Wednesday 10 September 2014

Surprise 30th birthday trip

So I had a busy few days...

Last Thursday I took the doggies to the kennels (for Judy the first time in about 8 years she has been left in a kennels- I was a very worried mummy!) I went for an assessment at the local adult education centre for possible enrolment onto an accountancy course (passed with flying colours, and even scored better than the tutor on the maths section!) and then went to pick up Mr Glen from work ready to start his mystery 30th Birthday trip.

We stopped the night in a Holiday Inn in Corby, about an hour and a half from Glen's work. We had a lovely meal- albeit my curry was far too hot, even with the extra yogurt they brought to cool it down! The room was nice and comfy but we had to be up and out relatively early to get on with our day. Breakfast was nice (even got fresh eggs and pancakes cooked and brought to me personally due to the whole buffet/germ issue with my transplant). We then got on our way. Glen drove and about 45 minutes before arriving at our destination, Glen guessed where we were headed... and only because he saw the giant brown attraction sign. We were heading to Alton Towers!

Glen on the cable cars
When we arrived we parked up and headed into the park. I couldn't believe the cost of tickets now... luckily we got bogof otherwise it would have been practically 100 quid just to enter! Anyhoo, we had a lovely day round the park- experienced all the rides we wanted to with very little queue times. The longest we had was about 35 minutes for Smiler. As this was a new one for us, we figured it was ok to wait that long, although with the number of spins and twists my head did feel a little delicate afterwards. I know it's a world record holder for highest number of inversions-14- I do think it was one or two too many for me! Glen and I decided to bite the bullet and upgrade our day ticket to an annual pass for Merlin attractions in a bid to encourage more day trips to places.. we only need to do 2 more trips to theme parks in the next years to get our money back!

After our day we headed to our hotel for the night (about an hour away) We had a lovely trip through teeny tiny country lanes and eventually ended up just outside of Stafford. After we'd checked in and had a brief rest we headed into Stafford town centre for dinner... only to find that it is little more than a ghost town! Considering it was a Friday evening we probably saw a maximum of about 10 people walking around, and very little by way of eateries on the high street... weird! We eventually found our way to Frankie & Benny's... were served by a newbie on only her second shift. Provided us with some light entertainment, and a slight worry that we wouldn't get what we'd ordered... but all in all the food and evening was pleasant. Back to the hotel for some much needed sleep!

Saturday morning we had breakfast (not as nice or plentiful as the Holiday Inn the previous morning), checked out and headed back to Alton Towers for a day in Splash Landings water park. We had a blast (even though it was mostly blurry due to not being able to wear my glasses!) We did the flumes and water coaster, rode the lazy river numerous times and generally just acted like big kids for a few hours, I had no chest or tiredness issues etc. The only thing I did manage to do, was injure my foot by landing strangely coming off one of the slides. It felt fine after a couple of minutes... until later in the afternoon in th car home when I took my shoes off, then found I couldn't get it back on as it had practically doubled in size! I ended up having to strap it up for the following 2 days and try to keep it elevated and rest. Easier said than done when you have jobs to do and places to go... but it's pretty much sorted now, an odd twinge if I put weight on it in a strange way. After finishing in the water park, we went into their buffet restaurant for yet more pizza based foodage. We filled our boots then made our way home. Having made a brief stop in Ipswich for Glen to pick up his car, we eventually got home Saturday evening. I sat with my foot elevated and we vegged in front of the tv and had an early night. All in all Glen had a fab birthday surprise trip, and I enjoyed it too! Duh!

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