If you read my last blog you might remember I was talking about looking forward to a visit from my niece and her little family from the Isle of Skye. Well, they came, they had fun, they left.....a trail of destruction and sleep deprived, broken aunties behind! Little did I know, but our lives in our peaceful little home were about to be completely turned upside down!
What a week! They arrived last Tuesday at Luton airport. It's too far to get a cab so I drove over and picked them up. That day was pretty much lost on travelling so other than the kiddies going to play on the local park and us eating together, nothing much else happened. So far, so good!
Wednesday was their first full day and they'd planned to spend it in London sightseeing. The kids were up nice and early, 6am! I honestly, did not realise that a day had two 6's in it!
So, off they went and caught the 9:25am train into London and had a wonderful day together, visiting the London Eye, Buckingham Palace, the Natural History Museum, going on a river cruise and an open top bus ride. So much fun. Charlie was full of beans when they got home telling us his tales of all his adventures. His favourite part? The train and bus journeys! Typical Kids, eh?
The week continued well with them visiting a local Essex attraction, Marsh Farm, and then back to London for some more fun. They managed a little look around Chelmsford and some more fun in Central Park and then a trip to Southend on Sea, to which we accompanied them. It was absolutely freezing. I haven't been so cold in a long, long time.
When we got there we made our way to the Sealife Centre to warm up a little and have a look around. After an hour in there we thought it would be a good idea, since we were in Southend and it has the longest pier in the world, to go to the end of the pier. I'm not entirely sure who's decision this was, i'm certainly not accepting the blame, although, I think I might have mentioned it, in passing, briefly!
Anyway, it was far too cold to walk, especially with two toddlers, so we decided we'd take the train. The pier is 1.33 miles long and let me tell you, in the snow and with the temperature in minus degrees, when you get off that train at the end it's bloomin' well cold! The best description I can give you to explain it is, it's like when you put too much ice cream in your mouth at once and you get brain freeze! Yep, it's really that cold, and boy, was it windy! There's a little cafe' at the end so after a very brief wander around, we ventured to the cafe' to get a drink, warm up and await the return train to arrive. When we got back to shore, there's not much else to do in a seaside town during the winter when there's snow on the ground, well, other than eat fish and chips! So off we went to find a little cafe' and had a lovely spot of lunch together, and then it was back to the car.
By the time we got back home we were all absolutely frozen but we'd all had a lovely day and I'm glad, as cold as it was, that we went to the end of the pier. I've got some lovely memories of us freezing half to death and hanging on to the handrails to stop us getting blown out to sea!
The weather was so cold that they didn't get to visit the zoo in Colchester as they'd previously planned and both Ava and Charlie got a little bit poorly and both had rasping chesty coughs, poor things and neither of them slept particularly well, so, as you can imagine, neither did anyone else!
By the time the end of their holiday had come along, my wife, Kat, and I were completely exhausted and neither of us had done anything particularly draining. It was just from a pure lack of sleep. I actually do not have a clue how Chloe', my niece, does it. She just doesn't stop from the minute she gets up at 6am, sometimes earlier, until she sits down on an evening and that's usually not until 8pm and some nights it was after 9pm! She's just constantly on the go. I'm in complete awe of her.
And who knew that a 3 year old could make quite so much noise? It's incredible! I'd forgotten how noisy kids are. I've been so long living a quiet, peaceful existence in my little home with my lovely wife, watching what we want on the t.v, doing what we want to do and when we want to do it, that I had completely forgotten what it was like to have children in your life. How demanding that life is. I know one thing for sure, I couldn't handle a life of children on a full time basis. Three demanding cats is just about my level of commitment.
Anyhow, yesterday came and it was time for them to catch their flight home, so we set off at 7:30am on our drive to Luton and it's a good job that we did, the traffic, as you can imagine on the M25 during the morning commute, was a nightmare. But we got there in plenty of time in the end.
It was sad leaving them at the airport, saying goodbye to them is always hard, but after spending a week with them and knowing I won't see them all now for at least another year, well, it's never easy saying goodbye, no matter how sleep deprived!
The drive home was less stressful. I had no target time to get anywhere and the traffic had eased off a little by then. I was so happy to get home, though. I had a cup of tea and then lay down on the sofa in the spare room and fell asleep for a good couple of hours, just enough to see me through the rest of the day. Although, I was still good for nothing!
Last night we went to bed at 9pm, me with a banging headache, and I was straight to sleep, waking at 8am this morning. I'm not at all good at being sleep deprived. I sooooo needed that sleep catch up.
I still feel like I could sleep for a week but for now, peace is restored.
