Renovation project - How do you pick who to visit on a short trip?

Renovation project - How do you pick who to visit on a short trip?

The weekend was wonderful and tonight John has a fantastic night planned, it is the Derby, Manchester United are playing against Manchester City and we are going to be in Manchester (not at the game itself but in the city). We, well I say we, really it’s just John, does get to watch the football in France, but not all games are available, he tends to watch them on the internet, which does sometimes mean the screen freezing at an inopportune moment or we get to watch it with friends as they have sky TV, I much prefer these nights as I get to sit and chat, and drink wine, whilst John gets to shout and swear at the screen with another like minded bloke. Once the house is finished we maybe need to investigate what Sky TV Offers are available so that I can invite people to watch the football here (and by watch the football, yes obviously I mean I can sit and drink wine with the other football widows!)

picture courtesy of foot-Anglais.com 

Tonight it is family time, he will be watching with his dad, while I get to sit and write a report, not my favourite way to spend an evening, but at least I won’t disturb them and our friends in France may be relieved as the last couple of times we have been round United have lost and we’re coming to the conclusion that John is a jinx, or maybe the effects of our wine and brandy are passing telepathically over cyber space to the team?????

Well they win what a happy house I’m in tonight.

The rest of the week is spent trying to fit in visits to friends, this proves to be very difficult as most of them work during the week and the weekends are not long enough. Do we draw straws, flip a coin or just tell people we don’t like them as much as others? This may sound flippant but it is a problem we had not considered, if you come back for a short period who do you visit? And how do you not offend those you can’t visit? We resolved the problem by not visiting very many friends, when it came down to it we really wanted to spend time with the kids, so we visited people who lived nearby and one friend that we stayed with on the way home.

The tickets are booked and it’s time to go, we have been here a while but it is going to be difficult to leave again, we are both looking forward to getting back to the house but I want my babies to be within easy reach.

We realise we have another day and night similar to Christmas we are visiting all the family to say goodbye, starting in Manchester moving to Cheshire (where I get to babysit for the last time) and then on to 

Staffordshire to spend the night at our friends on the farm.

This is a lovely evening and surprisingly well behaved, we are in bed before midnight, and still fully compos mentis!!! When we wake in the morning, I go into the house to make a brew and our friends are up, but I still take the brews back to the caravan (we usually stay in the mobile home as we are now a little too old to be woken by children after a glass or two of wine), I feel a bit mean going back to the caravan but it is nice to have some time to ourselves, and it feels like we are on holiday!

We sit and have breakfast and go to visit the new horse, my friend tells me what it is, but to be honest, it’s a brown one!

We leave and now head to Gloucestershire to visit my brother and his family on the way to Plymouth.

When we arrive at the ferry port we are knackered and emotional and yes I sit and cry again, I have now lost count of how many times I have sat and cried at the ferry car park. We really are going to have to stop seeing everybody on our last day and stagger the goodbyes.