Eyup there!
Yesterday I got back from a week at home in t’North, which included another Come Dine With Me with Ellie and Beccy, a night in Leeds with Anna and Leigh, and a trip to Alton Towers with my sisters!
For travelling to and from Exeter I used the Megabus – a whopping 50p for a return ticket thanks to Tesco Clubcard Vouchers. Though admittedly at some points I did have to keep telling myself it was just 25p and that that was worth sitting next to a guy who was falling asleep and nearly head butted me several times. Luckily he never actually head butted me though, but he reminded me of one of those bobble head people who sit on the dashboard of cars. The journey was about 8 hours one way, and with Pokémon by my side it didn’t feel that long (I’m on Victory Road already aaah!).
On Saturday evening, my mum and stepdad went to a wedding and stayed in a hotel for the night, so I invited Ellie and Beccy over for one of our infamous Come Dine With Me evenings. We do it a little differently though in that one person does one course, and with this being the third time we’ve done it, we had one course left to do each – Ellie did starters, I did mains and Beccy did dessert. Here was our menu:
On Sunday I went to Blacktoft, our local pub, for my sister’s birthday. And for those of you who read my last blogs – yes, Finlay was there too, so here is a photo of the monster who is now nearly 2-1/4 years old.
He speaks full sentences now and everything! He came back to my dad’s afterwards and I played with him with his toys, and when they had to go, I put him on my back and shot him round the house like a plane, and when I put him down he said: “You’re so funny!”, in a Yorkshire accent of course. D’aaaaaaawwwwwwwhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
On Monday, my sisters, Melanie and Katie, Melanie’s partner and I went to Alton Towers – we’ve been looking forward to it for months! And it was absolutely fantastic, not including the 5 minutes of torrential downpour as we waited in the queue for Nemesis. Though we had Fast Track tickets, we still managed to get on several roller coasters twice, including Rita and Air – my favourite. Or so it was my favourite until we went on the new one – The Smiler. It is fantastic. We’d just eaten about an hour before when we walked up to The Smiler, and all of us started dreading it. We jumped the 55-minute-long queue (with our Fast Track tickets) and then experienced the best roller coaster ride ever! There are 14 loops in total, and the ride truly starts at the very beginning – I was expecting it to slowly go round and up ready to shoot down, but as soon as you turn the first corner when you’re still inside it starts with a loop and a sudden stop with creepy laughing music in the background!
On Tuesday (like writing a diary here!) I went to Leeds to see Leigh and Anna Trotzdem, who kindly invited me and Leigh to stay for the night as I had my Megabus from Leeds the next day. For the past 3 years, Leigh and I have surprised Anna for her birthday, and she’s fallen for it every time. This year was no different – apart from the fact her birthday was in April and we surprised her in June. Lucky for us, she had to go to work for half an hour when we arrived, so (what turned into an hour because Anna is never on time), we blew up 60 balloons (OK, 57 seen as three popped. Maybe 55 because two had holes in – bloody 99p Store…), made a cake (i.e. put four chocolate muffins together and chucked Rolos and Skittles in the bowl too) and hid about 30 party poppers around the room ready to attack at any given moment after she returned. She was very surprised anyway, four years in a row!
And then yesterday I returned back to Exeter at around 10:15pm, and since then I haven’t really been up to a great deal. My results are (possibly) tomorrow so nerves are high in the household, but we’re planning on going to the beach for the day after an early rise and results pick-up, so whether we did well or not we can enjoy the sunshine and fish and chips on the beach! Such a stressful summer…
Dan in Deutschland 