And Then There Were Three... The Big 18/21

[Dixiechic]

And Then There Were Three... The Big 18/21

Index is here

Pre Travel Day - sorry, it’s a long one!

So it’s finally here! Pre travel day!

Once again - apologies for typos, this is all being done on my phone, mostly in a hurry!

I set my alarm for 4am as I wanted to get so much done before heading for work - reality, I woke up at 3 and started thinking about Phoebe’s dilemma. She has received some birthday gifts and wanted to taken them with her to open but there is simply no room or weight allowance. I tried to stop myself so I could get back to sleep but it was no use. I hopped onto the virgin website to see if we could add another bag and it appears it can be done during online checkin. No mention of cost though.

I made another attempt to go back to sleep but it wasn’t happening so got up at 3.46! Stripped my bed and got the sheets in the wash and made a start on the ironing.
I heard Phoebe’s alarm go off at 4 and was just finishing the ironing when both her and Jas appeared in the kitchen. I glanced at the clock and said ooh we’re having a party at 4.20! Jas went back off to bed and Phoe sat on a chair! Lots more jobs done - sheets dried and back on the bed then showered and got ready for work. It’s really not a good idea to work on pre travel day but I didn’t dare ask for another day off when I was already taking 3 weeks off!

Left for work just before 7 and finished what I needed to do there - most important, get the ‘out of office’ on!

I got home at 12.45 and quickly dashed outside to cut the grass before doing online checkin at 1. That was a bit of a faff as we decided that morning to add an extra bag so we could accommodate some of the gifts the girls had been given. Now, I’m a light packer but Phoe is another story. Having stayed onsite the last two trips where you can’t use inflatables in the pool, the girls wanted to make up for lost time. These were taking up a lot of space and a lot of weight. Especially the boat that Jas wanted to take. Yes, you heard me. A boat!

So we paid a small fortune for an extra bag and then had to pull the extra case out of another case and totally re-jig everything. I was now a sweaty mess and still had 20,000 things to do.

I was just about ready when Trevor the taxi driver called to say he was going to be around 5 minutes late which gave me time to quickly hoover upstairs.

We packed up the taxi and set off for Gatwick premier inn at 2.26. We hadn’t even made it to the A14 when I realised that I’d left my G&T in the fridge 😱. Went through some horrendous rain and a couple of miles of congestion to arrive at 4.38. Trevor always has an array of interesting stories and one of them was about his new next door neighbour who set up a cannabis farm in the loft.

We had asked for adjoining rooms and discovered that we were 4 floors apart! This was soon rectified with the help of Kevin and Sharon and we had opposite rooms on the second floor.

I was starving by this point so we headed straight down to the restaurant where the fun and games started as Phoebe tried to decide what to eat. She won’t eat meat in restaurants so we have to ask loads of questions about taking the meat out of things. She wanted the katsu curry without the chicken but it turned out the katsu sauce was out of stock and a rogan josh instead so she ended up with the veggie burger with Hallumi, without the veggie burger!

It’s at this point when we’re remembering how long we’ve been awake that Jas points out that a 4.20 party means that you’re smoking weed - I’m so not down with the kids and had only remarked that we were all in the kitchen and it happened to be 4.20!

After dinner we headed to our rooms. I had a lovely bath - 9 days ago I used one of those foot peeling packs, and the foot peeling process is now in full swing. A colleague advised that they take week to work so it’s a good job I didn’t leave it any later. There is skin everywhere - it’s pretty grim.

Jas then text me to say that she had just received a voicemail telling her that Stuart Gray had died and when his funeral was. We have absolutely no idea who this is and I couldn’t text him to tell him he has the wrong number as jas had deleted the number!

I couldn’t quite stay awake for all of Goggle box and headed off to sleep at 9.45. Wonder how long I’ll sleep?!

Phoebe has decided to also give her version of events (wonder how long that will last?! See below:

Day 1 - pre travel day

I started the morning off at 3:42am slowly waiting for my alarm to go of at 4am. 4am came along and I was not ready to get up. I heard Jasmine start to stir at 4:16am so decided to meet her in the bathroom. We both headed downstairs to meet mum finishing the ironing at 4:20am. We had a little giggle to ourselves all being in the kitchen in the middle of the night - there’s maybe been two occasions where I’ve gotten up to go to the toilet at 1am some nights and Jas has followed and mums just awake, 1am parties on the landing we call them. We’re weird I know. Jasmine then went back to bed after moaning how loud my alarm clock was, that’s the point of them isn’t it? Mum continued to do whatever she was doing, washing up maybe? I’d then stripped my bed and put them in the wash and went to wash the hair. A few weeks before Jas has bagised the washing machine in the morning for her sheets, then when mum announced she’d be getting up at 4am and she’d be putting hers in Jas joked she’d be up at 3am to do hers. Mum then went to take the glass to the recycling point because why not at 5am.

On her return started to tell me a story about how many people she’d seen out and about but I was only really half listening and heard something about a car?

By 7am mum had left for work, Jas had gotten her sheets in and I was faffing doing not a lot. Mum and I were both on half days and had left jas with a list of jobs.

I had a lovely surprise when I got to work with my desk being decorated and a bag of goodies ready for my birthday next Saturday. I can’t say I was very productive in the 3 hours I was at work for (sorry Mon)! Flew home to find Jas had done some of the jobs - one she didn’t know how to do, clean her windowsill!?! I started to clear a few bits up when mum arrived home. She decided to cut the grass because that’s what you do when you’re about to go away for almost a month!

1pm came and we were ready to check in and add an extra case. Extra case was needed, mainly for Jasmines inflatable boat the size of the titanic, but also I wanted to take gifts and cards with us to open on our birthdays. Trevor arrived at 14:20 to collect us and we were on our way to Gatwick. Along the way he was telling mum some random stories about his neighbours and a cannabis house. Again, half heartedly listening, which seems to be a running theme of the trip so far, even though we’re less then 12 hours in!

We saw some non anorexic cows along the way - Florida always seems to have anorexic cows and it’s a joy to see them, along side Mr watermelon man. I then had a super super blonde moment (I blame the highlights I had done Tuesday) I tuned to jasmine after seeing some baby cows and said “are baby cows called cowlets like piglets?” Much to the horror look on Jasmines face followed by pure laughter. Calf’s Phoe, calf’s.

Arrived at the premier in where we were greeted by a lovely Sharon who helped us check in. Swapped our rooms round so we were near each other. This is the first year ever where all 3 of us haven’t slept in the same room at the airport the night before. But bed arguments are too much. Good old Kevin helped us with the WiFi as we can NEVER get it to work here and it’s always a drama. So far so good after Kevin’s cheeky little tip, apparently we had to log on!? We then went down for dinner at the restaurant and they were out of stock for half the menu so I had a random mix of everything and putting together meals that didn’t exist 🤷🏼≈♀Dinner completed and table booked for Nanny and Gdog (we call him gdog because he signed a text off once with Gdad and predictive text changed it to gdog and it’s stuck ever since) as they are staying here next Wednesday.

It felt weird having mum across the hall and felt like Jas and I were on a holiday on our own. I had to be a proper adult for her!?! Didn’t burn her with a bath though so all good! Jasmine interrupted my bath to say she’d just received a voicemail from John Holmes? Thinking she was Allen!? To let us know poor Stuart Gray? had passed away at the age of 68 and his funeral was next Friday at 3pm. She stupidly deleted the number so we can’t get in contact with John to let him know. RIP Stuart 👼🏻Much to-ing and throwing from both rooms passing what we needed across the hall. Mum has issues with her door because it didn’t shut but she just wasn’t shutting it hard enough. What a spoon.

Curled the hair while at Question Of Sport was on, safe to say both Jas and I didn’t have a clue who most people were. Then onto to Gogglebox with a few games of Uno and Sh*tface accomplished with a man yelling outside for someone to f-off! Lovely!

I’ve been given clear instructions to drug jasmine up on ibruproferen and paracetamol before bed and as soon as she gets up. Me being a proper adult again. Ans if she wakes up in the night to cram more in her. Off to bed after being up for almost 20 hours ready for the day ahead tomorrow!

[Loopylooloo]

The boat! 😂😂😂 bless her. Only the essentials lol!
Sorry you didn’t get much sleep. Looking forward to reading more cant wait.

[scottishnellie]

Oh that was a frantic wee spell in the house right before you Left! What on earth possessed you to cut the grass? What a pity you left your G&T after all your hard work.

Looking forward to the rest of this 😀

[DISNEYNIC]

Great start - looking forward to following along.

[Dixiechic]

Originally Posted by Loopylooloo

The boat! 😂😂😂 bless her. Only the essentials lol!
Sorry you didn’t get much sleep. Looking forward to reading more cant wait.

See more...

That boat will be the death of me!

[Dixiechic]

Originally Posted by scottishnellie

Oh that was a frantic wee spell in the house right before you Left! What on earth possessed you to cut the grass? What a pity you left your G&T after all your hard work.

Looking forward to the rest of this 😀

See more...

I had planned to cut the grass on during the week leading up to leaving but it just kept raining! It was really long and would have been such a state after 3 weeks so I quickly nipped out and got it done! There were almost tears over the G&T!

[Jules32]

The boat ha ha hilarious, great Blog

[Dizzny Momma]

Can't wait for the next instalment
Margaret

[Palm trees]

The boat has really made me smile, fabulous! Looking forwards to reading more of your report.

[collybird]

Your cases look great all lined up together. We have Tripp cases too but I hate them, they are just so damn heavy! But they cost so much that I just can’t bring myself to splurge on some lightweight ones to replace them.

Those chips at dinner look very sad!