Hello all, another instalment in the happy world of Gemma and Alex. And it really is happy at the moment, with my birthday, Easter day, easter week holiday booked off, the Royal wedding holiday and bank holiday Monday to boot! We've been aiming for this week off for months, it's as good as the Christmas holidays!
The weekend before the holiday I actually met up with Lisa, Danielle St Leon and Danielle Sumner, all friends from Blue Coat. Lisa and Danielle I get to catch up with regularly, they are two of my best friends in all the world. But it was a good chance to catch up with Danielle Sumner, aka Ruck as she was when we all went to school together. We'd also hoped to see Susie but unfortunately she couldn't make it. Anyway the three of us and Danielle's little girl had a lovely meal together and a good old catch up.
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| Danielle and Amelia |
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| Danielle Danielle and Lisa |
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| Playtime |
Then that evening me and Danielle went to see mum in her World Song choir concert. It was joyous and loud and invigorating, as ever. Una May the conductor sang beautifully and led the choir and I was proud as punch to watch her. Their website gives a flavour of the style, colour and flamboyance, as well as a little of their repertoire. Go to:
www.worldsong.co.uk/
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| Mum's concert |
Then 4 days of work dragged by like nobody's business and finally... we started our holiday with Good Friday. We basically had a relaxing day in the build up to my birthday next day, visited B&Q and chose some wallpaper for our guestroom. The plan was to get the diy underway in our week off for the spare guest room. It's a pretty green design, a bit classy I think, if we can get it up alright!
Saturday I woke up and Alex presented me with my card and my birthday present, the much anticipated Harry Potter dvd, yey! And after a brief visit to Sainsbury's for some picnic ingredients we drove to Cannon Hill Park. We took my parents in the car and met Danielle, then Nathan Laura and kids Emma and Ben, Ben and Lauren, Pete and Vicky, LC and daughter Leah, Claire, Dave, Milly Rob and their neice Holly, Phil Jo and his son Lewis. The sun shone and the food was abundant! The boys kicked/threw/caught a ball/frisbie and the rest of us chilled out and caught up. I opened a few presents and cards and enjoyed the fresh air. The only downer was poor Lisa. Bless her she set off from Coventry but her sat nav played up and she never quite figured out how to get to the park. After two hours of driving around in circles poor Lisa headed home in desperation, I am quite sure vowing never to return to Birmingham!
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| The picnic |
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| Me, obviously |
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| Danielle and Claire |
Then all of a sudden the storm clouds blew over and for 5 minutes the rain fell. Even though the rain was very brief we decided that as we'd been out for about 4 hours we'd head home for a bbq - that way if more rain fell we could at least shelter in the house! As it happened, it didn't rain at all and we spent a very pleasant evening and then a night at home. Emma and Holly were best friends by the time they parted after hours eating, playing lego and colouring in. The boys crowded around the bbq and got the burgers and sausages cooking and left over picnic food was out on the table and we all chilled out on the lawn until it finally got too cold.
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| Al and dad |
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| the bbq |
By 11 o'clock I was knackered! Dave, who'd got off a 30 hour flight from New Zealand, slept over, and Vicky was asleep on the sofa until well after I went to bed. The last two up were Pete and Alex, playing darts into the night.
These days I seem to wake up before Alex but go to bed earlier too, and Easter Sunday was no different. I headed off to church where I caught up with Jean and Mike, Sue and many other friends cause the church was packed for Easter. After the service me and Sue ran the tea and coffee and caught up with lots of the congregation. Afterwards I ran over in the car to Nathan and Laura's to sit in the sun with them and their parents while they got their bbq underway to wish them a happy easter while Alex got himself ready for Sunday lunch at his parents. and then we went for food with the Harris', a chat with Nan and a quick nap on the sofa... a gentle day all round rounded up with stacking up all our chocolate eggs :) !
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| Easter eggs! |
Next post... NEWS!
