Just Me and My Girl - Oct 2012 Day 0

[Connies Mummy]

Day 0 – The one when we hit zero

So after spending over a year planning the day had actually arrived, finally! Today was the start of our holiday.

We were up at 7am there was lots to do today, first was the bed sheet change and last minute hoover, washing up and tidy of the house before my parents but mainly my mum would arrive for dog sitting duties. My mum is the type to run her finger over the mantel piece and inspect for dust so its a good job I don't have a mantel above the fireplace because she would definitely find dust! The last minute items went into the bags, you know the things phone chargers, toothbrush etc. and then I man handled them downstairs. It was all done at top speed as we had one more hurdle to get over before we could officially start the holiday and that was School. Study for Connie and work for me it was going to be a long morning or so I thought!

Despite my misgivings that the morning was going to drag by the time passed surprisingly quickly and after a bit of teaching the clock soon ticked round to 12.45 and then I was collecting Connie from the playground, with lots of hugs for cousins and friends, waving and skipping we made our bid for freedom and were soon in the car blasting out the Disney tunes and speeding (with in the speed limit obviously) towards home. Once home I was straight on the computer to complete online check in which went according to plan and the seats that I had managed to snaffle yesterday in the bubble were still ours, yay. A quick change into old clothes, a good dibb tip wear old clothes to the airport hotel and throw them away meaning less in the bags to carry and more room for shopping on the way back, genius! Then Connie put the last sticker on the 100 sleeps to Disney countdown chart and we were ready!




My Dad arrived promptly at 2pm and I put the bags in the car with the usual comments from Dad of “Are you really only going for a fortnight?” and “ Who else is going with you” he thinks he is so funny! After a quick call in at the post office to post the last of my ebay sales we settled down for the drive to Gatwick. Well when I say settled, it was more a case of apply a vice like grip to the side of my seats whilst regularly employing the imaginary brake in order to prevent climbing into the boot of the vehicles in front that thoughtlessly wouldn't get out of my Dads way! Now normally I sit in the back when my Dad is driving and that way he doesn't notice that I have my eyes closed and my Mum is sat in the front with the job of keeping an eye on dad and instructing him when he is going too fast or too close or indeed the wrong way round roundabouts (this to be fair has only happened once but he has never been allowed to forget it! But Mum was at a funeral and that meant I had to ride up front with my eyes open! Add to this that 10 minutes into the journey Connie asked the first of many questions “are we nearly there yet?” and you will get the picture. Now Connie is normally an excellent passenger so I can only guess she either had her eyes open and was picking up on my anxiety or she was just excited because otherwise it didn't bode well for the 9 hour flight tomorrow! Thankfully we were soon seeing the planes and with a sigh of relief we pulled into the car park at Gatwick just after 4pm.

We were soon at twilight check in for Virgin and with just one other couple in front we were dropping the bags off and despite my Dads humorous comments our bags weighed in at just 12 and 11 kilos each so plenty of room for shopping then!

We then headed up the escalators to get some dinner at Giraffe before Dad started his long journey back home. Dad and I both went for the Baby Back Ribs and Connie had the Crispy Chicken strips. We all shared a side order of onion rings and Connie had enough room for her favourite dessert, profiteroles. All very yummy (if you want more detail see the food Report) and not bad at a total of £49.


My Dad





We said our goodbyes to Dad and then Connie and I made our way over to the Gatwick Hilton through the tunnel for our overnight stay at 5.55pm. Reception was quite busy so we had about a ten minute wait until we were checked in and given the room key, they did try to swap us to a twin room but after last year when I ended up squeezing into a single bed with Connie I declined and we stuck with the double room that I had originally booked, you cant fool me twice!

The room was lovely and as Connie pointed out bigger than our house (it wasn't) but the bathroom was larger than our bathroom and Connies room combined!





Connie enjoyed a long bath and tried her best to use all the bath products before I stopped her, saving just enough for me in the morning. We watched TV, munching some dairymilk and spent quite a long time plane spotting, we had a great view of them coming into land. Connie got into bed at 8pm and I had a cup of tea, black, as at this point I realised that there was no milk on the tray, oh well. By 9pm it was clear that Connie wasn't going to go to sleep as long as the light was on so I got into bed too and with in 5 minutes she was off in the land of nod. I had somehow managed to pick up a wifi signal with no charge on my phone so I did a spot of dibbing before falling asleep myself at about 10.

Index
The food Report

[sarahewoods]

Fab start, looking forward to more xx

[rebeccarobbins]

Hi!

Sounds like you got off to a good start! Your room at the Hilton looked lovely, was it a refurbished one?

Had to laugh about the comments you made about your Dad's driving!

Looking forward to reading more.

Bex

[Wozi]

Yay .. I've been looking forward to your trippie. Lovely read and looking forward to reading the rest.

[laurac1988]

Great start! Your little one is adorable :-)

Looking forward to more

[Disney_Diva]

Great start...your daughter is a cutie! looking forward to reading more xx

[collybird]

Love how excited Connie looks in her pictures.

I can't believe those portion sizes, especially Connie's kids' portion. I don't think I could put all that away let alone a child.

[Guest]

Great start Tanya!

Hope you both had a fabulous time, can't believe all of us October dibbers are now home and writing trippys though!

Looking forward to reading more.

Kate xx

[scotsprincess]

Great start, looking forward to reading more

[Pussycat Doll]

Great start, the food looks lovely, am seriously considering going there in Feb! Pussycat