Now, for those of you who don't know, Devon is a good three hours drive from London. Thankfully portable DVD players have been invented! It's the easiest way to keep occupied on long car journeys (aside from endless games of 'eye-spy' that is). Although the kids didn't watch them the whole time (the batteries in those things are not known for their longevity), it kept them occupied for most of it. We got to Devon and the pretty little cottage that we were to stay in. C and B were most excited about the trampoline and 'pirate ship' (aka slide and swing set) out the back, the chickens that clucked around the games room - complete with foosball, pool and table-tennis. Charlie in particular liked "playing" table tennis, due to his recent fascination with Rafael Nadal (for with I took full credit for). By the Sunday afternoon he and I could hit about four or five shots in a row, not too shabby for a five-year-old I thought. The kids and I stayed up late (8PM is late for them), they colouring-in and me watching the Djokovic-Baghdatis match.
After putting the kids to bed and once the tennis was over, I watched a bit of TV. For the first time ever I had to share a room with C and B (there were only two bedrooms in the place). I took a long time to go to sleep - the kids snore and toss and turn a lot - but at least in the morning they didn't get up too early (I had warned them that they weren't to get up til I did).
Sunday was the party for the kiddies - a pool party, complete with bouncy castles and kids bungy (like a giant crane, with trampolines underneath which the kids jump on). The people who had the party are (it probably goes without saying) quite rich. It took a lot for me to not spend the entire time with my mouth open! Although I wasn't overly keen on getting in the pool, I did get in - and get burnt! You forget how much you burn with the sun reflecting off the water.
The trip back home took a lot longer - there was more traffic. However, the kids (thankfully) slept pretty much the whole time. At points I had both Charlie and Bea resting their heads on mine. It was quite comfortable - Bea's head made a good pillow ;)
The only real downside (for me) of the weekend was that I didn't get to go see the tennis on Saturday - which wouldn't have been too big an issue since Nadal wasn't scheduled to play, but due to his rain delay on Friday, he had to finish his match. However, my compensation was that Caroline gave me the following Wednesday off, which brings me to my next blog.....
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