Tomorrow we get up early, well early for the rest of the family who have been having big dirty lie-ins, and make the big drive back home.

It’s been a great break. I’ve done my RRRC thing, it all clicked into place yesterday and I truly reached a relaxed peaceful state. Apart from going through the angst and quietly going no thanks I have got a brighter happier way of doing this and letting it go, it was an easy procedure.

This of course means that two days of holiday left, I finally felt settled here. Even with Holt, the town where we are staying, being a bit upmarket for us, there’s still enough to do.

Yesterday despite being a BIG RAIN day, which made me miss home, allowed us to explore the town, which is full of courtyards and back streets full of shops. The girls did a big shop, which resulted in me being summoned back from the house to collect the shopping, while I and H visited the Punk Office, home of the Holt Vinyl Vault, which is a vinyl shop. It was just like going back to the 80s/90s and since it was a faithful recreation of record shops back then, minus the funky smell. And the prices! OMG £15-£50 per LP. Funny moment when I had to explain to H that the smaller packages were not CDs but Singles, you know a single track with a B side 🙂 Weird of all the museums we’ve visited this really felt like one.

Then we had a big buffet-style Italian, 90% of which had been sourced by the girls at the local family-run department store (Bakers and Larners) and the last was me making a tomato sauce and pasta dish since I do like to do some home cooking. Then we played Ticket To Ride Europe, the first time we had dusted it down in a good five years!, and I got royally hammered by Rachel and H. Good job I was King of Uno, winning four out of five games.

But tonight I start uprooting us all by loading up the car, and we leave first thing, have a quick breakfast somewhere nearby and then get home mid-afternoon, to be greeted by our small pack of animals (three cats and one dog). I know I could have done with another week, probably moving to a different location, but this was so last minute (our luck came in again, this is a new holiday home ) and the kids are back to school the week after next. So I’m truly grateful that we got to go away and have this break.