What a weekend!!

I went down to my sister's on Hayling Island for the weekend especially to see my niece Emily participate in a musical compilation comprising of singing and various forms of dance routine. We all made an exceptional effort to dress up and daddy made an exceptional effort to down four pints and glasses of wine before the show.....you can tell he went to this last year!!
Anyway, we got to this tiny island theatre where we had 5 minutes to down a cheap and nasty glass of wine before being subjected to, I really don't know what. At that point, I had no idea what to expect. But before the curtain went up my sister said 'don't you dare laugh!'. Well, she just should never have said that!

The first act of kids aged 4 to 7 came on and did this cute routine.....they were all over the place trying to follow the lead of two older girls....but unsuccessfully. Well, I couldn't stop crying for the laughter...and the more my sister pinched me and punched me in the ribs discreetly, the more I had the giggles. Trouble was, it started her off....and Steve and the couple next to me!
It was like there was one row in this small theatre that had the fits! But everyone else was taking it so bloody seriously. I thought I was in for a good night. If I laughed like this all the way through, then it would be better than paying tripple to see a professional comedian! However, 3 hours later, I had nail marks in my leg where my partner was digging in everytime a flat note was hit on the song, Doe a deer.....and I can tell you that was bloody often!! I had gone through 2 packets of starbursts just to while the time away and had become hyper on the sugar as I don't often eat sweets...and there was no way of getting hold of any alcohol to drown my sorrows. Having said all that, my niece was the dogs b*ll**ks! And it was worth going to see it just for her. This also applied to the rest of the theatre attendents. It was only friends and family who had come to see the show.....there is no other way it would have been staged otherwise! To top it off, adults had had the audacity to take part - badly. OH MY GOD!! The only thing we could say about them is that they had balls to get up on stage and show themselves up!! I wonder if they actually think they have talent...now that would be scary?!

On the Sunday, the family went for a lovely brisk walk along the beach, near the sand dunes.
Hayling Island is a beautiful place to grow up and raise kids. It's a close nit community and I would love to go back there one day and settle down, or somewhere like it, near my sister and family. I left when I was a teenager which was appropriate at the time, but now I see somewhere like that appropriate for this time.

For lunch we all took my Nan out and she thoroughly enjoyed it. I will make a point of doing this everytime we come down for the weekend if I can. For the last 2 weeks I have been ill one way or another, a sore throat turned into a nasty head cold which has left me with many sleepless nights due to lack of being able to breathe. I stayed on at my sister's til yesterday just to get some rest. I feel better for it and I pray it is slowly shifting now. In the mean time, I am just taking it easy and staying in the warm, drinking lots of honey and lemon teas, gargling TCP and sleeping. Oh for the good life!