Busy Busy Weekend!!

We had our two HOST students from China visit this weekend, one called Clement and one called Bernice. Little Prince promptly misheard and called Clement LEMON all weekend! Its a good job he had a great sense of humour :-)

On Friday I took all of them to the village's Santa's Grotto. I had hoped we would get to see Father Christmas arrive on his tractor (it is a farming village lol) but we were a bit late and missed that. We did sample some lovely mince pies, well I thought they were lovely and Clement and Bernice were very polite about them :-) We then queued up to visit Father Christmas - Little Prince was so excited :-) With this being a small village grotto, and not a commercial shopping centre one, Father Christmas tends to spend quite a lot of time with each child - discussing what they would like for Christmas, where they live, reminding them they must be good and also to leave a mince pie for Father Christmas and carrot for Rudolph. Little Prince listened intently and answered shyly, and was over the moon with his present and card. When he opened it once we got home, he was even happier to find a bag full of dinosaurs - and they have been attacking each other ever since!!!

On Saturday we had a traditional English breakfast, although I was trying to be good and only had toast. Everyone (except me and Little Prince!!) got up late, so it wasn't long after that when we had to set off to take Drama Teen to her last Stagecoach, which was also their play. We dropped her off and then I took Fraulein and HOST students for lunch at a cafe. It was the same cafe that Mr Messy had decided to take Little Prince to - how did they guess that's where we were going lol. So we all had lunch together, before Mr Messy took Little Prince home and I took everyone back to Stagecoach to watch the performance. We managed to get seats on the second row, and I was horrified to watch everyone leave the seat next to the HOST students empty - despite there being no spare seats in the hall. Ignorant people. Anyway the performance was fairly good, although many of the younger children were inaudible, which was a great pity as they had main speaking parts!! The songs were jolly and well sung and the dances were pretty good too. Drama Teen was a bit embarassed that she missed the first part of one of her dances (her dresser forgot to help her change outfits!!) and had to run on part way through - but she managed beautifully and slotted straight into the routine :-) Well done Drama Teen.

After Stagecoach we brought home Drama Teen's Young Man, who was coming to watch the village Christmas lights switch-on and have tea. Her Best Friend from school was also dropped off, at the same time we arrived home from the show. Trouble is she had forgotten to tell either me or Mr Messy that Best Friend was coming for a sleepover - she told me on the way to Stagecoach!!! Thanks Drama Teen - a little more notice next time please!!! We took everyone to the village square to watch the switching on ceremony - this years celebrity switcher on-er was the head of the primary school. The school choir sang a few carols, and a brass band played a few carols - then the crowd sang a few carols!! But the highlight of the whole evening for Little Prince was the arrival of Father Christmas on a horse drawn sleigh - well that and the chocolate bar Father Christmas doled out to all the children :-) We completely lost track of time during the rest of the evening and ended up returning Young Man home very late, I don't think his grandad was very impressed! Whoops!!

Today was a bit quieter!! Mr Messy dropped Drama Teen, Fraulein and Best Friend off in the town centre to get their Christmas shopping done. While he was out Bernice and Clement went off for a walk round the village taking photographs - we were going to take them yesterday, but it rained all day!! Once Mr Messy got back we organised the photos for our student visitors book, and then it was time to leave for the station. Unfortunately Bernice hadn't told us that she needed to buy her train ticket, so she got on the train with seconds to spare!! Clement's train was a little later and he was very relieved that he didn't have to dive on the train at the last minute!! We had a quick look round the shops before collecting the girls and returning home. Fraulein wasn't that happy, she said she was very tired and that she had found shopping with the other two quite hard. Apparently they stuck together quite a lot and I think Fraulein felt a bit left out, but sometimes she expects everyone else to make the effort to chat with her, but forgets that she has to make an effort too - so it was probably six of one, half a dozen of the other!!

When we got home I got Little Prince a quick tea, so that we could write his Christmas cards together and still get him in bed at a reasonable time. He got half way through his tea before throwing it all back up all over everywhere!! He was quite cheerful about all of this, and happily went off with Mr Messy for a bath and clean up - while I dealt with the mess (yuk)!! Once he was cleaned up and in his pyjamas he seemed perfectly recovered, so we got on with his cards. I wrote his friend's names on the envelopes and he wrote his own name inside the card :-) He managed beautifully and was very proud of himself and his lovely writing :-) He then went happily off to bed and there hasn't been a peep out of him since!! No idea what caused the vomitting and I hope whatever it was is now out of his system - as (horrible as it sounds!!) I really could do with him being at school this week as I've got so much to do!!!

I have managed to get ALL my Christmas cards written :-) It took hours as usual, but its DONE :-) I'll get them all in the posts tomorrow morning and that's another job out of the way :-)