Not Feeling Quite So Marvelous

My back hurts. It usually does when I wake up, but I'm just tired of it hurting all the time. Plus my plantar fasciitis hurts - the arch of my left foot. I hurt it originally in 2003 and it got better in late 2004, but it's acting up again. Plus my Achilles tendons are tender. Too much walking? I don't want to stop, though. It's such a nice relaxing thing to do. Until I wake up feeling like I'm about a hundred years old.

On to other things. I'll stop whining now.

Yesterday Lynette and Nancy got to experience an unpleasant aspect of eating at pubs. Julie decided to take a looooong morning nap and slept until about 1.30. We had hemmed and hawed around and not had lunch at the house and decided to go to TGI Friday's to get lunch. So we loaded us all up in the van and headed out. Got to Friday's and were welcomed by a packed parking lot - at 2 in the afternoon. Hmmm. Unloaded everyone and got inside to discover that the wait was 30 minutes. Ok. Got back in the van and decided to head out to the Pack Saddle. It's a "family friendly" pub on the way to Mapledurham. Our plan was to eat and then take L & N to see the cottage we stayed in back in June. We unloaded, walked past a nice playground into the pub and were told that they had stopped serving lunch already. Fine. By this time I'm getting really tense because I'm starving and the kids (except Julie) are starving and letting us all know about it, and I'm sure the other 3 adults are starving, too, except they're polite enough not to whine about it like the kids.

So we drove down the little road and then the little lane to Mapledurham Estate. We drove past the cottage - I thought about pulling in but saw there was a vehicle there already. Not nice to go window peeking when someone is actually inhabiting the place. We drove down past the cottage through the village and then on towards the big house. But the house and grounds are closed until Easter, so we didn't get very close. But L&N enjoyed seeing the country setting, the cottage, the narrow lane, and all that went along with it. Alas, there were no cows. Audrey was disappointed.

Back into town. Back by Friday's, since it is on our way. I parked and ran in to find out that the wait had decreased to only 20 minutes. No thanks. Ran back to the van and kept on towards home. We decided we would go to M-c-D-o-n-a-l-d-s. Caleb asked, "What does that spell?" to which I replied, "It spells 'you're gonna be happy'." Or something like that. It made L&N crack up and that made me feel better that they could laugh in the midst of grumbling tummies.

Made our way to McD's. I have mixed feelings at this point - it's McDonald's, but I'm starving and it's easily accessible food. So we eat.

I have to interject something here - we're watching a kids' TV show about how they make shoes. It's VERY cool! They're custom-making a little pinky-purple pair of leather Mary Janes for a 4-year-old girl named Georgia. Very interesting and cool!

Back to the whiny story now.

Lunch at McD's at 3.20. Yikes. While we were there, a classmate of Caleb's came in - Chloe. She's a cutie pie. Her mom, Mrs. Bird, is one of the dinner ladies at Caleb's school. They call cafeteria ladies dinner ladies. After the kids eat lunch, some of the dinner ladies accompany them outside for playtime. I'm not quite sure how that works, but it works somehow.

So we now are all fed and happy. We decide to drive around in the older part of Reading to see buildings and stuff. We get over near the Oracle (the mall) and Audrey announces that she has to go to the bathroom. Joy. We decide to just go home at this point. On the way home, we swing by the grocery store to pick up a couple of things.

It was a very frustrating afternoon.

Today promises to be better. We're skipping church (shame on us) and we're going to go to an antique toy fair down by the River Thames later. We'll see the river, then after we're done with the toy fair and sightseeing there, we'll head into Reading to Forbury Garden to see the big lion statue and the abbey ruins. At least we have a game plan for the day.

Tomorrow Steve will accompany L&N to London. They will spend the night there and come back Tuesday afternoon/evening. Steve has decided to take reading material and will sit out on the more "girly" things like Kensington Palace and Harrod's. Wimp.

This is all for now. I'm going to check on train info for the London travellers now.