A Wee Trip South

With some holiday time due to us, the hubby and I decided to pop down south and see my sister before she goes back to work from having her baby. With her menagerie (3 cats, 1 tarantula, 1 snake and 2 small children) we did discuss about bringing Missy and, based on her good behaviour on her last visit, we decided to give it a try and stay for a long weekend.

We decided to spend our first full day together at the East Lancashire Railway - they were running a steam event which is always a fun day and, being dog friendly, meant that we could wear Missy out. We all enjoy steam trains, Missy is always made a fuss of, both the men are engineers and kids just love steam trains.

We may have accidentally brought the bad weather with us. No one expected snow so our plans of the adventure park on route were canned and we settled for trundling up to the end of the line before coming back and stopping in Ramsbottom for a wander and lunch. We found some craft goodies (sister is an avid knitter and I got some nice fabric) before we found an absolutely wonderful pet shop where we were recommended a pub that was both dog and child friendly (often easier said than done!) Then it was back on the train and a trundle back home.

Dust bunny cupcakes

We are all massive geeks and our evenings once the kids had went to bed were spent either playing on the Switch or trying out a role-playing game called No Thank you Evil, which I picked up for my sister to try with my niece. They wanted to trial it before playing with her and the hubby and I agreed to be guinea pigs and give it a go. As she normally does cthullu type role play, I did my absolute best to make it saccharine sweet - I think a purple two tailed fox called Sugar-Star who manically produces cake from her hat and makes people cuddle just about broke my sister, but she managed! My hubby settled on being a lost sock with his dust bunny companion - since the characters had been mocked up in advance, I put together some dust bunny cakes and 'compassion cookie's' from my character - both game and treats went down very well, I'm pleased to say!

With the poor weather, we decided on the Blue Planet Aquarium for the other full day. Missy was tired from her day on the train and so I gave her a good long walk in the morning before she was safely locked into the conservatory. I need to stress here that it's actually the cats picking on the dog that was the concern, so for her own safety we picked a room that could be securely shut!

The aquarium has been on my hit list for a while now, and I was very pleased with it. There was lots of exhibits and tanks for the wee ones to run between, and plenty enough in them to satisfy the adults who are actually looking at the tanks. I think the aquatheatre was the highlight for me - you could actually appreciate the size of the fish and sharks without them being distorted by the acrylic tunnel. My neice decided that the sting rays were the best bit and nephew appeared to just like all of it!

Tuesday was pancake day - so before setting off home we had to do pancakes. Brother in law is diabetic, so as I had commandeered the kitchen, we decided on savoury crepes and just ran with it from there. I'm a traditionalist and it has to be sugar and lemon juice, my sister and neice dabbled with chocolate spread and bananas and the boys had bacon. Brother in law invented the Elvis pancake (peanut butter, banana and bacon) and I think Missy was the only other one who fancied it! My nephew slept through his first pancake day, but there will be plenty of opportunities in the future!

Certainly, the trip went well enough that I think we'll be down again in the future!