Wednesday, August 17, 2016

A weekend away...

Well, we had a lovely few days this past weekend. Charlie was fortunate enough to get a place on another Little Hearts Matter PGL weekend, so we needed to take him down to Dorset on Friday afternoon.
It's a good two hours from here, so we thought we might as well stay down there and make a weekend of it. We took Mum with us too, much to Rosie's delight, who was thrilled to bits to have Nanny all to herself for the weekend!

Charlie had a fantastic time at the weekend - abseiling, zip-wiring, climbing, archery, tunnel running and low rope courses. The weather was glorious (he was a little slapdash with his sunscreen, and burned his neck for the first time ever. Safe to say he won't be skimping on the factor 50 in future...)
There were a few LHM staff on site, as well as a cardiologist, plus all the PGL staff too, so the kids could really throw themselves into everything. The venue, at Osmington Bay, was amazing - right on the coast. The picture on the left is the view from Charlie's bed! (I don't have any pictures of him - but I think LHM took some, so will share them if I see them!)
We had a great time too, even though we missed having Chas with us - we were only there for two full days but we fitted loads in!
The Sea Life aquarium in Weymouth was brilliant on Saturday morning - one of the best I've been to.
There were so many fish and sea creatures to see and quizzes/treasure hunts for Rose to do on the way round, which really kept her interested. There was also quite a bit of Finding Dory stuff on the way round, which made her very happy!

 
There were lots of play areas and rides included too - Rosie and Pete got a little damper than anticipated on the crocodile coaster, but Rose thought it was hilarious!
 I was originally queueing up with Rose to take her on the ride, but, ever the gentleman, when Pete saw how wet all the riders were getting, he came and swapped places with me because he knew I wouldn't appreciate getting drenched! (After almost 17 years of marriage, he's well acquainted with the old adage: 'Happy wife, happy life' ;-D)


We spent the afternoon on Weymouth sea front. It was so pretty - a proper seaside town. There was a tall rotating tower there which took people slowly up to the top so they could look all around the area, and the tickets were included with our aquarium tickets, so it was really good value.

 
Mum wasn't keen at first (she doesn't do heights really!) but having paid for it, wasn't about to waste her ticket - and actually really enjoyed surveying the scenery. She was also greatly relieved when she found out that it wasn't going to spin around like the waltzers at the fair!

 
Rose loved the beach, although it was both hot and windy so we didn't stay too long, because the fine sand was blowing everywhere.
The next day we headed off to a stately home/gardens/animal park place called Kingston Maurward - it really had something for everyone!
The weather was glorious - we all had fun meeting/feeding the animals, and there were loads of differently-styled gardens - Japanese, Walled, Red, Statue, Rainbow - all set around a beautiful lake.
We followed it up with an outdoor cream tea under a shady gazebo - a truly lovely day.

 
We picked our happy but somewhat grubby/sunburned Charlie up that night and had a fab meal at a French restaurant. Despite having already had a roast dinner for tea, Chas still managed to polish off steak frites in no time at all!
We were headed for home the next morning, but first we went for a wander round the Dinosaur Museum in Dorchester, while Nanny had a mooch around the shops. The museum was quite small but absolutely packed with dinosaur models, artefacts, bones, facts and interesting hands-on things for the kids to try out. There was also a quiz sheet to fill in on the way round, which resulted in a medal at the end.
The holiday traffic wasn't too bad on the way back - thank goodness. We were so lucky with the weather, and it felt like a lovely, typically British holiday weekend!

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