Days Out Thumbs Up: The Snozone Milton Keynes.

Today we did a trip around the M25 to meet up with Grannie, Grande and Aunty Lizzie to play in the snow in Milton Keynes' Snozone. All the adults were feeling a touch jaded after late nights and too much booze from the Gs and Aunty Lizzie. I had a migraine last night so I was feeling a bit rough too and Paul joined in for the hell of it (I am sure he will inform me of his reason as soon as he reads this). We met up after a very uneventful trip at midday in the Costa Coffee for hot chocolate and croissants. When we had finished there we filed into in the Snow area and we booked in. Grannie, Grande and Paul signed up for an hour skiing, the girls and I for tobogganing and Auntie Liz for being Bag handler. Mum et al trotted off to rent salopettes and ski jackets (given that all our kit resides in France) for a very reasonable fee whilst the girls and I went to find helmets for the girls (mandatory wear for under 16s, loads of them out on the side with plenty of choice in sizes).

We got taken out for our tobogganing session, shown the toboggans and then we started the large climb up the slope. Not easy for me holding 3 toboggans (glorified trays), carrying a small whinging child and trying to herd a larger child up the hill with no free hands, in hindsight take Auntie Lizzie in with me to help! Once we were all at the top (someone pinched my toboggan whilst I was on rescue mission to get Phoebe) Clara rode on my lap and Phoebe sort of managed a run on her own (there was a slight blip where she crashed into the barrier but in true Richardson style she got up and got back on again.... woo that girl!). Clara was cold by this point (she doesn't "do" cold...) so I took her back to Auntie Lizzie to get warm and dry. I came back to Phoebe who had made a friend of one of the staff and had her taking up her hill (result for me!) and then she shot down like a bomb! Much giggling and desperation for a 3rd go so up we went. This one was less successful as she had a wet and slippy backside by this point so couldn't stay on the toboggan, therefore about half way down and 3 wipe outs later she decided to attempt going down on her bottom, mostly she got wet and cold from this point on funnily enough so we decided to go back in and watch everyone skiing. Very glad I took spare clothes for both of them, I could have done with some for me too but hey ho!

We watched Grannie, Grande and Paul doing some runs on the ski slope, they assure me it was good skiing (I don't ski so even if I had tried I couldn't have told you what it was like!) and they all had fun. It won't be long before Phoebe and Clara are bombing down whooping with delight.  When they were done (we had to have a stern word with Paul and get The Pointy Finger out to say no more because he wouldn't come in!) we went off to have a lovely lunch at Ask. Then Grannie and I popped into the shops to look at ski gear, I am a very lucky girl and Father Christmas said I could have a pressie early and I got a ski jacket (I have a pull over one currently which is a royal PITA with a sling and we are going to attempt des vacation sans pushchair...gulp). Grannie may have also bribed her Father Christmas into her pressie earlier too but I shall say no more until I have pictorial evidence of her Thing of Beauty! Ebay has provided both of us with bargainatious complimentary salopettes so now everyone is hot to trot for Christmas!

Getting home was a bit trickier and took 3 hours for us but then it was Sunday night, there were roadworks on the M1 and we were headed, along with everyone else, back into London. Still the girls slept for most of it and the rest of the time they talked endlessly about sausages until we found some services and shoved a small pot of cocktail sausages in the back with them... bad parents, bad, bad parents!

Still lovely lovely day, Doctor Who and new Top Gear on telly when we got back. Perfick!