As there were only about 20 of us, we had a mass game at the end.
You hit it and ran and then passed the bat along the waiting batsmen.
The batsmen were never out but the bat lost a life if you were caught/bowled.
After 5 lives and a lot of sprinting (AT MY AGE!!!) and a lot of cheering and a lot of puffing,oops,I mean laughing, you changed over. Brilliant fun. And it kept us warm.
Naturally I couldn't resist asking the girls for a mass plank for my album
She tried them out on the kitchen table and seemed to like them.
Sophie Grace Bell, you are such a lucky girl to have such a lovely family.
This was Pre-Party Storytime with her Uncle Ian.
Meanwhile Auntie Drake and I interfered with the cake decorating, oopsiee,
but Nixen added her magic touch and it turned out absolutely fine and it got a lot of compliments.
It tasted delicious too.
It was a perfect occasion to open my birthday bottle of Piper Heidsieck.
Party preparations
Grandma and Auntie Sam
The live music was lovely.
The Goodparents.
Sparents!
Sophie had the BEST time.
Going...
going...
GONE!
Proud Mums and Dads.
We are so blessed to have Sophie in our lives.
Nic and Nem, Pixen and Drake, Firstborn and Lastborn.
...with their Dadster.
It was the perfect little party.
Sophie was a gem, smiling at all the right times and she had a ten minute nap during the cake cutting. The buffet at Maxine's At Bannatynes was superb(I think Ian had about 7 mini burgers haha)
The cake was delicious, the musicians were lovely and the balloons are refillable.
There are several walks of varying lengths (which we have noted for future reference) but time was short as we were combining this visit with an evening at the theatre so we took the short walk right up to the falls-you can get really close-and came back the same way.
Very impressive.
120 feet of tumbling water amidst lovely scenery.
Naturally,,as we were at the seaside in Llandudno..we needed our chish and fips fix and I think the ones we had at Chish'n'Fips were some of the nicest we have ever had.
Seagulls must think so too as there was a bottle of Seagull Blaster on the table.
The comedy The Play That Went Wrong was hilarious.
Very silly, clever and daft, comedy genius with perfect timing.
Everything that could go wrong, break, fall off, get stuck or collapse... DID.
Even Trevor, the Sound and Lighting man had a part just off stage and he managed to mess things up brilliantly.
It was good old fashioned fun and very cleverly done.
We were meeting Cub and Emily in London (they were en route to a wedding in France) and saw
(by chance,on Snapchat) that the SmiffyBears were also in London that day too (woop!)
We managed a quick meet up in Covent Garden (and a very expensive pint in the Punch and Judy)
What were the chances! A great start to the weekend.
It was short and sweet but they had to get home and we had a show to see.
We had tickets for MATILDA!!
Matilda The Musical was brilliant.
I acquired another Matilda (for photo purposes only-her mum was taking the photo)
as the others had disappeared into the chocolate shop next door.....
...and then we went in, and, well OF COURSE I bought the mug.
How could I not?
CHILDREN ARE MAGGOTS
We had superb seats in the stalls.
The stage set was very clever.
A colourful explosion of board tiles and towering shelves of books that moved with each scene.
I was fascinated by it, it was very impressive.
The entire cast were superb.
Miss Trunchbull, the ex champion hammer-thrower, complete with hunchback and ample bosom, was a typical pantomime dame and he/she did a fantastic job of sniffing sweat, terrifying the pupils and swinging Amanda Thripp round and round by her pigtails.
THE PIGTAILS!
A highlight for sure.
This was where our stalls seats were just perfect. She landed right by our feet.
Miss Honey was as sweet as could be.
Even Matilda's "evil" parents were superb.
And the star of the show, Matilda, played by Savannah Read in our performance, was everything from "A little bit naughty" to cute, hilarious, brilliant and pure GENIUS.
It was everything you'd want from a musical.
Fabulous entertainment, funny, touching, ACE.
Next day we headed off into London to The Natural History Museum to meet Guy, Becky (with Bump) and Rox.
(Bump was due on Christmas Day but was born on my birthday Yippee!)
We were staying in an AirBnB in Islington so Breakfast was OnTheRun!
From an amazing delicatessen.
"Whale, hellooo there" indeed.
The Natural History Museum is home to a skeleton of a huge blue whale which hangs from the ceiling of the entrance hall.
But we were there for the Nocturnal Animals exhibition.
Naturally there were Australian animals. Wow is a Kiwi that big??
Oooh look at me in Infra-red!
I've got a COLD NOSE.
Infra-red side plank looks good though.
It was a beautiful day, perfect for a stroll through Hyde Park...
It was a flying visit as there were more uni mates to visit, a wedding to get to in France and a spin class to take (yay) so next morning we had a quick gluten free breakfast...
(how did THAT happen?I'm sure we were heading back to that lovely delicatessen)
...and caught the train back to Chester.
We'd had a fabulous couple of days with the Cubster and Em.
And then they headed off to the wedding in France.
