Friend Visit

D, M, L, E, H eating

We had a great visit from some friends this weekend which made a really nice change. B and I both thought at the end of the day that we should do it more often, even though we were really quite knackered by the end.

They are old friends of mine from University. D was on my course with me and was best man at my wedding. He me his wife M when we were at university (But not actually at the university!). I used to regularly play computer games with D and another friend R at their shared house with play often ending in the early hours of the morning! I’d also go round to watch TV at their house in the evening and enjoy some food which then continued when D and L got their first house together. My contribution though most of this was typically pudding… which we could all eat back then without much fear of putting weight on then because we were young!

They’ve now got three girls, L, E and H. L was actually a flower girl at our wedding (Albeit dressed as a Shrek Baby). Visits round to see them dropped off for various reasons that crop up as you get older plus B being anxious of attending parties etc. made it even more difficult. It’s a shame we’ve ended up living so far away but it’s actually less than a 2 hours drive and B and I both enjoy seeing them, we just have to be more organised!

The day before we scurried around tidying, just in order to make it look like we generally tidy a lot more. We did loads of hoovering too to make sure there wasn’t too much dust or dog hair floating around as there are some allergies amongst the friends that visited. Hoovering wasn’t too bad as we’ve got one of them new-fangled cordless hoovers now. Which yes, can be used to pretend you’re holding a proton gun from Ghostbusters or space laser etc!

Last time the friends visited they managed to go to the wrong house, knock on the door and be greeted by someone who had no idea who we were. Technology is great until the address in that technology doesn’t get updated when they move house! They’re in good company though as we’ve had other visitors go to our old house too (You know who you are). This time they were more successful and managed to come straight to the right address… I imagine if they had gone to the old house again they might’ve kept it to themselves anyway for fear of never hearing the end of it!

Lego D, M, L, E, H

We’d sent some texts beforehand to try and figure out what everyone would be happy to eat. We’re quite fussy so we do appreciate that people won’t necessarily like what you put out so we asked. Some of our limits included:

"Pasta is good, but E doesn't like the sauce."
"E and H don't like mash but L and I do."
"Carrots: E, L uncooked, rest cooked."

It felt like we were going to have to solve it like one of those logic puzzles that need you to draw a grid!

In the end we decided on Pizza for lunch when they arrived and just made sure we had a good selection ready to go in the fridge. For dinner we just brought a range of sausages and did chips, mash, beans, peas, sweetcorn and gravy so that people could just decide for themselves. Everything that was left over we knew we’d likely be able to freeze or use the next day anyway.

The three girls aren’t used to being around dogs, so they tend to be quite scared of R wandering around, and even more so of her jumping up at them. So when they arrived we put her in our bedroom for a bit. We ate our pizzas and then we went and got her to take her out for a really good walk. She doesn’t generally jump up when she’s out and the girls were even keen to hold the lead. The eldest girl L was asking lots of questions about dogs including which dogs are suitable for people with allergies, how much walking they need at different ages, and how dog rescue centres work… (Good luck guys)

We ended up at the park we sometimes go to, B and I sat outside the fence with R and X went inside with everyone else to play. It was fairly busy, but X is really good now when there are other children around, even though he used to avoid the whole park even if there was one other child around.

When we got back R was really tired, so spent most of the rest of the day asleep on the sofa which really suited everyone else well as it meant they weren’t being jumped on and could simply stroke her and be near her. She did wake up again when it was time for dinner though and made her presence known! We’re used to her walking around us when we’re eating and at times even jumping onto empty chairs to stare at us hoping she’ll get some ‘human food’. However, nobody else was used to this so she did have quite a long period of being told to get down.

Everyone seems to get enough to eat and we only had 4 sausages left at the end. I did get a bit worried when dishing out as everyone seems to want chips and not mash! I did end up having enough chips (Just) and we’ve now got some frozen mash to turn too when we can’t be bothered to cook!

We had a great afternoon eating, chatting and catching up. It was a really good day and B and I now have to make sure we’re organised and arrange to see them again much sooner than before! (Plus, it forced us to tidy up a bit, which is never a bad thing!)

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