Bank Holiday Weekend

Hope everyone had lovely weather for the Bank Holiday :-) We had our HOST family to stay from Friday evening until early Sunday morning, so we had a busy weekend. We took the family to the local art gallery, which always has a craft area during school holidays and after we'd eaten our lunch in the gallery cafe we spent quite a while helping the children with their crafts. Then we managed to fit in a visit to our Pond-Friends, without any incidents at all!! Well apart from Little Prince managing to trap his fingers in the bathroom door while playing hide and seek with the children, he cried so much I thought he must have broken them, but once he calmed down there seemed to be no lasting damage, not even a bruise!! Our friends daughter took us down to her horse and let the HOST family's daughter ride round on her (she has always wanted to ride a horse and her parents didn't know where to look for riding lessons near their university). I don't think I've ever seen a child grin so widely :-) Little Prince then wanted a turn and he loved it too, he has decided he is a cowboy now. He was quite miffed that our friend's daughter wouldn't let the horse run!!! We've promised to find out about riding lessons for him, so that he can learn how to ride properly and then he would be able to go faster! That seemed to calm him down. As usual our friend's put on a lovely feast for a (semi) traditional English Tea - the ribs for Little Prince weren't traditional, but they kept him happy :-) He also liked the Taiwanese Pearls (black tapioca in honey and milk) prepared by the HOST family mum. I'm so glad he is an adventurous eater, unlike his mum and sisters!!

When we got back from our friends, the children all wanted to play on the Wii again, it would be their only chance as their mum says they won't be allowed one once they are home in Taiwan as they will have to study too hard to play :-( Little Prince had fallen asleep in the car on the way home, so he was fast asleep in bed - which did lead to less arguing as we only have two Wii-motes! Mr Messy and Drama Teen went off to the supermarket to buy provisions for the Sunday Roast, however, while they were out the family announced they would be leaving at 10am as the dad had to do lots of studying. We were a bit surprised by this as most students stay until mid afternoon, and it meant that they wouldn't be joining us for Sunday Dinner. Mr Messy did make them a traditional English breakfast in the morning though, and they seemed to enjoy that very much. then it was a bit of a rush getting their picture taken with the children to put in our HOST Visitors Book and getting all their things packed in their car. Little Prince was very upset to see them go as he had had a whale of a time playing with the children :-( He is so much younger than his sisters and they don't always want to play with him, and when he isn't at school he misses having children his own age around him.

On Monday the weather was ok-ish, cloudy and windy but not raining, so we decided we would chance a trip to the beach. It was even windier and colder on the coast, but we spent a bracing half an hour walking along the beach collecting shells and Little Prince digging for Pirate Treasure. Then we visited a nearby animal sanctury, which was more like a mini zoo, with all sorts of animals to see. The onsite cafe was a lovely break from the wind and tasty too, especially the scones piled high with cream yum yum :-) We thought after all his running round that Little Prince would fall asleep on the way home, but instead it was Fraulein who snoozed most of the way!! We tease her that she must be part cat as she spends most of her life asleep!! We stopped off for tea at a KFC as neither me nor Mr Messy felt like cooking when we got home. Little Prince was impressed by this choice, but Fraulein refused to eat and only had a drink saying she couldn't eat two large meals in one day!!

We had left Drama Teen at home with three friends from Stagecoach, well two friends and her Young Man. They spent some time walking round the village, not playing out as they are MUCH too old to do that lol. And Drama Teen even managed to cook them all some lunch, without destroying the kitchen in the process!! In the evening once all her friends had been picked up, the Young Man being the last one to be picked up, she seemed very quiet and subdued. Mr Messy jokingly asked her if he had dumped her, she promptly burst into tears and said he had :-( Apparently Young Man feels that only seeing each other once a week is too hard and that they should split up, and just be friends. She seemed a bit better later in the evening but still quiet, poor little lamb.