The last 2 days of our holidays.

Sorry folks, back to the holibob tales!

On Sunday we went to visit my Grandparents in Bournemouth. Now a word about my Grandfer, I swear he is on a mission to get his moneys worth from the NHS! He is 84 (oh please let that be right!) and 6 years ago he had a major coronary in the Theatre shortly before watching Chicago. It was by pure luck that the man in the toilets with him was a doctor and was able to administer CPR and call and ambulance. He was taken to St Thomas where he underwent a multiple bypass. He was in ITU for a long time and then moved swiftly through HDU and the regular ward before coming home. He recovered well from that so much so that 6 months later he was boogeying at my wedding as if none of it had ever happened! Then at the start of this year he discovered he had Bowel Cancer, thankfully a contained tumour so he had an operation to remove the tumour (leaving him with an illiostomy). Again he has recovered well and will probably go for a reversal either later this year or early next year!

Anyway bearing in mind that my Grandparents whilst being in their 80s are very fit do get tired quickly and if my children have any talent it is exhausting people just by being around them! So we packed up the car and I took a meal to cook there to take the pressure off Granny. We stayed for a few hours in the morning and then took the girls down the beach to wear them out a little before going back for tea. Phoebe got her long awaited ride on the Carousel

Alas it was a little too windy for any real beachy fun so we retired to a cafe for an ice cream before bailing out back to the car. They were so tired we got them to a place the car could get to and I went up and got it and brought it back down to them. Paul wrapped them up in my cardigan to stop them getting too cold!

The next day was our last day so we decided to make the most of the local town. We started with a good cooked breakfast in the on site restaurant where Bradley Bear came to see us:

The girls were utterly thrilled to meet him! So thrilled in fact that this sucker disappeared off to the shop and bought them each a cuddly from the Haven Characters.

Then we headed into Poole to go to the Pottery Shop where it had a paint your own section. The girls made a plate each:

Phoebe's is the one at the back and Clara's is the one at the front! I am hoping they will look slightly better when they arrive after the glaze and kiln! I really wanted to paint a jug but it was a bit too pricey alas! After that the girls were clucking for  yet more ice cream so we found a cafe and indulged them. Whilst there I spotted some crabbing lines and a crabbing bucket so we thought we would have a go! The girls got so into it, we picked a dud spot initially but once we moved we caught loads. Phoebe somehow managed to enter into some sort of competition with some people opposite which was quite funny! We caught 5 crabs in the end and after we admired them we released them and let them have the remains of the bait we bought as a thank you.

We then went back to the caravan where we had lunch, tidied and cleaned up and packed the car. We decided to wear the girls out by going home via the swimming pool for one last dip! They had a whale of a time splashing about and bombing down the slide like loons. Then we had a snack in the cafe and we let them run riot around the play area before getting them in Pyjamas and heading homewards. We had such a fantastic holiday and we can't thank Becky, Matt, Millie and Abbie enough for the loan of their caravan (I am still cooking up a good thank you gift for them!) and it was just what we needed. Our first holiday as just the 4 of us was a total success!