What a Day!

This morning we set off early to drop Fraulein off at the train station, where she was meeting her friend and going shopping for another friend's birthday present. We were almost at the station when Fraulein announced she was shopping in a completely different town, in totally the opposite direction and that would cost her quite a lot to get to by train, but we could have driven her there in 20 mins!! It was too late to do anything about this, and we dropped her off and wished her a happy day with her friend.
UPDATE: Fraulein purchased her train ticket and waited for her friend, and waited and waited and waited!! In this day and age of constant communication and mobile phones, there is no excuse for standing someone up!!! In the end she contacted another friend (who lives in the destination town) and arranged to meet him instead. Her next problem was that the train wasn't running!! Then the bus wasn't running either!! The Train Station Staff offered to get and pay for a taxi for Fraulein's journey, but she, very sensibly, opted to get her money back instead. She then arranged to meet a different friend (the one she should have been buying the birthday present for) and spent time with her instead before coming home on the bus. She was extremely cross with the first friend for treating her like that, and I don't blame her at all!! Then this evening Fraulein and LMS set off back to town to meet both the above friends for a meal. They got part way there when the first (unreliable!!) friend texted to say her parents would give Fraulein a lift - wonder if they felt guilty about leaving Fraulein in the lurch this morning!! I was fuming on Fraulein's behalf - how could this girl do this to her?!?! She has come all the way back from Germany to visit and spend time with these girls, and this is how they treat her!!! Diabolical!!!!! Luckily despite the fact that she was furious with the first friend, they managed to have a nice meal, and first friend's parents dropped Fraulein off here for us too.
We (me, Little Prince, Drama Teen and Mr Messy) then set off to pick up Mr Messy's new camera equipment, extremely expensive professional camera body and lenses that he has invested in for his new business. The camera shop was a couple of hours away and Drama Teen and Little Prince seemed to bicker the whole way there - I'm going to see if I can get a screen (like you see in taxis) fitted between the front seats and back seats!!! Once we reached the camera shop me and Little Prince played in the car, while Mr Messy and Drama Teen went in to collect all the packages - there is way too much expensive camera equipment on show in the shop to allow Little Prince lose in there lol.
Once we had safely stowed all the gear in the boot, we drove round to my parent's house to visit my Mum (Dad had already gone out unfortunately so we missed him). Little Prince played with Grandma's toys (she still has a huge drawer full of toys ready for when the grandchildren visit :-) He was VERY impressed when Grandma gave him a big bag full of Lego to add to his box at home - he even gave her a hug and kiss for that!! We had a chat, got fed some lunch and Mr Messy charged up his new camera battery - did he have an ulterior motive for the visit?!?!
After a lovely visit, we set off for our next destination! A seaside town where we were visiting friends. The main reason for the visit was for Mr Messy to be the 'official event photographer' for his friend and his eldest daughter having their heads shaved! Both have very long hair, although I think the Dad's hair was actually longer than his daughter's!! This was a charity event to raise money for Leukemia Research, which means a lot to their family for personal reasons. I was amazed that the daughter (15 year old image conscious teenage girl) actually went through with it - she is very brave. And then she admitted she still had a few days of school left, which made me think she was even braver!! The trouble was that Little Prince announced he needed the toilet just as the scissors came out!!! So me and him had to run over to a nearby shopping centre to find some toilets and missed the whole thing!!! Luckily we had arranged to all have a meal together afterwards, so we did get to see the 'end result'!! I can't wait to see the photos of the process too lol.
While all this was going on LMS stayed home as we thought she was needed to ferry Fraulein around to her various activities. Which turned out not to be needed, so LMS was quite upset to have missed visiting Grandma, sorry about that LMS - you will definitely have to come next time we go. She also had to act as a nurse to Figaro the kitten most of the day!! Apparently Figaro was limping quite badly and not acting herself. LMS tried to put her in the cat basket to keep her quiet and still, but that seemed to make her much more upset and she started to shake and squeak :-( LMS was very worried, and there wasn't a lot we could do as we were over the other side of the country! In the end I got my (cat mad) best friend to come round and check over Figaro, and her opinion was that she had probably sprained something rather than broken any bones. We are going to keep an eye on poor Figaro and if she's no better on Monday I'll ring the vet, but at the moment she is sleeping peacefully and seems a bit better. Wolfie seems to understand that there is something wrong and hasn't tried to fight with her sister all day - good girl Wolfie :-) And good girl LMS for coping with the kitten crisis on your own, we are very proud of you :-)