Easter Parade

What a fantastic weekend. I had such a lovely Easter - it is such a shame to be back at work! Ah well... no rest for the wicked!

Anyway... a run down for the weekend!

Good Friday
Got up uber early (with Mark, as he was off to work), and made my way to sunny (very sunny) Norwich for the day, and for what turned out to be the night as well. This was such a lovely day our meeting up with friends I haven't seen for ages. Arrived at Annie and Jack's nice and early for breakfast, which was simply delicious. Annie excelled herself as usual, and laid out a mighty feast - croissants, bread, organic yoghurt, honey, jam, fresh raspberries, fresh grilled pineapple, toasted coconut, cereal, hot cross buns etc... all washed down with some delicious fruit juice and fresh coffee. Was lovely to catch up with them and hear more about their holiday in NZ in catch up with some family chit chat. My house looked pretty good too (I have some new tenants), and spied one of them leaving the house - she looked young and pretty, and I think she is living there with a friend of a similar age. All is good!

At lunch, I went to see Jane and Jamie. Was GREAT to catch up with them. They both look well and happy as usual, and are in the process of buying a rather gorgeous house quite close to them - bigger than their current one, and has a huge 60ft garden. I think that the inside of the house needs some work doing to it, but am sure it is nothing that they can't handle. Jamie cooked some delicious pasta sauce and tortellini... divine!

Later in the afternoon, I picked up my cousin Mark and took him round to see Nicki and Carlos's new house; again, it needs some work doing to the inside (they have already done the lounge, which looks GORGEOUS), and has a MASSIVE garden, which they are setting about doing! Cousin-Mark seemed ok, although a little perturbed (perhaps more than he lets on) about the absence of Lindsey in his house; she moved out at the weekend, and I didn't actually manage to see her. It seems though that I may have inadvertently upset her with some of my frank advice over Christmas, so am regretful about that situation (but not necessarily what I actually said). In the evening, my plans to drive home were dashed... we ended up drinking in Norwich at the rather pleasant Bird Cage pub (used to be the Pottergate Tavern, and has been massively refurbished), and then Bedfords... it all ended up not so glamorously - my cousin and I stuffed Pizza from Caspians, and then went back to his and had garlic mash and more beer (for some reason!).

Saturday
I got up dead early and ran Cousin-Mark down to the station, as he was off to watch Newcastle vs Sheffield UTD play at Sheffield. I drove home, got scrubbed up, and went to Mark's parents for the rest of the morning, and spent it sunbathing in their garden. Went to see Histon FC in the afternoon with Mark's dad (2-1 win to Histon, yay!), and then just had an early night really!

Sunday
We drove over to Lowestoft in the morning, straight to Mum and Dad's. The weather was gorgeous again, so went for a walk along what used to be the "Waveney Way", but is now called "Angles Way" or summat?! Anyway... it was a lovely afternoon - walking near the Broads and the Somerleyton estate. We had a nice couple of drinks afterwards in The Dukes Head in Somerleyton, which has really nice beer garden that we sat around in. In the evening, we went to Tracy's for dinner (gorgeous pies from her shop), drank wine and played some silly games with Henry. Highlight of the evening was when I noticed that the boxes that the pies come in have "open flaps and munch" written on the side of them (with no lack of irony) - I sniggered, Mark sniggered, Tracy sniggered... my mum kept reading it out loud in a monotone voice, without getting it. We cried... bits of pie came out of my nose. It was a mess ;-)

Easter Monday
We had a REALLY lovely day in Fritton Lake, with my Mum and Dad, Henry and Oscar. Poor Tracy can't take any time off over the Easter weekend, as this is easily the busiest weekend of her year, so we wanted to do something fun for Henry. Fritton Lake is just lovely - only £5 each to get in (much less than most), but everything thrown in for free. Free use of rowing boats and pedalos on the lake, putting, horse rides (for £1 extra), a play park with a bouncy pillow thingy (a variation on a bouncy castle), and loads of lovely grounds to picnic in... Henry had such a good time there, and we had fun watching him. Was really pleasant - I can highly recommend it.

In the afternoon, we visited Nanny and Grandad, which was nice. Got the football scores for yesterday (Histon won AGAIN! Deffo on for promotion to Conference!), and Mum cooked us a lovely roast dinner.

Wish I could repeat that kind of weekend ad infinitum!
Hope you all had a good Easter!
Lots of love
Hayls
xxxxxx