Recap of the Marvelous Weekend

Friday Steve came home from work early so that he and I could take the van back to Enterprise to pay for last month and to renew for next month. After he called the Enterprise in Reading and was told that their office couldn’t do it, he called the Gatwick office, fully expecting them to tell us that we would have to drive all the way back there to renew the van. But – good news! They took care of it over the phone. Steve had been giving himself heartburn all week about the damage on the van and how Enterprise and the Lab would handle it. The first day we were in the UK, a bush reached out from the hedgerow and grabbed the van’s skirt under the front bumper and ripped it loose. Without provocation! Naughty English hedgerows. Now the skirt on the passenger side flaps loosely and we get odd stares. Apparently people over here take care immediately of little car dings. Since we didn’t have to take the van in, they didn’t see the skirt and Steve has 5 months to figure out what he wants to do – fix it, fake fix it, or forget about it.

After this info about the van, Steve, the girls and I drove to the library to buy tickets online for Warwick Castle for Audrey’s birthday. They charge 10p (pence) per sheet to print stuff out and since we don’t have a printer, what other choice do we have?

Anyway – we found out that we couldn’t buy tickets online for Saturday, but we got the phone number for ticket sales. I ended up calling later in the afternoon and got that sorted out. More about that later.

So after the library, we walked around the block to Park Lane and picked up Caleb. I thought Friday was his last day, but turns out Tuesday is his last day. Everyone else in the country got out Friday, but we go 2 more days. Hm. No big deal. After we got Caleb, we drove to Oracle Mall to get the boys to Supercuts for haircuts. Caleb is looking quite shaggy with his growing-out buzz cut.

Entire time spent in mall: 2 hours. Time waiting for haircuts: 1 hour. People waiting for haircuts in front of us: 3. Stylists at Supercuts working: ?. We’re not quite sure how many were working there. Two or 3. But they all went on break at the same time without telling any patrons what was going on. In the middle of this, one stylist is talking on her cell phone while sitting in one of the wash chairs. She keeps glancing up at the front where we are, but never says anything, nor does she acknowledge our presence.

So we left and went to the music/DVD store where we bought some movies to soothe our tempers. We got some kid movies for the kids (who else?), and “Dodgeball” and “Man on Fire” for us. Then we went back to Supercuts and waited some more. I finally had to walk down to the other end of the mall to get poor starving Caleb a snack. When I got back, they were still waiting. Finally the cell phone lady got up and took care of the one person in line before the guys. Then the other “on-break” woman came back and took about 5 minutes to cut Caleb’s hair. She didn’t do that good of a job – I had to trim him up when we got home. Then while she was working on Steve, Audrey decides to have a temper tantrum, so the kids and I strolled to the van and beat Steve there by only about 7 minutes. Two hours for about 25 minutes of haircuts. We will not be going back there.

Friday night was not a good sleep night. Not because of my children, though. There were some “thugs” as Steve refers to them, walking down the street being incredibly loud. They walked by around midnight and Steve was still awake reading. I had fallen asleep, but they woke me up. Steve was a little concerned about their intentions, so he turned off his reading light and fussed at me when he thought I was going to turn mine on. I informed him that I’m not dumb, but that I was getting my glasses so that I could go downstairs to get the video camera plugged in for our trip out tomorrow.

Thug noise finally died down as they went down the street and we thought we would be able to get some sleep, but we were wrong. It finally cooled off and rained, but in the middle of the night there was an UNBELIEVABLY HUGE crack of thunder. Woke us all up. All 3 kids ended up in our room. Thank goodness it’s a big room. Caleb & Audrey both slept on their duvets on the floor because neither one would leave Julie alone when they were all in bed with us.

Saturday dawns. Audrey is 3! We got her a tutu and leotard, Caleb got her a talking Peppa Pig doll who quit talking after 2 hours, and Julie got her a hot pink shirt (and Julie also got a matching one). We opened cards from Grammy, Nana, Gigi, and Great-Grannie, then had donuts for breakfast. After we all got dressed and loaded tons of stuff into the van (strollers, raincoats, rain covers for strollers, baby frontpack, baby backpack, diaper bags…etc.), we headed out to Warwick (pronounced WAR-ick) Castle.

I had been telling Audrey for months that we would go to a castle for her birthday. And Steve’s work buddies told him that this was the one to go to. It’s owned by the Earl of Warwick, but managed by Tussad’s Group – as in Madam Toussad’s. Very big and very cool! We decided to park in the Stables car park – very close to the entry, but also £5. Cheap, even free, parking was available farther away.

We were greeted by a big stuffed dragon (picture to come later), and as we were standing in the much-shorter-than-the-regular-line line for pre-booked tickets, we met a group of Aggies studying abroad for 4 months. They saw Steve’s A&M shirt.

When I post pictures later I’ll post more details about the castle, but I will say that the insides were almost as posh as Windsor, except Warwick had wax dummies. We saw Henry VIII and his 6 wives, as well as William the Conquerer, a young Winston Churchill and his mother, and several other people I’m sure were famous in their time. Most of the figures were from the late 1800s and early 1900s. We saw the Duke of Marlborough in the smoking room (how ironic!) who married a Vanderbilt. Turns out the Vanderbilt lady locked herself in her room for 4 days before she agreed to marry the Marlborough man.

After we toured around inside the castle for a while, we went on the turrets and ramparts walk. It was over 530 steps, although we only did one turret and one rampart. We went up, up, up, up a dark, narrow spiral staircase, and were rewarded with spectacular views (to be posted later). Then we went down, down, down, down the same staircase and decided to exit instead of going on with the rest of the turrets and ramparts.

Good thing, too! The plan was to head out to the outer grounds, get some ice cream, and watch the bowman perform. Then we were going to go to River Island to watch the fighting knights, jousting, and the ball of fire being flung by the trebuchet (treb-oooh-shay). But no! So much for plans. It started raining, so we found shelter. Along with about 200 other people on that side of the castle. I decided to dash back to the van and get our raincoats. We brought the covers for the strollers and Caleb was being a little pain, so I took him with me on my damp dash. Steve stayed with the girls in the castle walkway.

We got back just as the rain was letting up, so getting everyone situated was easy. Then it really started coming down – sideways at times. We decided then to take advantage of their £5 return ticket offer. For £5 you can buy another ticket to come back at any time until 31 December, 2006.

By the time we got to the van, we were very glad we had parked in “premium parking.” It took a while to get everyone and everything in the van, but because the back door lifts up, we could stand under its shelter while we were futzing around with stuff. Audrey was so wet that she had to ride home in just her princess undies. I think our jackets are water resistant – not repellant. Could have been worse, I guess.

Even though Audrey didn’t get to spend her £3 in the gift shop, she’s excited to be going back. I think we’ll go during the week instead of a weekend and hopefully avoid some of the crowds. We’ll also not bring the strollers – just a carrying pack for Julie. We had to keep leaving our “pushchairs” at the entrances to different parts of the castle. Annoying. So the 1 ½ hour ride home went quietly since all 3 kids were asleep and I was nearly asleep.

At home after we got changed, we went back out to the van to unload all of our soggy stuff. Our neighbors, Ann and Graham (or Graeme, I’m not sure which spelling he uses) drove up and we chatted for a while. They have 2 grown kids and 3 grand kids (7, 4, and 2). Audrey was out in her new leotard and tutu and told them it was her b-day. About 30 minutes later as I was making Audrey a taco tea (early supper) for her birthday, Ann rang the bell and had gifts for the kids. She and Graham gave Audrey 2 books and gave Caleb a game of Frog Tidily Winks.

After last night’s noisiness, we didn’t think tonight would hold any surprises. We were wrong. “Delinquent House” (as Steve has dubbed it) decided to host a fireworks party in the wee hours. We’re not sure where D.H. is – it’s somewhere behind the house directly across the street from us. The fireworks were shining right in our window as they exploded and popped. Fortunately, the kids didn’t wake up.

Sunday – we were 15 minutes late for church because we couldn’t find where we were meeting. We can’t meet in the school anymore since it’s summer holiday (I don’t understand it, either), but we were meeting instead in the community center on the other side of the pub, which is on the other side of the church, which is beside the school. Make sense?

Anyway, there was no crèche and no children’s classes, so everybody is all together for 6 more weeks until we’re back in the school. Noisy.

I took advantage of Steve being home and went to the grocery store by myself. Talk about being picked over! Dad – remember how bad it was at the HEB during the hurricane evacuation? It reminded me of that. And there were scads of people there, too. Businesses are only just now being allowed to have opening hours on Sunday, but they can only be open 6 hours. This store was open from 10 – 4. They had a guy at the entrance turning people away who were trying to come in after 4. Actually it wasn’t “people,” it was “a person” and I think he was either American or Canadian. Didn’t ask.

I was hoping to get some decent sleep tonight after the last 2 nights. I sort of did. I made the mistake today of not drinking any coffee in the morning. I was too busy trying to get my posh hairdo to “do” for church, then when we got home I wanted something else to drink with lunch. I ended up with something akin to a migraine (but not a migraine) when I finally lay down for bed. I had to boot Steve to the other side of the bed because his side gets more air from the fan and I needed air. I also had to put the pillow over my eyes because of the light from outside. Sun was down, it just wasn’t dark yet. I woke up around midnight and most of the headache was gone, which was a good thing because Julie was summoning me to her crib for a midnight snack.

Yesterday – Monday. I was so frustrated by the end of the day. Although we did have a rather nice dinner: Jalfrezi chicken with naan bread and pilau rice (Indian cuisine) and sweetcorn and green peas. Caleb just pushed it all into a big pile and started eating from the top down. Steve is really *really* enjoying this Indian food. He was even speculating how much of this we can find in NM grocery stores. I’m very surprised because he has never been this enthusiastic about food before.

So now it’s Tuesday at 12:32. Julie and I are about go to pick up Audrey from Dickory Docks. She cried all the way to school and cried as Steve dropped her off. So heartbreaking. But after we’re gone she cheers up straightaway. Cheeky girl.

Julie is sitting in her stroller right now watching “Teletubbies.” A little while ago while I was vacuuming in the lounge, I could hear her over there yelling at the TV. Not mad or scared – just very loud talking. Very loud and very regular: “AAAHH!” pause “AAAHH!” pause “AAAHH!” pause. You get the point.

So I’m signing off before I go off on another tangent about this adventure we’re having. It’s 80% marvelous. It would be 95% marvelous if we could get this annoying phone/internet thing straightened out. Hopefully tomorrow. Please pray.