We got home in the early afternoon. Sunday evening we went to Off the Hook for Lara’s birthday.
The food was awesome as usual, but the service was a bit crap. Louie and Ian came home with us for a sleepover and didn’t fall asleep until 1 am. The joys of a sleepover. Now I know why my parents always hated letting us have people over to spend the night.
I got up at 6:30 am on Monday and had some coffee. The kids were up when I came downstairs. We had bought donuts the day before just so I didn’t have to worry about breakfast. They ate and then carried in playing. I went for a haircut. When I got to the salon, I realized that I had not had my hair cut in a year. I’m so fortunate I have decent hair, as I am terribly lazy when it comes to taking care of it.
In the early afternoon we headed to the uniform shop to buy Jack his blazer for senior school. Oh how he will hate wearing that thing every day.
We then went to the mall for some necessities before our trip. We bought new flip flops for Jack, Millie and myself, as well as some bin bags and shoe glue for my favorite pair of sandals that I refuse to get rid of.
We came home and Cathy came over for dinner. She moved houses on Monday and had brought her fridge and freezer contents over to our house. She had a pot pie that was nearly made, so Stuart put the pastry on it and put it in the oven. Millie had a meltdown because she only wanted three bites instead of four. This kid is killing me. We gave her some choices and she made some good ones, but also made some bad ones. Hopefully one day she will learn and stop telling me I’m mean. Every time she says hateful things to me it makes me want to call my mom and apologize for all the crappy things I said and did as a child, and as an adult for that matter.
Cathy left when Millie went to bed. Stuart went to the club to hang out with Sean for a bit and discuss some rugby club drama. Jack went to bed once Stuart was home, as did Stuart. I enjoyed some alone time with my trash television and then went to bed.
Tuesday our cleaning lady came so we decided to go to the mall and let the kids play at Action Zone. Millie won 1600 tickets on one machine. So at the end of our time there each kid had 1700 tickets to spend. Jack bought a drone for 1800, having to borrow 100 tickets from Millie. Millie used 40 tickets for a bubble wand/personal fan. How is it we have a child who ‘saves’? We ate lunch at the food court and then Millie got her hair trimmed.
We came home and Jane came over. She has been staying with Alex and Jenny for now. Starting Thursday, she and her boys are staying at our house until she is totally cleared from the government schools. She suspects it will take a couple of weeks. After that our house cleaner will come and stay with the animals. It’s nice to have reliable people to stay with your pets over the summer.
She left around 5 pm and we took Cathy’s food to her new place. She lives on the third floor of her new complex. The parking is a bit cramped for my liking, but if I were single it might be a nice place. It’s a cute little two bedroom place. It’s plenty of room for her. She was exhausted from the move so we didn’t stay long. Once we were back home, the kids showered and had a bite to eat. Stuart and I worked on clearing out the contents of the fridge, which meant we ate a hodgepodge of food.
I woke up Wednesday morning and bathed the dogs. I about broke my back. Duke has gotten even heavier. I wanted them to smell a bit cleaner when Jane came into the house. It exhausted them and then slept most of the rest of the morning. I showered and put on a load of laundry. When Stuart got home from school I went for a pedicure. I sat and chatted to the secretary to the Head Master of Brighton College. She’s so sweet. It was lovely to get to know her better. Once I was home I ate a bit of lunch and then settled in for my television marathon of nothingness.
In the evening we went to the club for Quiz Night. It was the last one before the summer break. Our team was Sean, Lara, Stuart and myself. We won! Stuart continues to be full of useless trivia. Stuoogle to the rescue. We didn’t get home until 10 pm. The kids showered and went to bed, as did Stuart.
Thursday morning Stuart got up and left for school. He simply printed in for his last day of school. He turned right back around and came home. In the hour he was gone, I stripped our bed as well as Jack’s. I ironed our bed skirt and got the beds in the washing machine. We didn’t have a lot to do on Thursday, but the washing is always important to me to get finished before leaving on holiday. Clean beds are also important to me. No one will be sleeping in the kids’ beds because Jane and her boys will all share our bed. However, I still like sheets, towels and all clothes to be clean before we leave. Also, I like the house to be in order. In my opinion there is nothing worse than coming home from holiday to a mess of a house.
On Stuart’s journey home froms school, he stopped to get sausage to go with the 5 eggs we had left in the fridge along with the half loaf of bread for toast. He made breakfast which was yummy. We did a fine job clearing out our fridge before leaving for the summer.
Lunch was McDonalds. We ordered it to be delivered to the house. I just couldn’t be bothered to get out of my pjs until it was time to take a shower and get ready to go to the airport.
Jane and her boys came over around 5 pm. They brought their suitcases in and stacked them in our room. I had just finished up the laundry and beds were all remade. Cathy and Claire came around 6. Claire cried a bit as she is going home for good this summer. Goodbyes are tough for sure.
Sean picked up us for the airport at 9 pm. We were in the lounge by 11:30 and stayed there for a little over an hour.
Ready to get to traveling.
The flight was relatively uneventful, excluding the fact that the person who came to sit in the middle of my three seats was a friend of Gina’s who used to be a principal in Abu Dhabi. It was freaky. I hadn’t seen her in three years or so. We had a good little catch up.
Once we landed in London we got SIM cards for the time we are in the UK and Europe. We then got our rental car and headed to Hastings. When we arrived we had a coffee and just sat around and chatted.
Stuart and I headed to Sainsbury’s for a nosey. I love the supermarkets in the UK. Although, when we start comparing the prices of things to the UAE it almost makes me sick. Things are really getting expensive in the UAE.
We watched tennis. This is Wimbledon time so the semi finals were on the television. We had spaghetti for dinner and then were off to bed as everyone was exhausted from the day’s travel.
I woke up earlier than I wanted to. It seems that even a three hour time difference can give you a bit of jet lag. Once we had eaten breakfast we decided to go to Rye while Grandma went to the hospital to have a nerve burned on her spine. She has been having a great deal of back pain and was told this procedure would help her situation.
Rye is a little town about 20 minutes from Hastings. When we first got there we stopped for a cup of tea. We then shopped a bit for some gifts for the cousins we would be seeing during our time in the UK.
We decided to go to the park as it was too early for lunch. The kids played for a while and we sat and watched them.
We walked back to the car and on the way we passed the entrance to the city.
We went to Rya Harbour and ate a local pub. We then walked down to the water. The tide was out but we could still see the boats and tons of seagulls.
We arrived back at Grandma and Grandpa’s around 2 pm. The kids played around and watched television. They ended up showering before we had dinner. Dinner was lamb kebabs which were amazing. Millie went to bed around 8 and Jack fell asleep on the sofa around 9 pm. We were all in bed by 10:30. It was a lovely day in the UK.
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