Nov 05 Toddlers & Brother & Sisters - 2008

[Rodeo]

New thread

Cant wait
Pub meal sounds good too especially with none of my kids That sounds bad but after been stuck with them ill all week it sounds soooo good.
Diege only taking one little ruck sack with all my stuff in as i dont want to have to carry lots around with me what i dont have i will buy
see you in the morning Twinkle

Me too!! . I'm also taking just one small bag. Another vote for pub tea here too (oooh doesnt that sound Peter Kay )as don't often get the chance with dds!
See you tomorrow!!!

Hello!
Hope you all managed to find each other in the end (having had calls from the Londoners about missing Northerners!), have a lovely time today and tonight Am sad to be missing it....
Chacha, shame you couldn't make it either, hope the boys are making a recovery
Went to Gulliver's Kingdom yesterday Diege, it was absolutely freezing - and they've put their prices up!
One of my friends dropped out of the 10k tomorrow so I am taking her place, gulp, sort of looking forward to it, but sort of not! I'll let you know how I get on, though I might keep it to myself if I drop out after a mile or so
Well better be off, once again have a great time tonight girls and lift a glass to absent friends
x x x

Hello all, just a quick post...
hope meet up went weel (again, sorry to have missed it, but maybe another time...?). In-laws came over and we got T some new shoes, slippers and wellies tho, so not a bad day...

Things taken turn for worse now tho - my Dad has been poorly since Thursday night, and spent all time since then in bed - my Mum phoned gp today, went with him to Hospital, and he is being admitted - no idea what with - am awaiting an update tomorrow morning as Mum still not back yet, they went over to the hospital around 7 hours ago - Mum not expecting to be back till midnight.....he is being given fluids and possibility of bloods later if count is low.... so lots of finger crossing please.....thanks

Chacha hope your ds's are on the mend now - there is so much around at the moment isn't there?

Sorry for bit of a me post, but am a bit pre-occupied with thinking about my Dad - hope you understand?

Thanks

B
x

Hey Brownie, sending your dad lots of get well hugs and best wishes. Thinking of you and sending strength to you and your mum Beks x

well, where to start...

It was lovely to see Beks, Panda and Feetheart on saturday - Beks, thank you very much for all the trouble you went to to cater for us all. Panda, I must confess, I had made an impression of you before meeting you, but I thought you were really lovely, and your boys are an absolute credit to you. I was saying to Beks last night that in the summer holidays (and once BIL is not there!) you should all come and stay at the beach house. Some of August would be good as DH is away in Edinburgh. Feetheart, you were looking seriously gorgeous on saturday night, and I really enjoyed talking to you, thank you.

I'm disappointed that Diege and Twinkle decided to take themselves off to a hotel, if you were cold there were plenty of cafes around Russell Square that you could have waited in. I arrived at the park at 3 (but had the wrong number for diege, as Rodeo will know!), I would have been a bit earlier had I not let miniman play with the car key which he then left somewhere, and I couldn't get the car seats out of the car and into the taxi without it. Beks and Panda weren't that far behind me as they had to get across London with two buggies and 3 kids. If you were annoyed at us it would also have been good to call and explain rather than relying on a couple of texts. We tried many many times to call you and not one was answered. I could have taken you across and back to Beks in the evening as I had a driver taking me there, but no attempt was made to arrange anything for the meal. I'm sad that you both came all that way and let the fact you were waiting for us at the park spoil the whole stay. I hope you had a lovely evening, wherever you ended up.

Brownie, I'm sorry for your sad news, sending love and hugs your way x

Spent a lovely afternoon doing the gardening yesterday, although noo has developed a fear of all things creepy crawly . The funniest one though was:
noo: 'oh dear, oh no' (repeat ad nauseum)
nova: (expecting large snake) what is it?
noo: it's a bit of fluff
. And before bed we had to run through the list 'no spiders, no ants, no ladybirds, no cats'.

Right I'm off to catch a bit of sleep as a drunken DH woke me up at 3am after celebrating his win at the BAFTAs (Harry HIll won 2 awards if you weren't watching). I have sooooo no sympathy for the hangover this morning.

Hi all.

Sorry to have missed you on Saturday. What a day we had. O was in the mood from hell, he's cutting his last teeth and it turns him into a devil child. so I ended up spending all afternoon medicating him and cleaning the house.

Then after getting ready I couldn't log onto yahoo to get beks number so was all dressed up with no place to go. I had her address but thought it rude to just show up. Maybe I should have done.

One day there will be a meet up I actually make with no problems, hehe.

What happened with Diege/Twinkle, did you actually not meet up at all?

Beks - do you fancy meeting in the park soon, we can invite tex along? Or maybe just at one of our houses?

Nova - the story of noo and the fluff made me laugh. Congratulations to your DH, does he produce it?

Brownie - Sorry to hear your sad news. I wish your dad the best of health, hope you and your family are okay.x

I have a not so fun day planned, sorting out the mess from meddling dots/DP.
DP did all the laundry this weekend, even put it away into the drawers but I've just realised half of it is still dirty. After investigation the washing machine was set to just rinse so obviously all the filthy toddler clothes remained so. Gah, I can't believe he didn't notice. The worst thig is i'm not sure what has been washed properly and what hasn't o it's all going back in. Screw the carbon footprint.

Also yesterday I took some chicken out of the fridge for dinner which smelt very off, and then noticed the fridge was turned off. Half of the food had to be thrown away so a trip to the supermarket is in order! Oh the fun. We need a padlock for the fridge. I was almost tempted when I caught S gnawing at a block of butter recently. Oh the fun!

Hi ladies

Hi Chacha hope you guys are feeling better

Ok, here goes Panda, Nova & Feetheart was lovely to see you on saturday, Feetheart I second Nova you were looking seriously fab, whats the secret? Well done Nova's dh, hope he doesn't drive you too mad today with his hangover.

Panda hope you got home ok and that the a* left you in peace for the rest of the evening.

AmIWhat&Why I did try to call you both on your mobile which was off and your home no. to say we were back, but I couldn't get an answer, you should have just rocked up at mine, it would have been good to see you. Yep we'll do a park date soon, as soon as the weather brightens up.

Diege & Twinkle I don't really know what to say to you guys as without being able to speak to you personally it was a bit hard to work out what happened on saturday. We were at the park just after 3pm and called you as soon as we arrived, several times. I know I had the right no. for Twinkle as I called you back straight from the text.

We got stuck on the tube as we went to Russell Square rather than Euston and the train that we were behind had the emergency cord pulled, so there was nothing we could do and there is no signal in the tube so we couldn't call you.

We were also expecting AmIWhat&Why to meet us at 1pm but as you can see her day went to pot too.

You could have called Nova or left a message on my voicemail unless it was showing off, which of course it wasn't, just underground.

Would it really have hurt you guys to hole up in a cafe rather than book into a hotel? It wasn't as if we were hours late or likely to leave you stranded in the middle of London. You didn't even tell us where you were staying so we could come and see you at the hotel. Afterall we had just dragged the kids across town, which had we gone to Euston would only have been 4 stops but because we follwed the Corams Fields directions it took us 2 hours door to park, plus we had 3 hungry little boys with us as we were meeting around lunchtime.

There was no way we could meet you at Covent Garden on Sunday as by the time we got there, with sunday service trains it would have been time for you to turn around and get your train home and we didn't think it was fair to drag the boys back up into London as they were still tired from the day before.

I went to a lot of effort to make sure my place was ready for all you guys to stay and to save you money where possible but it obviously wasn't to be, hope you had a good evening whatever you ended up doing, just a shame it wasn't with us. Beks

Gosh it sounds like a bit of a disaster all round.
I feel doubly bad I didn't make it, living so close and all but I could never have gotten to corams fields with O in such a mood. I can't get the double pushchair on the tube and O would almost certainly have refused to walk. I'm also sorry to have missed out on the meal. Should have just turned up, I was debating it for a while but DP talked me out if it.

Sorry you went to so much trouble to have the guests Beks, I wonder what happened? Hope you don't feel too let down.

Hope the northeners had a good journey home.

Chacha how are you and the boys?

Well for once i don't know what to say!!

I would hope that Diege or Twinkle will log on soon to explain what happened. I cannot imagine that they would come all that way to miss out on the meet up because you were late!!!! Doesn't make any sense, and as i wasn't there and no one has heard from them can only hope nothing serious has happened.

Glad you all had a good night anway, any pics ladies? Feetheart - sounds like you were dressed to impress, lovely!

Congrats on Bafta Nova and lol at Noo..awww!

Beks - sending you a big hug, i know you did a lot of prep for this meet up and yes i also know that you will deny it and most probably laugh it off, all the same, seems the girls had a lovely time - well done!

BB - pls let us know how dad is.

Still not 100% here but a full night's sleep was had yesterday, love to all x

Hi,
Really sad to hear about the meet-up Glad a nice evening was had though so not all lost, would have loved to have been with you
Nova, congratulations to your dh! He was the first person I thought of when I saw Harry get the awards! Very well deserved as well, think TV Burp is the funniest thing on TV, Saturday nights aren't the same without it and You've been Framed! Request to him from me - make the series longer! LOL at Noo's creepy crawlie aversions too Jess is obsessed with all things bums, poos and trumps and loves replacing words in nursery rhymes with rude ones 'Twinkle Twinkle little pooey!' is a fave at the mo. Could be something to do with having a 6yo brother... Does make me laugh though when she says 'Urgh, that's gross'!
AmIwhatandwhywhenwhohow, oh no! My dad had to throw out his chest freezer last summer after a similar disaster, he kept noticing a funny smell in the garage, a week or so must have passed before he found the putrid mass!
Kids first day back after holidays so better not be late for school run, bye for now x x x

Oh, and Beks and Panda, I had to go and get myself a bag of Mr Porkys finest on sunday morning!

Lol Nova I eyed up a packet this morning when i had to break a note for Ben's dinner money!!!

lol you two at your pork scratchings! Try them from the butchers, they really are better than anything else!

AmIWhat&Why, the weekend certainly wasn't a disaster all round. I really enjoyed it, was great to get away, and the boys had a great time too, didn't see them for much of the time leaving Beks, Mr Beks & I to chat! Thank you both for putting us up for the night, will look forward to seeing you all again...definately won't be left as long as it was this time! Feetheart & nova, great to finally meet you both, and Noo & Miniman too! Nova, count me in for coming to stay with you guys in the summer, that would be lovely.

Diege & Twinkle, what happened? I have to say I'm more confused than anything else. After all the effort (and cost) you both went to, only to stay in a hotel & not meet up witht he rest of us doesn't make sense to me. As Beks says, we had a longer than anticipated journey across London, which had we realised we could have gone a different way would have taken us half the time, but there were delays, the emergency cord being pulled on another train, plus circle & district lines were close making it much busier, so also slowing us down. It's a shame that you didn't get to meet up with us in the evening, especially as Nova had the offer of a lift for you, so there was no worry about getting over to Beks & back again. Hope you had a good evening & enjoyed Covent Garden, just a shame that you couldn't have replied to any of the voicemails & made it over as planned.

BB - sending you & your family best wishes, what is the news on your dad?

ChaCha - how are the boys now? A full nights sleep sounds like they're on the mend.

Congrats to DH nova, was he feeling a little rough this morning?

Had a nice easy journey getting home last night, ds1 was straight into bed, and ds2 was too, although he did wake just past Guildford & let out an almighty scream, thankfully only about 1/2 mile from service station to give him a cuddle! xp left me alone on the journey home, but did start hassling me again once home. Nevermind though, A popped round for a couple of hours to cheer me up, he hee!

It's taken me about an hour to type this (watching Passions of Girls Aloud, haven't watched St Trinians yet Beks, need to make some space on my +box! But a night of Girls Aloud & Danny Dyer will be coming up ), so there may be some x-posts!

Nope, no cross posts!

Panda glad you got home safely, it really was good to see you again and you're right we won't leave it so long till the next meet up. Glad A came round and cheered you up, you deserve it.

Hi girls - apologies for posting so late. Didn't get back from work till 8ish, and home v.late from London yesterday due to all trains north being suspended, and then diverted via Leeds - I won't bore you with the details.
First of all, sending BB lots of good wishes for your dad - you don't need to apologise for a me post!!!
OK, now I've read through the other posts (and having just had a phone call from Twinkle who is in tears about the messages on here) I'd like to put the record straight on a few points.

1. We arrived at 2, as arranged. I tried Beks' phone, many, many times, and got the message 'Your call is unable to be taken right now, please try again later...'. There was no facility to leave a message BEKS. We continued ringing until 3.10, with no luck. The first message we received was at 3.17. In other words, we had been waiting in the rain and cold ('cafe' being outside jobbie) for one and a quarter hours, and were starting to worry that something has gone wrong. If you remember Beks, your said in your e-mail that your priority was getting there BEFORE we arrived, so when it was 3.15 and no sign of anyone (we did an extra circuit of the park too)we were getting worried. We couldn't contact anyone, Twinkle was starting to feel unwell, and I was starting to suffer as I have Reynaud's syndrome and being outside in the cold for so long was taking its toll on my joints. We had both been travelling since 9.30am, and to say that were were shattered would be an understatement.

As you were so late (and I'm sorry, I do think one hour and 15 minutes is late)and couldn't be contacted, we felt that booking into a hotel was our only option (we didn't know you were even on your way), esp considering Twinkle and the twins, and didn;t want to leave it any later to find accomodation on a Saturday in a strange city. Of course, communication problems happen. I'm a daily user of public transport so I know that there are delays. But to have no-one there at all 1.15 hours after we'd arranged to meet did throw us a bit, esp as we thought you were all coming from different direction, and I'm sure someone had a usable phone and Twinkle's number (my phone is a joke as you know!). We hardly 'decided to take ourselves off' to a hotel because we fancied it, trust me. And we got no satisfaction out of spending £107.20 each on train fares and hotels either. We're both extremely hurt and feel very sad at the way assumptions have been made about our cavalier attiude to the whole thing. I apologise BEKs that you went to so much trouble preparing for us, but we too had put a lot of time and effort into the whole enterprise. This is no doubt my longest post, and will probably be my last too. I don't want to get into a lengthy debate about who did what and when. TBH, I was going to e-mail you BEKS tonight to find out what happened, rather than just vent on a public forum, and was surprised and disappointed that so much had been assumed and questionned on here before we'd had a chance to post. Really surprised actually as both TWINKLE and I thought we 'knew' the people on here who we've shared so much with. Just wanted to get our side across .

Oh dear, how come big meet-ups always seem to go pear-shaped? I seem to remember lots of fall-out from the British Museum one too
All I'm going to say (in my older sister, sorting out family dramas voice) is calm down and step away everyone. I think Diege is right and that any more analysing should be done by email/phone. Everyone put a big effort into making it happen and it didn't work out as planned, such is life. The REAL shame would be if we lose friendships over it.
End of lecture

For my part I had a nice evening seeing BEKS and Nova again and meeting Panda and if you are all going to be so complimentary I'm definitely up for meeting again soon (the secret was that I had only had my hair coloured and cut the day before so it still looked like it did when I left the hairdressers, sadly it will never look quite like that again!)

Brownie - so sorry to hear about your Dad. Don't you dare worry about 'me posts' Fingers are crossed here for your family.

ChaCha - glad to hear the boys are at least sleeping, hope its that start of better things!

Rodeo - how did the run go? I have huge admiration for anyone that runs as I would love to do a big event but I HATE running with a passion (always been a sprinter, gets it over with quickly.

Nova - lots about Harry Hill on Radio 2 yesterday morning (and I thought of you too) DD in fits at what she heard of his speech as she is really into rhyming words ATM. He's given her a whole new vocabulary to play with

Really need to get children up if we are to get to school sometime this morning. Have good days everyone.

Diege, believe me we tried to call you/Twinkle many times but the phone was never answered, hence the fact that we've addressed the issues on here. As for venting, I don't think any of our posts are angry - more concerned and confused. I was at the park at 3pm - I can show you my phone records as thats when I started calling people to see where they were. We also thought your train was getting in at 2.12 which would have meant you getting to the park for about 2.20? And by the way, Beks, your phone does say that it's switched off when you're on the tube and doesn't go to voice mail. It just seems like a bad catalogue of errors - if only you'd had my number, if only I'd had yours, if only I hadn't suggested the park and we'd met at Victoria etc.. Please, please don't let it stop you from posting on here, no one has set out to hurt anyone, and we are all disappointed at the way things turned out.

Morning everyone,

Glad you posted Diege and that everything was okay with both you and Twinkle Didn't make sense to me as i said and actually thought something had happened so am glad you and especially Twinkle are alright. I hope to look forward to a usual Diege post and an update from Twinkle. Lots of miscommunication it seems and assumptions as FH said, pls don't let it spoil our friendships on here - pleeeease.

Thank you everyone for asking after us, the boys are much better now, just streaming noses really and a bit tired.

Feeling extremely tired and weepy myself today and can't shake it off, am going to try and spend a quiet day with the boys doing activities. Remember having days like this with last pregnancy...pass some tissues pls.

Love x

Do you know girls I'm done, the bit in my message about my phone showing off I meant that it may have said it was off but i'd never have turned it off when i knew someone would be trying to contact me.

Diege as you see this as me as the ringleader for being p**d off here's what I think, especially as if you notice I posted after Nova and Panda and was not aggresive in what I said. I also would have preferred to talk about it in private but as we didn't hear from you on Sunday or until late today we were trying to find out what happened. We of course were very worried about Twinkle and whether anything had happened to her and I have a friend with Reynauds so know how you must have suffered.

Diege my priority was getting there before you arrived but having to get Panda up from Portsmouth and waiting to hear from AmIWhat&Why, meant we left a little later, than planned.

WE were also travelling with two 2 year olds and a 6 year old around lunchtime who were hungry.

The tube was manic and we took the wrong route, these things happen. At the most had your train got in at 2:12 and by the time you got to the park 10 mins later it meant we were half an hour late.

I phoned you loads of times and got no answer I texted you and got no replies, i even asked where you were staying and you didn't tell us.

If you remember Diege I also said it was too expensive and a waste of money you coming down for a night in and had tried to make things as easy & cheap for everyone as possible, I also offered to hire a 7 seater and bring all the southerners up to you.

So as far as I'm concerned I'm done on here, I really don't need this

Chacha, Panda, Feetheart Nova, etc if you want to contact me I'm on msn or facebook. Beks

By the way diege in one message I also left my home phone number, so either of you could have called me on that on Saturday night, Sunday or Monday.

STEP AWAY FROM THE PC

Brownie - how is your Dad?

Ok