Anniversary Party

We’ve just got back from a quick trip to Bristol for my parents 51st Wedding Anniversary.

Detours on the way to Bristol

We had a few errands to run as well whilst away from West Wales

First of these was a stop off near Llandeilo to collect some syrup to feed our bees. We’d missed the order via our local beekeeping association – probably while I was recovering from my hospital visit – so we had to pay full price for some this year!

Next, Anna wasn’t really happy with me driving all the way to Bristol in one go when we first organised this trip. We also couldn’t stay at my parents house as it was supposed to be a surprise. We had therefore planned an overnight stay in a Premier Inn at Bridgend. Mind you, by the time we’d made the detour to get bee supplies and then drove to Bridgend I’d been driving for pretty much as long as it would have taken to get to Bristol anyway.

Premier Inn for the Night

Not to worry though as it was a good excuse to have a meal in the adjacent restaurant together. Morgan was with us for the weekend and had his own room in the Premier Inn too. Dinner was nice, although it was a little weird being in the vicinity of quite so many people after so many months of social distancing. Mask wearing and social distancing is still practised quite well at home, but it seems that the closer we got to larger centres of population and cities the more lax everyone was. No one other than us in the Premier Inn seemed to be wearing a mask despite the signs everywhere saying that you had to and the fact that we were still in Wales.

The next day started with a breakfast at the Premier Inn and a quick look around the Outlet Stores in the shopping centre next door. We bought some tops for Morgan from SuperDry and some shoes for us from Skechers – That’s pretty much what we always buy when we visit such places!

A Visit to Jays

Next, it was back into the car for an hour or so drive across the bridge towards Bristol where the first stop was The Mall to visit the Apple Store. Morgan wants a new phone for Christmas so it was time to take a look at the various options and colours in person. We were now in England and mask wearing and general covid-restrictions were much more relaxed. Again, this all feels a little weird to us and things with too many people such as the Apple Store were a little uncomfortable.

Next it was another hour or so of driving to Radstock to visit my brother Jay and his family in their ‘new’ house. We say new as we haven’t seen it before but I think they’ve lived there about 18 months now! We stayed there for a while drinking tea and chatting until it was time to head towards Yate for my parents anniversary party.

Anniversary party

We were supposed to have a ‘party’ for my parents 50th Anniversary last year but the Coronovirus pandemic got in the way of that. Instead there was a fairly smalll gathering organised this year for their 51st. It was supposed to be a surprise which is why we hadn’t stayed with them or been to visit before the party itself. However, a few people let the cat out of the bag so I think they pretty much knew everything by the time Saturday evening came around.

The ‘party’ was a buffet at The Lawns in Yate with family. We say a ‘small’ gathering’ but with a family our size even the smallest of gatherings is fairly large. There were as ever a number of generations there and plenty of people to catch up with who we haven’t seen for years. Again, it felt a little odd to be socialising in such a group having been social distancing for so long. I think we’ll be doing a number of lateral flow tests this week just to be sure we are still testing negative.

After the party it was a short drive back to my parents house where we slept in Trudi’s side of the house – again we hadn’t let onto my parents that we were coming so couldn’t expect to stay at theirs unannounced. It would of course have been OK if we had needed to, but we’d arranged beds at Trudi’s instead. What with all the various drives today I had now driven for more than twice as long as it would normally take to get to Bristol!

Driving Home

The following morning we had the usual relaxed breakfast at my parent house. Anna and I strolled into the village to collect a defibrillator and then we started the journey home. I was allowed to drive all the way now but we did stop off at the Three Shires Garden Centre for lunch, some browsing, and to buy some aquarium fish. Things were a little damp up over the Cambrian Mountains and still grey and chilly once at home. It was therefore on with the fire and time to relax.

We failed to take any photos all weekend for some reason so you’ll have to make do with some that Trudi took instead.

1 Response

  1. Avatar forComment Author Mum x says:

    We had a lovely time , thank you for coming it was lovely to see all of our ” children ” together with their families with only two missing due to work commitments but twenty one of our immediate family along with some of your uncle and aunties was a nice way to celebrate fifty one years ….no planning, organising, cooking or clearing away for me was a real bonus !

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Avatar forComment Author

Alan Cole

Alan is a Freelance Website Designer, Sports & Exercise Science Lab Technician and full time Dad & husband with far too many hobbies: Triathlete, Swimming, Cycling, Running, MTBing, Surfing, Windsurfing, SUPing, Gardening, Photography.... The list goes on.