How did that happen? Another year over, and it seems like only a few weeks ago when we went in Formby having a Mr Whippy ice cream on New Year's Day. I haven't had many of those this year, since I found out who was responsible for 'inventing' them.
I don't think I have packed as much into a year as I have during the last 12 months, so here are some of the best bits:
January
I think this was one of the quieter months. I went to see We Will Rock You in Manchester, which was brilliant (thanks mum). Ash (my brother) came too and he'd never been to see anything like that before so it was a bit of a treat. We also went to Pacific for a Thai meal first, so another treat.
In late January I went to a presentation by The Rock Bursary Scheme. Our TWIGs group (Tottington Wildlife Watch Group) had been awarded £1000 so I went along to collect it. Although we meet every month we still haven't spent it, so we need to do that soon!
February
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| Lanzarote |
In February we went to Lanzarote for the first time. We had 10 days of sunshine and relaxation in a lovely hotel. The food was pretty rubbish though, which in a way was OK as we didn't put any weight on! We liked Lanzarote enough to try it again this year.
March
I managed a sneaky few days in Basel for Fasnacht (the carnival). I only booked my flights about 3 days before I went as something at work got cancelled at the last minute which meant I could go. We stayed in the thick of the city and therefore got no sleep as there were drums playing outside my window all night every night, but it was great. Unfortunately I had to be back at work to give a presentation at 10am on the Wednesday morning. There was no direct flight on Tuesday (and it was too early to go home anyway) so I got up at about 2.30am UK time and walked to the train station (the city was closed to taxis etc) to catch the train to Zurich airport. I then got the first train to Manchester, and made it with time to spare.
April
At the end of April the country had lots of festivities for the Royal Wedding. We took advantage of the extra bank holiday and went to Paris. We had an amazing time. We did toast the royal couple by having a glass of wine while we were in the queue for the Eiffel Tower, but apart from that we stayed out of it. My highlight was our day in Pere Lachaise Cemetery.
May
I struggled remembering what we'd done in May, although we were in Paris at the beginning of it. We went to the Louvre on 1st May, as it is free on the first Sunday of every month. Unfortunately, most of Paris is closed on 1st May so we didn't get in! I took my dad to see Yes Prime Minister at the Lowry Theatre mid May. This had been his present for his birthday the previous December!
June
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| Remember The Dream |
In June I was back at the Lowry to see Avenue Q, a sort of adult Muppet Show production. I laughed from start to finish. Later in the month we had a family trip to BBC Gardeners World Show at Birmingham NEC. It rained for most of the day but that didn't stop us enjoying it.
July
I had another first in July. I went to London for the weekend. Alfie Boe and Matt Lucas were in Les Miserables, but tickets had been sold out for ages. However, we found at that some tickets were available for £10 on the day of the performance. We got up early, made our way to the theatre, and got our tickets. The only catch was that we had to stand up at the back for the whole performance. We had something to lean on though, and the view wasn't restricted!
August
Our summer holiday was in August, and we went back to Turkey. We were given a fabulous room with amazing views out to sea. However, I go to bed early when I'm on holiday and it was a bit noisy, so we got moved to, in my opinion, a better 'villa' out of the way.
September
We went to see The Sound of Music in Manchester. Before we went we got an email to break the news that Connie Fisher was pulling out, unable to play Maria. That didn't bother me as I was only going to see Jason Donovan playing Captain Von Trapp anyway. He was so good I even watched him in Strictly afterwards. On this day he kept all his clothes on, unlike the other year when we saw him in Priscilla Queen of the Desert in the West End.
We also got a weekend in Dublin while H was on a school trip. We had a brilliant hotel, and after a full day in the city we went to the seaside (Malahide) at night.
October
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| Keyserberg |
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| Trip to Putney |
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| All Lego |
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| Alan Turing's desk |
We packed so much into October. Early in the month we went to see Peter Kay again, and he was just as good as last time.
For half term at the end of the month we did loads in a week. We went to Bletchley Park to learn about Alan Turing and the Codebreakers. I could have stayed for a weekend, but we made do with an afternoon. We then stayed overnight at Gatwick and flew to Basel the following morning. We were going to a week of fairgrounds, but I found out the week before that I'd mistimed it and that particular festival didn't start until the day after we came home. While we were there we spent time in France, which I loved. We flew back early morning, so we had time to spend time in Putney and Wandsworth, where I lived while in London many years ago. The following day we were at Legoland Windsor. I was dreading it but it was really good.
November
As a treat for Kath's birthday we went to the BBC Good Food Show at Birmingham NEC. I got first class train tickets, and VIP tickets for the show, which made it much less stressful. We had a great day, and partied all the way home by drinking the Yellow Tail Bubbles we had bought.
December
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| Kirkconnel |
We got our trip to Kirkconnel in Scotland that we'd been trying to have all year. It chose the day we were going to snow, but we made it.
For Kath's actual birthday we went to Cloud 23 at the Hilton for afternoon tea. I love it there.
Finally, we had the first Bah Humbug Society Jolly Days Out outing. 9 of us cleared off to to a hotel for Christmas, and on Christmas Day morning we were swimming outside. We had such a good time we may do it again next year.....
