Summer 08

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This Summer was, according to anyone you ask, wet and miserable. I must have been in a different country as I remember it as dry and sunny! Maybe it is all in your state of mind. The only wet day out we had was the canal boat ride, but we still had a great time.


Shirley, Mark and Eric came over for three weeks. We spent the time as tourists here in and around Chester, well it is a tourist destination after all! We did venture as far afield as Blackpool and had a long weekend in London.


Blackpool was fun. The kids loved the arcade games of course, and we had fun watching Mark put up a deckchair, which he managed extremely well. Sitting on the beach we could pretend we were in the south of France, except for the donkeys! But we were all surprised by how fast the tide came in.

There was an unexpected bonus when Caro and her family came to stay. Caro was Shirley's exchange partner when we were kids. She spent a couple of summers with us and I can honestly say she hasn't changed at all. It was wonderful to see her and meet her children. The last time we met was at Shirley's wedding. I had arranged a tour with a Roman soldier which the kids loved, and we all learnt something as well.

London was fabulous, except for Michael who declared this "the worst holiday EVER" , there is no pleasing some people. We did the sights, and getting around was much easier than I expected. London has changed since I lived down that way. It is much cleaner and even the people are friendlier than I remember. Michael did find Eric's head-on-a-stick hilarious, so it wasn't a complete loss. And we got to see the Changing of the Guard.

Michael's 11Th birthday was spent at the Blue Planet Aquarium. The sight of two divers singing Happy Birthday inside the shark tank was really something.

We also managed to squeeze in a trip to Legoland before Shirley arrived, so all in all I think it was a great Summer.