Came home today

9.10am
I'm the only one of our group awake at the moment, i'm sitting on the terrace and it's really peaceful - though a bit chilly. i slept better last night than the night before and i was one of, if not the first to go to sleep.

We went down for dinner at around 8.30pm and we got 'our table' in the restaurant ;-D Last night 3 of us decided to eat from the a la carte menu and only katie had the set menu. We also had the same waiter as the previous night and he remembered our drinks order as well :-D

After dinner we were sitting at the table chatting and the staff member who was doing the fire register in the morning came past and said something about he hoped that last night was going to be a lot quieter than the previous night ;-D Well that wouldn't be difficult! ;-D We were chatting about the fire alarm and stuff and he said they had 120 guests in that night but only 90 actually came out to be registered :-o And apparently in one family the mother and child(ren) had come out but dad refused, he was determined he was staying put :-o Our new friend (Chris?) said they had a room on the ground floor and the bedroom window was open, the child was standing outside pleading with dad to come out but he wouldn't :-o

While we were chatting we got onto the subject of the 'lesbian wedding' it began i think because Catherine wanted to know if they'd actually had the ceremony here or if that had been somewhere else. The person we were talking to didn't know so he asked someone else who was coming past, he didn't know either so they asked someone else and it got quite comical and we were laughing and joking with them. There was only one other group of people in the restaurant at that time and as they went past to leave they seemed pretty irritated - by us? :-S I can't remember, either Jen or Catherine was very concerned that we'd upset them, especially in case they were part of the party, but we don't think they were cos the party had their own function room with a disco and buffet etc. I reckon it was possibly just cos we were noisy.

Once we'd finished dinner and chatting we went back to our room for drinks and after a while we went back to sit outside again. Only 3 of us went outside cos Catherine was tired and decided she was staying in the room. We sat in the same place that Katie and i had sat in the night before and just generally relaxed, chatting about names and stuff with regard to people getting married and having double-barrelled names and what happens in the case of same sex 'marriages' and stuff, until we went back up to out room at about 1am.

When we got back up i started packing some of my stuff so it would be easier this morning. We all got into bed and i know i fell asleep after not that long talking. At one point in the night i haven't got a clue how long after i'd gone to sleep i was half-awake and aware of at least Catherine and Katie talking, i don't know whether Jen was chatting or if she was asleep.

I woke up at aboout 8.30 this morning and decided to get washed and dressed and then put some stuff in the car - i've currently got custody of the car keys ;-D I sorted out what stuff i would need for later into a carrier bag then took just my own case and the jump-starter and then went back to the room to get my laptop and come to sit outside - and that's where we're up to now!

7.50pm
I'm now back at home after a really enjoyable weekend away.

Before i went outside this morning i left Katie a note telling her to ring or text me when she woke up and she texted me at about 10.10am. I went back upstairs to our rooms at that point and the others were all up and getting ready. Once everyone was dressed and packed we took all our stuff down to the car and Katie checked us out (well officially checked us out though i think she managed to keep the keycards so that we could still use the leisure facilities for the rest of the day.

We went in for breakfast but we didn't get 'our' table :-( ;-D We got another table in the corner and that was quite a nice location too. We didn't do the same as yesterday, we didn't take any extra bits of food seeing as we were planning on leaving at around 4ish so we figured we didn't need any lunch.

After breakfast we went back up to our room for the final time, we checked round to make sure we hadn't left anything and we got our stuff together to go to the leisure suite. Jen decided she wasn't doing the pool or the gym cos she wanted to sit outside and get a tan. She took her laptop and a book and found herself somewhere to chill out.

When we got to the leisure suite i hadn't actually decided fully what i was doing cos i was soooo full from breakfast i felt really bloated felt as if i might be ill if i tried to exercise on such a full stomach :-( i sat on the bench while Katie and Catherine got ready but When they'd gone out to the pool i got changed myself into yesterday's sweaty clothes ;-D Once i was changed and ready i went into the pool area and went paddling 8| I stood at the edge of the pool and sat on the handle to get in with my feet on the 2nd step down.

Katie said her and Catherine were planning on staying in the pool till about 1.30 so i sat chatting to them till about 1pm before i finally decided (was persuaded) to go to the gym! I went in and started on the bike today cos it was what i could do the gentlest to warm up. I then went on the cross trainer again but today i did 20 minutes doing a mixture of going forwards and backwards. I also did the rowing machine for longer than yesterday - 20 minutes instead of the 15. While i was rowing i was watching the telly that was in the gym and it was the top 100 of cheesy pop songs. As much as i don't 'do' pop it was actually quite fun.

By the time i'd done the cross trainer and rowing machine i felt able to do the treadmill. Originally i was going to do just the same as yesterday but then when it got to my 15 minutes of 8km/hr i actually began increasing my speed :-o ;-D While i was getting faster the girls came in to see me to say they'd finished in the pool had got changed and were going to find somewhere to sit and chill. In the end i'd done 30 minutes at a variety of speed from 8km/hr to 11km/hr and on my cool-down session i put the speed on a lot slower but increaesd the incline. After that i did 5 minutes on the bike again to finish off.

When i went to get showered and changed i intially had the changing room to myself which suited me fine seeing as there were no locks on the shower doors and nowhere inside the shower cubicle to put a towel and it would stay dry :-( I got in the cubicle nearest the wall and put my carrier bag with towels in on the hooks on the wall. Once i was showered i broke the habit of a lifetime and wandered round the changing room in just a towel :-o Once i was partly dressed i then broke another habit of a lifetime. Because i need a mirror to sort out the dressing on my armpit i got dressed in the cubicle as far as trousers and bra and then i wandered round like that to the mirror and did the dressing before putting my t-shirt on :-o Thankfully no-one saw me but i'd decided i wasn't too bothered if anyone did :-o ;-D

When i was fully dressed and hair done i left the leisure area and went to look for the others. I looked on the terrace, then in the bar and there was no sign of them, i just about to ring katie to see where they were and she texted me to say they were sitting by the front of the hotel by the statue.

I went to find them and we sat chatting for quite some time. We were talking about religion and marriage and Jen was trying to work out exactly what type of person Katie would marry. After a while we got fed up sitting on the grass so we moved to the terrace and continued the same conversation ;-D

We'd originally decided to leave around 4ish but we didn't actually get round to it till about 4.30. When we initially set off i was in the front next to katie so i had the job of navigator :-o We didn't quite follow the directions exactly cos at one point there was a sign for Manchester Road but the sign was right on the corner of the junction and it could've been either of the 2 roads :-S In the end it didn't matter cos we got back on the correct road and we were able to refer to the instructions again.

As we were travelling we decided we'd look for somewhere to have tea before we got to the motorway. We went past a very nice looking hotel and Jen and Katie both agreed it looked like a great place to eat. We went in and were given menues and we were told to sit 'under the board' which was just the other side of the door. A waiter came to take our drinks orders so we asked him what the specials were for the £10 set menu, he told us 2 varieties of soup, turkey, then apple pie. When the 2nd waiter came to take our food order it turned out the 1st one had got it wrong - one of the soups was wrong, and it was beef not turkey 8| In the end we all ordered from that menu - mainly because it was beef rather than turkey - we all agreed that turkey is just for christmas :-p ;-D

The meal and the whole place was very nice, we all agreed on that matter too. As we were leaving, Katie and Jen went to the car before Catherine and i and when we got to the car i found i'd been relegated to the back seat again :-o ;-D

Once we'd left we headed for the motorway and we were on the M58 really quickly - much sooner than i expected compared to when we were on the way there - mind you we didn't get lost going home!!!

As we got to the end of the M58 Katie came back to mine a really strange route :-S As we'd just come off Switch Island i said to her that i presumed she was taking me home first as the others were all in Crosby. At that point she was in the wrong lane to gp direct to mine but she laughed saying her car only goes to Crosby ;-D After that she had plenty of opportunities to change her route to go to my house but still went through Crosby anyway :-S I wasn't bothered cos she was driving, not me, it just seemed really odd :-S :-/

When we got back to mine they all came in for a short while and Catherine made friends with our 2 cats ;-D Jen and Katie both came upstairs and i showed them my ballgown and also showed Jen my bedroom as she'd never seen it before :-)

Once they'd left i asked Paul to check the network connection on my laptop cos i'd been fiddling with settings but he just looked at it, registered it was connected and said it was fine :-S He said if i'd messed anything up i simply wouldn't have got a connection here so it must be ok.

After that i basically just sat and did this blog for a while before making my bed and generally lazing around for the rest of the night.