Good Evening everyone!
Sorry I haven't been on to update before now...you impatient people...Penny!!! But I'm here now!
So, Sarah and I arrived at Rufford Abbey Country Park
http://www.tourismleafletsonline.com/pdfs/Rufford-Abbey-Country-Park-Tourism-Leaflet.pdf about 09.45 and parked up next to Steve! And while we were talking to him, Gail appeared with Bev, Chels and Jess! It was just brilliant to see them! :grouphugg:
It was really cold so we opted to head for the cafe to get some warm drinks and wait for Shrimpy who arrived a little later.
Having warmed up a bit, we decided to ignore the freeing temperatures and voices of doom saying that snow was on the way, and set off on a walk around the lake. OMG it was cold! :winter_brr: Even the lake was frozen and the poor swans, geese and ducks were waddling around on the surface. But we ploughed on regardless and I have to say I totally enjoyed the walk! It gave us the opportunity to chat, which was really what the day was all about
On the way round, we called in to the Outdoors Clothes shop there and spent some time trying on hats and gloves, with quite a few of us buying things to wear there and then! And tiny little Shrimpy bought a coat in a CHILDRENS size lol! :23:
And so we made our way back to the cafe where we were joined by the lovely Bess, and ordered 8 jacket potatoes with beans and cheese and one soup with wm roll lol! Weren't we good!!!
After lunch we spent a couple of hours chatting and showing off photos and various items of "slimmed out of" clothes! And Shrimpy brought her Woman of the Year board which had some amazing pictures on it. :clap:
It was during this time that word was getting through about the serious weather problems, and that snow was already falling in several parts of the country
And so the decision was made by half of the group to leave early for reasons of safety :sigh: It was a shame of course but very sensible considering we had all travelled some distance.
Sarah, Gail, Steve and I opted to have a look in the gift shop and craft shop, and I was really pleased to find almost an exact replica of the bracelet I'd broken that morning! As the snow began to fall around us, we popped back to the cafe for a last hot drink, and some of us may have had a teeny weeny scone but their identity shall remain a secret! :secret:
And then it was time for Gail to start making tracks as she was worried about the journey home with the snow, so we said our goodbyes :wave_cry:
And then there were three! Being the hardcore peeps that we are
we thought we'd find a nice little country pub as Steve and I were adamant we wanted a steak before we left!
Which was fine, except none of us knew the area, and Steves phone app which tells you where the nearest pubs are wasn't working
so we just set off in the hope that we'd find somewhere.
After a false start (found a pub...full of rough blokes playing pool...
) we found a beautifully picturesque pub with an open fire :happy036: They did do steak, but it came with chips, so we opted for chicken skewers...which also came with chips but in fairness we didn't actually
know that! I'm afraid we did eat some of the chips...they were
huge and totally delicious! :drool:
But all the time we were there, we had one eye on the snow which was getting pretty bad and starting to settle. So once we'd eaten, we set off on our rather traumatic journeys home. Sarah drove really well. The visibility was incredibly poor, in fact it was almost impossible to see the sides of the motorway, and we did stop at an accident as a car hit the central reservation but the occupant was fine. Talking to Steve (handsfree of course) he was possibly having an even worse journey than us
But we got home safely around 7.30pm, with Steve finally getting back around an hour later.
So I have to say that I really enjoyed the day and would certainly do another one. Thank you Gail so much for organising it :thankyou: Can't wait for the next one!
Now I've got quite a few photos to put on. A couple of minis have asked that I respect their privacy and not show their face on here, so I'm sure you understand why some faces have been blacked out.
Here's a small selection and I'll put the rest in an album on my diary...
http://www.minimins.com/45524-skinnydawn-albums-mini-meet-feb-4th-2012.html