Boxing Day 2013

On Boxing Day, we had to pack up and clean our lovely temporary home in preparation for the Murrays returning. Before we started we were kind of like 'it's a good job they aren't coming back and seeing the place right now...' It's amazing how fast you can make a mess somewhere!

We got Dan to take a picture of the family... our first one in years which hasn't been taken by me, of us all in a mirror! (Underground car park in Durham, top of the Blackpool Tower and Paris Opera House have been our last lot of mirrored family pictures!!)

I also had to take a snap of our lovely bathroom!

We said goodbye to Mum and Dad, and Katy and Dan's family, and left Chorley at about 11am, and drove the couple of hours to Bangor, North Wales. Our satnav as we drove past Colwyn Bay:

We stopped off at our Travelodge in Bangor first, but were too early to book in, so we went to Morrisons supermarket to stock up on food for breakfasts and lunches for the next two days. We then drove to Caernarfon Castle, and made some lunch. Our car was ridiculously full! We were kind of proud for the car to be in yet another new place!

We then had a walk around the castle. (Unfortunately we were a day early for it to be open to visitors.)

Lucy trying to get onto her stump...

Did it at last - long after the boys left!

I had stuck in my mind, a picture I'd seen of us Flinn kids standing on a bridge in front of Caernarfon Castle, years ago. I got my kids on the bridge to take a picture too...

When I got back home, I looked on Facebook, where Mum had put some scans of old family photos, and found the one I was thinking of. Here it is! I was impressed I'd taken one so similar - I hadn't realised all the kids where in it and Dad too! Mine is pretty close! This one below was taken in August 1993 when I was 18.

Our car outside the old Harbour Offices.

We then walked right over the bridge to explore the other side. I got excited when I saw signs to 'Coed Helen' campsite. We had stayed on that campsite in 1993 and 1994 with the Devines, and had great holidays here!

Over the bridge we walked up the hill to the tower on the top.

Then we stopped at the park on the way back.

I took this photo to remind us of Lucy and Jack sitting on the swings about 20 metres away from Scott and I on a bench, and them phoning and texting us repeatedly to ask if we could go and see 'Frozen' at the cinema that night (we never did), and us hanging up on them etc. Don't know why this amused us so much, but it really did!

What happened to Harry when he decided to squash himself in between Lucy and I!

Walking back to the car.

On the way out of Caernarfon I made Scott stop in a car park (actually two car parks, because the first one had no view!) so that I could take this picture of the castle from across the water. It's such a large castle that it's hard to get a picture of it up close. There's been a castle here from the late 1000's.

We then went on a little drive around, through Bangor, and over the Menai Suspension Bridge onto Anglesey (where my Dad lived for a bit).

We drove along the coast of Anglesey till we got the next bridge back to the mainland. I like this view looking back to the suspension bridge.

We then headed back to our two Travelogde rooms, which we love staying in... they are pretty basic but have everything we need, perfectly. Lucy and Tom were in my room, with the others across the corridor.
We had a wonderful time completely vegging out, and reading, editing photos, watching superb TV such as the 'Eddie Stobart' trucks programme (associated only with Tavelodges, for our kids!!), then we had planned to go to the Little Chef restaurant which was attached to the hotel, for tea. When we got there though it had shut early, so we climbed back in the car and drove around Bangor looking for somewhere to eat. The only places in the whole city that were open (including supermarkets) were a take-away Pizza place and a McDonalds. I was slightly mortified by having our Boxing Day meal in McDonalds, but we had a nice time, and then went back to our hotel for some more relaxing. I had a lovely bath, reading one of Lucy's books, then we went to bed pretty early.