What a long day! It was lovely but very long.
We were up, dressed, fed, car packed and out of the door by 08:30am. What should have been 1hr 35mins drive took over 2hrs. This was partly due to having to slow down through Leicester town centre and partly due to us having to do an emergency toilet stop at the side of the road and then a delay to get into the car park at Drayton Manor (we we're queing for 20minutes!) By the time we had got parked, got my wheels out and sorted the suncream/hats and picnic bits it was almost 11am, we got our tickets and went in.
We met up with my friends husband and children just inside, they had gotten there before us. Sadly my friend was unable to be with us as she had collapsed a few days before and was still in hospital, but rather than let her children down her husband said he would bring them and meet us. None of us had ever met before (even my friend), we have only communicated via internet and phone for the past 5 or 6yrs.
My 3 boys and my friends 2 boys and 1 girl all got on really well together. My boys are a bit older than my friends children and I asked my eldest 2 to look after her youngest 2 on the rides. As it was a hot bank holiday weekend the place was packed and the ques were long. It took 45mins to get on 1 ride! So whilst they were on that ride I joined the que (on my wheels) for the next ride, once they came off it they came and joined me in the que! This meant that they didn't have as long to wait for the next ride. We did this a few times. We also split up and the older kids went to que for 1 ride with adult and the younger ones stayed on smaller rides.
We all had a great day, the kids went on many rides and cost us all a fortune! It was a shame I didn't get to meet my friend, but hopefully we will meet at somepoint in the future. Her children are lovely and her daughter kept holding my hand. The boys all played nicely together and her husband has a similar sense of humor to me.
We left Drayton Manor at 5:30pm and set off home, we needed to avoid the M6 toll road as we refuse to pay and said we would stop at mcdonalds when we found 1. Obviously this did delay our trip home. We finally got home very tired at 10:15pm.
