I haven’t posted here on the blog – or much anywhere online at all – this year, and there is a simple reason for that; life got a bit nuts and my head has had more than its fair share of bad days too, which hasn’t helped matters.
Unfortunately a close family member fell ill just before Christmas and was hospitalised shortly afterwards, so we have spent the last month or so helping to take care of her, running errands, and for the last three weeks have had two of her dogs staying with us too. Even our visit to my parents at Christmas had James & I returning from Wales to the West Midlands for a few days and leaving the girls behind to enjoy family time while we went to help out.
Needless to say, our own personal projects and to-do lists have been somewhat put on hold. One thing that we didn’t change, however, was our plans with Lydia to celebrate her twelfth birthday a month early with a trip to London to see a musical and have a night away with just the three of us. Plans had to change with where Georgie and our two dogs were staying, but thankfully the world has kind people who helped out and we could go ahead with our trip.
We actually stayed just outside London in Uxbridge at the Premier Inn, and it was a very comfortable nights sleep – in fact one of the best I’ve had in a hotel for a long time. We were also able to easily charge the car in their car park, as they had plenty of chargers available for guests to use, which always makes life easier.
On the way down we made use of our National Trust membership to visit Upton House and Gardens, which is home to a large collection of art. All three of us enjoyed a delicious lunch at the cafe, followed by a leisurely stroll through the beautiful house looking at the various paintings and ceramics.
For dinner, we walked across the road from our hotel to The General Elliot where we all stuffed our bellies with more yumminess before heading back to chill out in our hotel room and watch some TV including introducing Lydia to the hilarity that is Free Guy.
Sunday we took the tube into London to go and watch The Lightning Thief – the Percy Jackson Musical at The Other Palace, which our little Rick Riordan superfan absolutely loved. Of course, Lydia wore her Camp Half-Blood t-shirt to the show… somehow we came home with her the proud owner of a new pink Annabeth quote t-shirt too (plus a mug for her and a magnet for me!).
It was great fun and I’ll definitely post a full review of it soon. In the meantime I am happy to recommend it to any Percy Jackson fans – the run got extended to August and having seen the show I can certainly see why.
It was good to get a few days away from the stress and enjoy exploring new places and seeing new things, even if it was a short but sweet trip away!
What a wonderful trip! My kids love Percy Jackson and all Rick Riordan’s books! Thank you for the beautiful cursive and handwriting pages on your blog. We are going to use them to reinforce handwriting in our homeschool Thanks!