The house is still standing :-)

We got back yesterday evening to a beautifully tidy and cleaned house, courtesy of Little Miss Sensible :-) I am really proud of her, and the way she coped with her first grown up (well teenage!) party on her own. There was one minor breakage (a cheap picture frame in the downstairs shower room) but considering how many of them were here, that's not bad going.

Obviously I couldn't update while we were actually in Blackpool - so I'll give you the edited highlights. I had a sense of foreboding as we drove over to Blackpool - its so tacky and I think I've turned into a snob somewhere along the way. The hotel we stayed in was part of a chain and was just the same as any other hotels of its type. I'd rung in advance to request a cot for Little Prince, as he can get stressed by strange places/situations and we thought that would help him settle. The room didn't have a cot - Little Prince wanted to try sleeping in a big boy hotel bed, so we decided to chance it. He coped magnificiently and slept really well - good lad :-) We even had a lie in until 8.30 the next morning - unheard of!! After we'd checked in we went out to a nearby pub for a meal - again I wasn't expecting much, just your basic pub grub and smokey atmosphere. Wrong again!! The food was lovely, with a wide range of choices even on the kids meal - not a nugget or fish finger in sight (impressive!!). We spent a good hour or two eating and chatting, we don't see each other that often, so there was a lot of catching up to do.

Little Prince was straight in bed and quickly fast asleep once back at the hotel, while the rest of us read and listened to our iPods. I got extremely irritated with Mr Messy as he had his music on so loud that me and Drama Teen could hear it over our own music!! Despite our complaints he refused to believe we could hear it and didn't turn the volume down. Fume fume!!! And he complains ALL THE TIME about people on the train listening to their MP3 players too loudly!!

The next morning we had a late breakfast and then set off for the Tower - our destination for the day. Inwardly my snobbery wasn't allowing me to get excited about this - I was convinced it was going to be a whole day of tacky, third rate entertainment and that I was going to be bored stiff. Then the entrance price (£43 for all of us) had me groaning - I was paying out all this money, and the day was going to be awful. I am amazed to admit that I was totally and utterly wrong!!! We started off in the well stocked and very clean and healthy looking aquarium - Little Prince loved the Nemos (clown fish to anyone who hasn't seen the film). Then we made our way to the Jungle Jim area - it was huge. The kids all had a ball running round in there for ages. After that we decided to go further up the Tower, to the walk of faith on one of the uppermost levels, this is a portion of the floor that has been replaced by glass and you can see right down to the pavement below (not my cup of tea!!). On the way we passed the famous ballroom - gorgeous architecture in the ceiling and beautiful parquet flooring. Little Prince wanted to just sit and watch the dancing, he said it was so beautiful. Hard taskmasters that we are we eventually moved him on to the lifts to the upper floors. He spent the whole short lift ride clinging to me and declaring (in a loud voice) that it was scary and we were going to drop!! Not the most confidence inspiring lift ride!! Everyone (except me) managed the walk of faith - although Little Prince didn't actually notice anything different until it was pointed out, and then would only stand there holding tight to daddy's hand. Next everyone (except me) ascended the stairs to the open air highest floor - its giving me a queasy tummy just thinking about it!! After all that excitement we had time for a quick lunch - quite a few choices other than burger and chips, again I was surprised and impressed, before queuing for the Tower Circus. I have been to circus shows at theme parks before, and not been impressed. Guess what?? This was fabulous!! Although Little Prince did manage to fall asleep half way through the second half and miss the water finale!! We had already overstayed our welcome on our parking ticket, so we hot footed it back to the car - I'm sure it wasn't that far away when we parked this morning!! Perhaps carrying Little Prince, his rucksack and my handbag made it seem further!

Unfortunately Mr Messy came down with a migraine which meant that I had to drive home - luckily we had the GPS so I did actually get us here!! At one point we did think of stopping at the Travel Lodge at one of the service stations (Mr Messy was being sick and couldn't seem to stop) but we got going in the end. I think I was caught by a speed camera - drat that ruins my 'no points' record :-( I've never had a point on my licence since I learnt to drive, a looooong time ago.