visitors

Ok so its now officially “Year of the Visitors”. I feel very lucky to have had so many friends and family around but am harbouring a secret fear that now people have made the excessively long trip from Aus that they won’t be in a hurry to turn around and do it again for several years. Maybe the visits should have been rationed…

After a couple of years of general stuffing around I am now reaping the best reward of having a permanent job – paid holidays! Last week we went up to Smithy’s cottage for a relaxing holiday – with our combined families. Had brief moments of questioning our sanity but great weather and daily BBQs meant things stayed pretty chilled.

The holiday was vaguely timed to coincide with my birthday. Smithy had been winding me up for months about “the best birthday surprise in the world”. When he arrived at the cottage on Monday I obediently closed my eyes and waited patiently. I opened them to find my surprise standing in front of me looking a bit jetlagged. He had collected Suze from Manchester on the way through! After a bit of girly squealing I discovered that they had cooked the plan up months ago and I had two whole weeks of ridiculous conversations and taking the piss out of reality TV participants to look forward to.

Back in London this week we had a family outing to see the new Billy Elliot musical which lived up to the movie amazingly well. It was collectively pronounced one of the best musicals ever. Very funny, great music and the boy that played Billy was amazing for a young kid – he was practically on stage the whole time with some pretty energetic tap dancing routines.

I can’t believe that the two weeks are almost over. I’m skiving off work tomorrow to hang with Sue before she heads back on Saturday. To remedy the depression that is sure to follow I’m busy planning a trip home at Christmas.