The Last Day...

Always the hardest. Not just because of the packing and me sitting on the suitcase willing it to shut - I bought a whole new wardrobe for me! It was a good job we had a bigger luggage allowance than usual.

We popped across the green to discover that the conker trees we starting to drop their treasure, last time we were home and the cockers were out, Ebi-kun was too young to learn to play, so we collected a handful to bring back with us.

There were some strange antics going on, apparently Ebi-kun was a racing driver of a super car and my mom was ??? the engine? Who knows but they were having fun!

We popped out to pick up some last minute bits and bobs and dropped by at the little farm shop, which has grown considerably! They now have lamas, this one was a firm favourite, just look how cute he is!

Then last night snuggles watching Deal or No Deal - to which Ebi-kun seems to be addicted, that and The Cube.

It was an amazing trip home, we did so much and had so much fun. Plus I didn't have to suffer the Japanese summer, which is always a good thing.

Meeting the cousins

Agh! Just found some more post from our holidays that i hadn't finished writing!

My step sister and family have been living in Greece almost as long as I have been over here and we've never been in the UK at the same time, until this summer that is. They have moved back to the UK and moved into a new house a close to my moms, a couple of days before we left.

So although they had only moved in the day before, we decended on them for a visit.  Ebi-kun and A have chatted a few times over skype, last time Ebi-kun was giving A origami lessons, very cute! They totally hit it off - here they are all giving my mom a massage, not sure if that was pleasure or pain!

Ebi-kun and A disappeared off upstairs to make loom bands and record tutorial videos!

And I got entertained by little M, who is two and a half but talks really well, she had me in stitches, cute as a button too.

Thanks to the likes of Skype, it doesn't feel like 13 years since I last met Lou in the flesh and there was no awkward half hour when the kids first met for the first time, I seem to remember that happening a lot as a kid when we would visit relatives that we only got to see say once a year.

We did really well as far as catching up with people went, I think we managed to squeeze almost everyone is, having a couple of family parties helped! Can't wait to do it all again next year.

A little thank you gift...

Di's mom gave Ebi-kun some 'spends' which he used to get this cool water colour painting set, brushes and paper from The Tate Modern. He decided to make a little thank your gift and experimented with his new materials.

First he did a wash and let the paint dry. Then he used my copic pen and drew a picture, not really sure what his inspiration was! Then after that he coloured (painted) it in. 

He also had some birthday money so other goodies he treated himself to were a load of Horrible History books, loom bands, souvenirs from the different places we visited - mostly books or notebooks and the such like. He wanted a Harry Potter wand but at 49GBP I had to veto it. I feel that the HP shop at Kings Cross was sooo overpriced. 

He had fun though and plenty of great souvenirs!

A Steam Train To Ramsbottom...

We had a fab day out with Lesley and her kids, affectionally known as Flowerpot and Sillypants starting with a trip on a steam train.

I think it's the first time I've been to Ramsbottom, lovely little place, very quaint! It has a great park so the kids burned off some energy as we has a good chin-wag.

After wearing the kids out we went for lunch and ice-cream and then meandered back towards the station. The kids had introduced Ebi-kun to the devil that is loom bands so we ended up buying some so Ebi-kun could make his own. 

When Ebi-kun was writing his journal afterwards he said that when he was on the train he was imagining it was the Hogwarts Express and he was off to school with his friends! We are on HP 2 now so he is very much in the HP mindset at the moment.

Fabulous day, we got dropped off at the train station in Manchester and headed back to moms in time for tea!

Jane Said...

After our enormous yet delicious lunch we met Lesley and her kids and headed off to the Lego shop - Ebi-kun wanted to do the pick and mix again (they don't seem to do this in Japan). So we filled up on Lego then headed back to Lesley's house. By the time we got back I had a blinding headache and had to go and lie down for a bit, not the best behaviour for a guest!

The kids got right down to playing (very loudly I might add, I think they were rather excited!). I managed to get myself vertical so that Lesley and I could go out - it was going to take more than exploding head to keep this gal down! We had tickets for Jane's Addictions 25th anniversary tour and I was VERY excited, a beer and paracetamol cured the bad head and the band were frickin' awesome!

It was also brilliant to spend some kid free time with lesley, catch up on the gossip and just hang out - I love how I have friends that I might not see for months, sometimes years but when we get together it is just like we only saw each other the day before.

A Surprise Visit To Jamie Olivers Italian

I am so behind with my blogging! Apologies, it has taken some time to settle back in and get my head in a normal place!

Now let me whizz you back in time a bit... The place: Manchester.

We met my little brother at his office and headed off for a bit of a mooch around the Northern Quarter the he walked us down to Jamie's Italian, he had some shopping to do so it was a lunch date for me and Ebi-kun...and my, was he excited!

Now, if you are thinking of going, I have a TOP TIP - pop over to his website and sign up for the Gold Club, it's free but by doing that you get priority booking, a free taster and 10 pound off your first visit if you spend 30 pound or more!

So, we had our free taster first which was a whipped ricotta herby concoction on bruschetta and was delicious. Then we had the special which was a tuna and tomato bruschetta, also very good. Ebi-kun decided to have the kids meal, the waiter was really good and helped him decide what to have, it was a toss up between the spag bol or the sliders, spag bol won.

It was an absolute treat to eat with Ebi-kun, he really did savour every mouthful, couldn't stop thanking me and declared it was the best spag bol he had ever eaten, ever! He insisted on eating with tiny mouthfuls so he could make it last (this certainly wasn't a quick meal)

I went for the ricotta gnudi dumplings in sage, lemon and parmesan butter - just melted in your mouth. I also had the crunchy green side salad and Ebi-kun had the shake me salad.

Then for dessert, yes, we went all out! Ebi-kun had honeycomb ice-cream and I had this, to-die-for amalfi lemon meringue cheesecake. Oh My Gosh! So good.

We were so full! And when the bill came I was happily surprised that we had just gone over the 30 pound mark which meant our bill was just 20 pound! Fabulous.

We finished just in time to meet my friend Lesley and her two kids...

The Victory and The Mary Rose

Di has won a yearly pass to the Docklands in Portsmouth, so we headed out there to make a day of it. First we met up with one of my Mastermind buddies, Gemma, for a quick coffee and then she had to go and pick her little girl up and we headed out for some sea worthy adventures.

Now, I must admit, my naval history is very patchy to say the least but we still had a fun day.

When we were waiting for Gemma, we introduced a janken game (rock, paper, scissors) to R, then they played it as the scooted along a torpedo - as you do!

We finally made into the actual Docklands, it's a big site with plenty to see, in fact, it is doubtful that you could possible see everything in one day, there is so much there, I think it would take several trips to cover it all. We decided to head toward The Mary Rose but we came across Nelson's Victory first...

It was pretty impressive and there were staff dotted around so we quizzed them about things, did you know that Nelsons body we pickled in a barrel of brandy to help preserve his body until they reached land? I didn't!

Of course the boys LOVED it and they had the ship set up like it would have been back in the day. 

Next up was The Mary Rose, which is housed in a 20 million pound building! They have set it up quite cleverly, the one side of the museum has the remains of the ship, contained in a special until to dry it out and the other side they had the artifact's on display. It is dark inside and no flash photography allowed, so I don't really have any decent pictures. Ebi-kuns favourite bit was meeting the ships doctor who explained how to use all the various bits of equipment and trying out the long bow equipment...

After all that history we needed a break and headed over to the game centre, cue random photo...

I think everything inside was free, Ebi-kun opted for the climbing wall that actually moves and tilts which was fun (I wanted a go!) R wasn't big enough for this so he went on a smaller kids adventure climbing thing. Then we met up for a truly horrible helicopter simulator experience!

We finished off with a boat ride around the dock, the boys were driving and we were in a police boat, so we tried arresting a few people too! Of course the boys thought it was great, all that was missing was a cooler of beer in the back of the boat!

Then it was time for a cheeky 99 ice-cream before heading back. Fab day out, in fact a fab week! When I look at what we managed to cram in I wonder how we managed to get so much done!

Time For A Lazy Sunday...

After a very late night, a lazy morning was in order. Rob kindly got up with the boys and let us have a bit of a lie in! Then we had a late breakfast before heading down to the beach. It was really windy, which definitely blew the cobwebs away! We dried playing Frisbee but after it ended up in the road twice, we gave up and played tag instead (well the boys did, we watched!)

It was way too blustery to venture to the sea...

So we dropped by a little festival and tried a spot of hoopla-hooping instead! We also found a bargain of books, 5 horrible history books, all new, a pound each! Brilliant!

We were getting hungry so we headed to the car via the park for a bit of climbing, of course Ebi-kun decides he needs the toilet, so the others go back to the car and we go to the loo, as we came out the heavens opened - which meant a made crazy dash for the car, we didn't get too wet, surprisingly!

We had a fabulous pub lunch, BIG portions and rolled back down the hill to Di's. Then is was Star Wars (and an afternoon nap for us) finished off with some crazy light saber battles...

Saturday Is Girls Day!

Rob took the boys off to football practice so me and Di had some down time and headed into town to do a spot of shopping - well it was more mooching! Brighton has a good selection of indie shops, lots of great places to poke around in and some lovely little cafes...

Just in case you weren't sure where I was...

We headed back at lunch time and fed everyone then Rob and Ry went off to the Arsenal and we headed into town again with Ebi-kun, he wanted to check out the Lego shop and I wanted a 99 on the beach. It was toooo cold for the beach though, so we pottered around and then went home for pizza. We got out some old record and had a dance before Ebi-kun went to bed. We waited until Rob and Ry got back then we hit the town for a girls night out. We went to a couple of pubs and then to a club that plays good 80's music, there was lots of dancing and laughing and we rolled in about 3am!

It is has been a long time since I have done that!

A Visit To The Tate Modern...

Friday Ebi-kun and I headed back into London to the Tate Modern. I discovered there are free apps to download and use as you go round. We would have liked to see the Matisse Exhibit but it was way too busy so we decided to take advantage of the free exhibits instead and there are plenty of amazing pieces of work to check out.

Ebi-kun is getting really quite good at recognising various artists and styles and it was really interesting listening to his views on various pieces of work. If you think art galleries and kids don't mix, then you need to get your hands on THIS BOOK, quick read with lots of great ideas!

The app we downloaded was Tate Top Trumps, each piece of work has a code, if you think it will be a strong top trump card you tap in the code then at the end you get to have a game of top trumps. Although the idea was really cool, it didn't actually work too well as we couldn't find many pieces of art work that were registered in the game. There is, however an option to play using the artwork stored in the app which works well.

Ebi-kun can also say he has had his work displayed at the Tate Modern, they had some tablets set up when you can create some work of your own then they project it on the wall.

This is about as close as we got to St Pauls, and we had a wander down the South bank...

We met up with some of my mastermind friends, first time I have met them in the flesh, it was great to meet them and have a good chat and erm a couple of bottle of bubbly...

After all that Ebi-kun and I had a 'date' dinner at Giraffe before heading back to Brighton...

Football and working lunches...

Blimey, I have fallen behind a bit with the blogging! Thursday we put the boys into football school for 4 hours which was great for them and us! They were absolutely shattered by the time they had finished - it was great!

Me and Di took our mac books and heading off to a cute little cafe. Good to chat and plan and write over a lovely cuppa.

Then we had a bit of shopping to do and then it was time for a pub lunch - hard work this life as an entrepreneur! Pulled pork sandwich was delish, washed down with a pint of cider. Must say, that although it is lovely to hang out like this I couldn't do it everyday, it would be fab to be able to meet up and do it once a week.

This trip has been much easier this year, partly because I got a lot of my work organized before I left so it could basically just tick over whilst I am here and partly because I I'm not stressed out about money or the lack of this time. 

After the lovely lunch we meandered back down to pick the boys up. They had had a whale of a time and were suitably shattered and very mucky. A relatively subdued day compared to some of the others we have had!

A full on day at Brighton

Our first day in Brighton we met up with my uncle and his family, when we first got to his house it was peeing down, but after a cup of tea the sun came out. We walked into town and headed for the Pavilion for a picnic...

Then we had a whirlwind visit to the museum in the Dome (excuse to use the toilets!)

Then it was time to hit the pier, not until Darth Vader had been defeated

Comedy photo moment of course...

We tried the Horror Hotel first but Ebi-kun announced it was rubbish! Next up was the log flume, Ebi-kun LOVED it (it was his first time) and went on again with my uncle Si, Charlo and C.

Then it was time for the bumper cars...

It was a windy day so some of the rides were closed, Zoltar was on top form though....

By this time were ready for a drink...

So we took a ride on the oldest electric train in the world...

To the Yellow Wave, barefoot cafe which has a sandpit for the kids to play in.

Uncle Si went to get the car since the kids were tired and it is a bit of a yomp up a big hill back to theirs, so we went to throw rocks in the sea, it was rather choppy!

Then it was back to Si's for dinner, great day with great company. The kids were absolutely shattered and were asleep in record time.