We thought he's had too many already and was havering but anyway went to the town square for giant pokes of chips to take to pub. True enough this wee 5 seater pub had a bar full of mouth watering home made dishes lined up on the bar. Shame Rue and Ruth were home slaving over a hot stove for us. Still we had to taste some of the home made wares, it would have been rude not too. And we needed to soak up the cider before we went home.

We were not too late home after our first curfew so not in too much trouble. Dad had to go and cut grass and put up gazebo for party tom. Kids were watching videos but needed livening up so we had to entertain them, as you do after a few ciders on a Sat aftie. And obviously the best video to choose was the “learn to dance step by step” one. There is a photo on someone’s camera somewhere but we haven’t been able to find it yet. We will.

Great time had by all, especially the adult children who wrote down the name of the video to secretly practice before the next class.

Lovely family dinner followed and a few drams but not too heavy as we all had to get up early to guarantee our place in the shower and hair dryer queue in the morning.

More Things I’d forgotten about the UK

Cutting grass
Raking grass
Worms
Hayfever
Garden gazebos
Whirley washing lines
Pigeons and blackbirds cooing.
Cute country street names like Bramble Broom and Tinkle Lane (seriously!) where we followed cars with car stickers like “This Bitch Bites” and “The Bitch driving looks 14”!
Seriously cold water which seriously splashes out of the sink in the most embarrassing places.
Swans and ducks
Scampi and chips
Lucozade Sport or Iron Bru for hangovers