Holiday catch up!

My poor blog has been neglected again as I've been on holiday.  This is where we spent last week.

This is a converted Oast House in Kent.  Kent is in the south east of the UK and is often called the garden of England.  It is a very green area of the country and can often have good weather even when there is rain everywhere else.

We were definitely lucky with the weather - we arrived on the Friday of the long holiday weekend to brilliant hot sunshine which continued until the Tuesday.  Wednesday was a horrible wet day but Thursday was dry although a lot cooler and we returned home in sunshine on Friday.

When I say we, I'm not talking Nick and me or even our own immediate family, although this is the first time we've been altogether since Nathan was born so of course we had to get a picture.

The "we" for this holiday involves all 7 of Nick's siblings and their families.  So about 40 of us most of the time but we dwindled a bit towards the end of the week as people returned to work.

The house can just about accommodate us - most of the 9 bedrooms have a double bed, a sofa bed plus pull out trundle beds.  All rooms have full size ensuite bathrooms and then there is a huge kitchen/diner and an even bigger living space.  Add to that the pool and a full size tennis court and there is plenty of room to not feel crowded.

Each family group took a turn at preparing the evening meal and I co-ordinated the shopping.  Fortunately we are able to get supermarket deliveries to the door, although some of the drivers do struggle to find it by Satnav!

The youngsters spent a lot of time in the pool while most of us just spent the week relaxing, catching up with one another and playing a variety of games.  There was also the obligatory karaoke session.

The only think lacking really was a decent wi-fi connection and phone signal.  We could get wi-fi but it was very slow and there were only a few spots around the site where you could get a decent phone signal.  But hey, when you're on holiday that's not necessarily a bad thing!

We did do a couple of walks and, despite my laziness and total indulgence when it came to lovely desserts, (banoffee pie, tiramisu, waffleberry to name a few) I didn't regain any of the weight I'd lost so I was happy with that.

And of course there was Nathan time!  He was soo good.  We shared a room with him and his mummies and he slept really well.

He was one of 4 babies.  One of the others was little Poppy who I've mentioned before.  Regulars here will know Poppy was very ill at one point and still has ongoing health issues but to see her doing so well was lovely.  She's 20 months now and although she is still very petite you wouldn't know looking at her now, how much she went through in her early months.



And of course there were lots of pics taken so I'll just bore you with another one!

Another good thing about this place that it's less than a 2 hour drive from our house and it's not too far from the channel tunnel for our French relatives to get to.

Some of the cousins were missing this year but they still created the pool photo although not everyone jumped in this year!

We've been coming to this venue for a few years now and every year the cousins line up for this shot.  It's lovely to see them all growing up, and having families of their own in some cases now.  It's nice to see that even without their Grandparents around the family still pulls together, as it should.