Weekend away with the Man.

It took us ages to plan, arguments, fights, sulks, all that... but even though it pee'd it down for the whole of Saturday, it was a lovely lovely little holiday.

Day One

Maidenhead.

John had a gig in Bracknell, so we worked the first part of the holiday around that.

We found the campsite, a little one right next to the M4! I say right next to it... the TomTom thought we were actually camping ON the M4! It looked confused when it appeared we were reversing back on the motorway.

We borrowed Dad's tent, that had never been used, and set about putting it up. Turned out it was a tent meant for nice weather, which was lucky, as it was rather nice at the time. We promptly then got out our disposable BBQ and fired it up! Was great fun, there was pretty much just us in this part of the campsite too, so we were loving the freedom.

John had forgotten to move all the tiny apples from underneath the tent!! So we had to move it and do that too otherwise it would have been a bit Princess and the Pea - only with more annoyance.

Right next to the tent we found some very weird plants, do you know what they are?! Cos I have no idea?

We found out we weren't too far away from Windsor and neither of us had really been there before (I may have when I was little but I don't remember) so off we popped.

We filmed a load of Danny stuff, then decided we'd head into the Castle - which was MASSIVE! When we got to the gate it was something stupid like £12 each or something so we decided to go for a walk instead.

We found where Nell Gwynn lived and all sorts of random things like that, it's now a Chinese Chippy! ;)

After Windsor we decided we'd do something fun and go and make a clay pot in a workshop that we found a leaflet for... it was in Eton. We got there and it was closed, so we used the facilities and left. I found Eton to be a bit scary in a way - seeing young lads walking around in tailcoats! All a bit weird.

After that we decided to head back to the tent for a sleep. It had occurred to me that I was only about half an hour away from the Welch - and as much as I love the Man I've seen his set loads, so decided to pay them a visit. I left with a warm heart and warm homemade humous! Nice!

Went back to pick up John to find that they loved him in Bracknell ;) Of course.

We then went back to the tent for midnight BBQ'ery. We had been joined at this point by about 6 new tents! But they all seemed to be asleep so we got on with our BBQ with no interuptions.

Day Two

Newquay

The next day we woke up at something stupid like 5.30am! So we decided to get up and hit the road for our trek to St Ives. We had initially decided to go there... but as the weather was miserable, and we were aware of how long the trek back home would be, we decided on Newquay... especially when we saw what a campsite was called from the road!

So, Gnome World it was!

We pitched up (the only tent on the site!) and I promptly swallowed a bug of some description... it was drizzling and dark... so we pitched up as quick as we could and got on the road to visit Newquay!

The campsite had given us a massive collection of leaflets... and as I seived through them one caught my eye... Cyder Farm!

This was fast becoming John's dream Holiday!

A fantastic gig, a Cyder Farm!! What else could possibly top that..

So, the clincher was that it was actually free to get in too! So we made our way through some wind-y roads and found it.

I had a really good time! And I must admit, I didn't think it was going to be that interesting.

We went on a tractor ride around the orchards which was lovely, we then discovered the slogan for the place! "Legless but Smiling" ... never a truer word could be said about the Man. hehe.

We went for a tour around the factory and they showed us some old old machinery from the 15 hundreds! And we found out that aparantly hundreds of people in Cornwall died from drinking Lead based Cider back in the day! FAIL! Wiped out the Cider industry in a few years... I'm surprised people trusted it enough to start drinking it again.

At the end of the tour there was a sampling session - as you know, I don't drink... so I just watched John have the time of his life! lol

After the Cider Farm we headed into Newquay to check out the beach.. it was a drizzly horrible day but it was nice to see the sea. It was so blue! Which I didn't expect! Loads of Mussles too, and little rock pools, even a massive dead crab! lol

We did a load of Danny filming, John ate a Cornish Pasty and then we headed back to the car.

After Newquay we went back to the tent for a sleep... well, we had been up since 5.30am! When we got back we were flooded !

As I said earlier - this tent was not made for extreme weather conditions - you know, like rain. So we cleaned that up and attempted to get some sleep. The wind made the tent rattle like mad, we probably only managed about an hour each.

We got up and went to a local Fish resturant and had fish and chips. Yes, so did I. I'm slowly getting back into eating fish - it may be a permanant thing, or it may not be, we will see.

We spent the evening looking for something to do - and ended up in St Austell - where we played a couple of games of Bowling at a local Bowling place - Ozzell Bowl! And I would swear I'd been there before - freaked me out a little... am waiting to hear back if we ever visited St Austell.

When we got back the tent was flooded again so we mopped it up and went to bed...

We weren't really tired but we'd run out of things to do - so I played with my camera for a bit - long shutter-tastic!

At about 3am, we decided we weren't going to get any decent sleep what with the rattling wind - so we slept in the car til about 7am.

Day Three

Cardiff

We hadn't really planned anything for the journey back home... we decided that we'd stop when something took our fancy. However, we suddnely thought, it's a lovely day, and we're not too far from Cardiff - let's go there! So that's what we did. I drove some of this, and was not pleased to discover I would be going over a massive bridge!! I hate driving on Bridges : (

Cardiff is a lovely city! And, if you didn't already know, home to the new Doctor Who Series... what was I saying about John's dream holiday? Well, this was the icing on the cake

We went around the exhibition there (mannequins ahoy!!) and then headed to Cardiff Bay. Was really sunny.

One thing that's been really poo on this holiday is my back - since I start physio it's got worse! I'm not joking, it's reallypainful, I can't walk or stand for more than 20 minutes now without it getting bad, it used to be at least an hour or two! So John had to put up with my moaning, and carrying my bag and things. Ugh.

After Cardiff we stopped once more in Monmouth - just on the border of Wales and England. Looked at some bits of old castle and then carried on.

I had a fantastic weekend with a fantastic man. And now he's still camping but with his comedy buds... i wanted to go, but it wasn't really my scene, plus I'd had an amazing time so I didn't want to spoil it :D

I miss him :(