Manic trip up North

After spending a good Christmas day at Jane's I felt a bit out of sorts for not trying to get up North to see the relatives.

I decided on Christmas Day to travel up on the 27th Dec. Didn't want to go on the 26th due to the expected amount of traffic and also the fact that I'd had a bit to drink that evening. Also, the immediate family would be at Tracey-Anne's for the evening.

Early on the 27th I set off North. The weather wasn't too bad and I only had to deal with a little bit of traffic.

I finally got to Tracey-Anne's about 1630hrs. Emma's mob was all there as well as Mum, Dad, and Tracey-Anne's crowd. I handed out the large sack of gifts in rather a haphazard way which might not have been the best. As per usual I got rather a lot of good gifts this year. I had actually made the effort NOT to buy everything I wanted so that I could receive it as a gift. Most pleased with all of it.

I think my gifts went down well. I hope so as I had spent a bit of time thinking about them. Trying to get away from just handing out cash!

Despite being tired I didn't get to bed too early.

The next morning we badgered Emma into coming further North to see my Nanan. We set off quite late but still got there about 1430hrs. We all decamped to the living room and were about to settle down when somebody suggested lunch at the Trent Port pub carvery.

The food was good but the temperature was far too hot! We couldn't have stayed for puddings even if we wanted to.

Emma and Tracey-Anne's crowd who had come up only stayed a couple more hours before heading back in the dark. Everybody got home safely. I spent the night in Gainsborough to head off early the next morning.

This morning I woke up about 0630hrs but didn't set off straight away so that Morrison's would be open for the diesel etc.. I also spent a bit of Nanan's money on a couple of Blu-rays.

The trip down was a bit round off track than usual as I decided to ignore the Tom-tom for a bit as it appeared to be taking me further North. Shouldn't have panicked really as I probably went further and slower than if I had just gone with the flow. Eventually I got on track and set off.

The weather was predicted to be foggy and so it was. There were quite a few banks of fog but it didn't slow me down too much. It wasn't quite as bad as it could've been. Only once on the A38 did it start to rain a little bit. Again it wasn't too bad.

I finally arrived home about 1530hrs. I stopped off at Otter Nursery to try and get a present for Jane's which turned out to be a H4H meerkat for the garden and a set of gardening gloves.