Project 365 2022 Week 31-32 Day 212-225 Another two-week round-up as we started the fortnight by meeting up with friends at a Country Fair and spent a mad day driving to Kent and back to visit relatives.
Sunday 31st July – Day 212
We travelled to the Welland Steam and Country Fair and met up with my friend Suzanne and her husband. It’s mad that we’ve seen less of each other now that they’re back in the UK than we did when they were based in Dubai. We had a great day, the weather mostly behaved and the show was very impressive
Monday 1st August – Day 213
We had a shoe fitting booked for my son first thing in the morning before the inevitable crowds descended on Bicester Village. We spent a lot longer in the store than I’d expected but came away with nothing so will rebook for a normal Clarks store rather than the outlet to see if we have more success there.
Tuesday 2nd August – Day 214
After work, we headed into town to do some shopping and my son picked up the new Aston Martin Lego set that was launched yesterday from our local toy shop. I think you can tell how happy he is with this build.
Wednesday 3rd August – Day 215
My son was so excited to have his best friend over for the day. We headed to Buckinghamshire Railway Centre and showed him around. He’d never been on a steam train and my son loved explaining how everything worked.
Thursday 4th August – Day 216
Brewster’s favourite spot in the house – can’t be particularly comfortable but he loves it.
After work we headed over to see my brother and SIL for a few hours and spent the afternoon in their garden enjoying the warm weather.
Friday 5th August – Day 217
These two really do get on rather well. There isn’t a day that goes by when we don’t talk about Fudge and Paddington, but we’re so thankful to have these two. They often disappear together in the evening, off in search of mice no doubt.
After work I finally got my nail re-done. I’d missed my last appointment three weeks ago thanks to Covid and already had this one booked in for the last appointment before my nail lady goes on holiday. Six weeks of nail growth has been hard to cope with, I have no idea how women have incredibly long nails. Greatly relieved to have a more normal length once again and a bit of shimmer and shine to get me through my holiday too.
Saturday 6th August – Day 218
We’ve had a date in the diary for ages to meet up with my Uncle and surprise my Auntie at her care home down in Kent. We’ve not been down for over a year and my Auntie has been ping-ponging between the care home and hospital for some time. Needless to say, she was back in the hospital so we drove down a number of motorways, picked my Uncle up, had some lunch and then the two of us headed into the hospital and my OH and son headed to Bluewater and the Lego store. My Auntie was on good form and so pleased to see us.
But it was such a long day, we were all shattered by the time we got home.
Sunday 7th August – Day 219
We were so glad that the OH took yesterday off so we all had today to recover from yesterday’s road trip. We did pretty much nothing all day, but I did get to enjoy the fact that my sweet peas have finally decided to flower.
Monday 8th August – Day 220
And this is Pippi’s favourite spot, can you tell?
Tuesday 9th August – Day 221
My son has finally agreed that he really needs to sort his Lego into some sort of order and he made a start on colour sorting some of it. We want to change the Ikea Trofast unit in the living room to one of their Billy bookcases – the Trofast drawers are full of toys that my son really doesn’t play with so he went through them and agreed on what could be sold, given away and put in the loft. When we get back from holiday we’ll get the bookcase and extra shelving so he can display some of this vast Lego collection and I can reclaim some of my carpet! Hopefully!
Wednesday 10th August – Day 222
London in the sunshine. We headed down to the capital for a full day of activities. Firstly we had tickets for the Houses of Parliament, a first for both of us. It was fascinating, the two ‘houses’ are much smaller than they appear on TV and all of the rooms are so much more ornate than I’d expected. You can’t take photographs during a large part of the tour so I was glad we’d pre-ordered a guidebook. Can highly recommend a trip there. We had lunch in the cafe there, reasonably priced for London and filled our water bottles before heading out into the sunshine again
As Westminster Abbey is just across the road we decided to visit there too, I have no idea why I’ve never visited before. It was very busy and my son was done with headphones for the day (don’t be like my son!) so I grabbed a free map in Spanish (no English ones left) and we spent time looking around. I might have squealed inside when we saw the tomb of Elizabeth I, my son loved finding Thomas Telford and Robert Stephenson. I’m sure we missed loads more and we will definitely go back again, this time with the headphones and not during the summer holidays!
From there we headed to Canary Wharf on the underground to take a look at Gotheborg of Sweden, the largest wooden sailing ship in the world that arrived in South Quay on Monday and sails out again on Friday. My son didn’t want to go onboard so we just admired the ship from the quayside and looked at all the skyscrapers.
We finally got to enjoy the Elizabeth Line, the airconditioned underground trains and really comfortable seats.
Our final stop of the day was the Lego store in Leicester Square. By some fluke, we had chosen to be in London on the day the store reopened after a refurb. It was a bit busy but my son was so happy to visit and to see what they’ve done to the store since our last visit. He’d wanted to make a personalised minifig in their new Minifigure Factory but the wait time was 40 minutes and we’d already waited a long time to get into the store itself. So we shelved that particular idea and headed home.
Thursday 11th August – Day 223
Heatwave time again and Brewster decided he’d help my son build his new Star Wars Lego set whilst I was working.
Friday 12th August – Day 224
It’s hot – definitely getting my son and I ready for Spain.
The postman brought us a letter with my son’s first orthodontist appointment for next month, so will be good to get the ball rolling on that at last and it’s a 9 am appointment so not too disruptive with his schoolwork hopefully. He’s already hoping he’ll have Maths first period so he can miss that!
Saturday 13th August – Day 225
Another scorcher of a day and it wasn’t long before the shade in the garden disappeared completely.
It sounds like you had a good day at the country fair and have been enjoying the summer holidays. I came close to buying me fella that Aston Martin Lego set for his birthday.
Ahh! I am glad you got to see your Auntie and Uncle. No wonder you were all shattered by the end of the day. The trip to London sounds like fun. x