Tag: family

The Anniversary Adventure 2026 Part One Sponsored by Amoxicillin – Day Six April 29th

by mkingdon, posted in The Anniversary Adventure 2026, Uncategorized

For those worried about my oral situation, things were starting to improve and my gum was starting to look a little less space hopper and the pain was only like routine child birth. An improvement on just a couple of days ago.

Forty years of getting up for work once again forced my body into waking up at an hour I did not appreciate but I used it to wander out to secure some breakfast from the coffee shop and then a cabana by the quiet pool.

This is the coffee shop and it was an upsetting 7.29am.

The early hour did mean I had my choice of all the cabanas. There was absolutely no sun bed reserving at this resort. We were glad as that is one of my pet hates that has put us off “non WDW” holidays for years.

By 9.25 the early morning cloud was clearing nicely and the relentless sun would char our bodies for most of the day.

At 10.30 I went for a walk up the beach.

My need to “earn” calories does not take a holiday.

Today I had turned left to see what lay in the other direction and it was a little more populated, with a large mainly French resort not too far away and then lots of very interesting little coves.

At times the terrain got a little too “natural” for my liking and all I could imagine were the headlines of “Fat Northern Bloke Dies Due to Stupidity on Nice Beach”.

So I headed back to safety.

See, lots of nature and danger…..

No idea what was going on here….

I was ready for lunch on my return to so I ordered some stuff from the same café/grill as yesterday, and a kind man brought it to our cabana.

Breaking every rule in the book, we went in the pool immediately after eating, but fear not, there was no swimming, just too much Tequila. By too much, I mean one. We did also have two Margaritas though so that exceeded my alcohol intake in one day for the about the past thirty years.

We saw that there was rain forecast from around 3pm, so we left the pool just before that and went to sit on the balcony until it arrived.

It was 4.30 before it finally did so we went inside then and started to get ready. It was raining when we set off for food, armed with umbrellas, but a nice man in a golf cart drove by and stopped to pick us up. He dropped us off outside our restaurant.

Dominican tonight….

I had some slightly odd crisp bread with Avocado mousse to start….

Louise’s Ricotta Balls persisted….

We were hungry so also had a soup each before my main which was Chicken and Rice…

and Beef Tenderloin for Louise.

This was one of our better meals of the trip.

We got a comfy couch in the piano bar and listened to a piano and violin duo for a bit who were somewhere over there.

We gave up after one drink and went to bed after another tiring day.

Till the next time…….

The Anniversary Adventure 2026 Part One Sponsored by Amoxicillin – Day One April 24th

by mkingdon, posted in The Anniversary Adventure 2026

Welcome to day one, part one of our financially irresponsible double trip year to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary. Sure, I know I don’t look old enough, but somehow here we are.

After a false start involving Mexico, cartels and some stressful rearranging , we found ourselves waking up today bound for the Dominican Republic for the first time. Louise told me that she was awake at 2am. I only woke up at 4am when a video she clicked on her phone played at full blast. That saved me the trouble of switching off my alarm an hour later at 5am, when I actually needed to be awake. I did try to get back to sleep only for Louise to do the same thing again about ten minutes later.

Defeated, I rose, attended to dog’s toilet needs and showered. Once dressed the packing was completed and we left around 6.10am after saying goodbye to Emily and the dogs. The cats did not require one.

The traffic was pleasing and we pulled into our parking at 7am, which again was nice and quiet. Premium check in/bag drop with Tui was deserted too and being special Premium people we also got a free go on the security fast track lane. All in all a very quick and painless start to the day.

Terminal 2 at Manchester is undergoing some major changes so the layout is all different with lots of construction walls up hiding stuff so we were a little disorientated but our noses led us to the lounge soon enough. That for some reason was very busy, mainly it seemed with people who had not pre-booked and were waiting in line only to be turned away. Our pre-booked asses were waved through quickly and I was soon at the buffet.

Juice, coffee and a plate of the breakfast stuff followed and once we’d lined out stomachs, the drinking began (and ended for me).

We did some shop wandering and smelled very nice after it. There was a stop at Boots and then Starbucks before the long walk down to gate A6.

Our Premium specialness saw us board early and being a nervous flyer Louise picked up that the song playing in the cabin as we sat down included the lyrics, “Kiss me like we die tonight”. Still better than Jess Glynne but an odd choice.

The Prosecco/Juice was not offered until we were airborne, and that was quickly followed by the drinks service and some crisps. Once the meal arrived (I had buttered chicken) I watched a Robert De Niro gangster film. I know that doesn’t narrow it down too much but I can’t remember the title.

I did try to have a sleep and I think dozed for a bit. Next thing I knew more drinks were being offered and we had three hours to go (of the 8 and a half in total).

I watched another film, Black Bag, which again was decent. When that ended we were pretty much starting our descent. Somewhere in the Premium cabin, someone was whistling. Not constantly, just the odd little phrase of music every now and again. After about forty minutes of this, Louise was ready to eject them from the plane. To be fair everyone was getting annoyed with it, even the crew, and we did eventually spot who was doing it. A bloke sat with his headphones on, a bit worse for wear and thankfully he stopped before anyone had to be arrested.

There was a bus from plane to terminal.

We waited in a ten minute queue to get through the passport bit and then much, much longer for the bags to start arriving.

I’m sure it was just tiredness, but I too then wanted to commit acts of harm to a young chap who wandered right in front of all of us stood behind the yellow safety line at the carousel to position himself in front of us all, despite us being there for about twenty minutes. I really dislike people an alarming amount of the time.

Once we had the bags we survived the Hunger Games of getting from the terminal to our coach whilst being hunted by hundreds of locals trying to wheel our cases for us. I managed it all the way to the back of the van, where I handed my cases to what I thought was our driver, only to find I then owed some random guy a tip for lifting my two cases into the van. Two dollars lighter I got onto the minivan and we waited about twenty minutes for the eight other people to do the same and then we set off.

It was a long 90 minute journey. Once we arrived, check in was smooth. I did fall for the upgrade spiel, being offered a “very special” discount due it being our anniversary for a premium room over looking the ocean. In all such deals I will of course have been the loser but, wait for the view, for the few quid a day extra we felt it was worth it.

We were then golf carted over to our room.

And here is the view I teased….

And the view from the side of the balcony back towards reception.

Some of the room itself….

We unpacked, showered and headed out for food.

We wandered to the Asian restaurant, having enjoyed that the most at the other Secrets we went to in Mexico last year. By the way, this resort is the Secrets Esmerelda Playa.

We both started with Spring Rolls.

I had Shrimp Pad Thai.

Louise, Sweet and Sour Chicken.

Too full for desserts we paid (oh no, we didn’t need to!), and strolled to the Lobby for a night cap.

It was 9pm local time, so 2am in the UK meaning we’d been awake for 22 and 24 hours respectively. Sleep came easily.

Till the next time……

Return of The Crap

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

Is this thing on? Testing, 1, 2…testing.

Hello again. Turns out I’ve had, and needed, a little break from the weekly blogging so apologies to anyone….anyone??? who missed these on the last few Sundays. It wasn’t really planned and just happened but it was very much required and unavoidable.

I return today unable to promise a weekly delivery but for now, mainly as I’m off work until the new year, we blog again.

Over the years I know I have regularly moaned about work being busy, but I was a young naïve fool, as only now do I feel justified in claiming that. In the late summer I was asked to take on some new responsibilities at work as well as my real job and it’s been carnage ever since. It’s involved some travel too with visits in recent weeks to London (a few times), Southampton, Birmingham, Leeds and of course our Manchester office which, with the commute as it, is qualifying as a trip all on its own.

I can’t say I am deliriously happy at work, but that’s not really related to the silly levels of busy, but more the over arching landscape since a new boss and some changes came around during this last year. Everything will pass I guess and when you’ve been there as long as I have, these Johnny come latelys don’t seem to stick around for the long haul so hopefully this is a temporary thing as I could do without having to find another job at my time of life.

So that work stuff meant that for the last few months I really haven’t had a minute to think about much else, and the prospect of sitting back at the laptop at the weekend to write this nonsense did not appeal. I’ve already been spending good chunks of evenings and weekends either working or travelling for work so I decided to not spend whatever free time I did have typing these posts for a bit.

How’s everyone doing? Well, Louise keeps on nursing despite not really wanting to, Emily still works with me and Rebecca, Tom and the boys are all good, with Rebecca now working part time in a local nursery.

Yesterday we went to see my Mum to commemorate what would have been her and my Dad’s 67th wedding anniversary had he still been with us. She’s doing well, is fit and healthy for someone in their mid 80s and she’ll be joining us for Christmas Day next week. Louise is once again working on the day itself and for a lot of the festive period, such is the life of a Community Nurse and she tends to volunteer to do/get stuck with Christmas Day as many of her colleagues still have young children and they want to be there for the big present unwrap.

Both of my readers may have been wondering if we have any holiday plans for 2026. Well, next year is a significant anniversary for Louise and I, as we will hit 30 years of marriage, so we are hoping to gift each other not one, but two holidays, if funds allow.

We have hopes of a return to Mexico and Secrets Akumal in April. We’ve paid a low deposit to secure our dates and have to decide by February if we’re going. It ain’t cheap so we’ll make a call then as to whether it is wise to once again blow all our available funds on overseas travel rather than more sensible uses. Our house continues to conspire against us financially so we’ll see what major bills hit between now and then before inevitable saying sod it we’re going anyway.

However, our main trip next year is a, perhaps surprisingly a Disney one.

In September we have booked to return to Florida, this time with Emily and her boyfriend. It’ll be an off-site affair in our usual villa, flying with Virgin and that’s about all we know at this point. Our boycott of the US was not an easy thing to lift, but after Emily went last year and found that inside the WDW bubble all was well, we decided we didn’t want the orange turd dictating our holiday plans for the next three years so we’re going despite our strong objections to current events over there.

So let’s see how long I can keep this blogging up, and I’d like to as I do like to look back on these things many years later, and to do that, I suppose I have to write them first!

Till the next time……

Woody Worries

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon, Walt Disney World

Another four day week leaves me wondering why we splurge them all at this time of year. I suppose it gives us all a chance to enjoy the lovely weather, unless, like last week, we reverted to mid winter up in the frozen north anyway.

With four weeks to go until our holiday our minds have turned to preparing a bit, and at least thinking about what we need to take from a clothes perspective as our needs will be different to a Florida trip to some extent.

I already actually wrote down in words my trouser buying experience a few weeks ago, so believe me when I say I shall also detail other irrelevant and uninteresting details about my wardrobe.

I did a “try on” yesterday, digging out the summer stuff that hasn’t seen the light of day since our last trip. I have a lot of holiday clothes. That may not to be too surprising I suppose, but having managed to drop a few pounds in my usual pre-hols preparation I do have slightly more options than otherwise I might.

So thankfully my need to go out and do any actual shopping is limited to stuff I can buy online like some shoes, a new cap and some socks. Yes, I am actually spending time writing this stuff down on the internet.

Louise enjoys the madness of a real shop so her buying started this week with a couple of dresses and some shorts.

The rest of the week was of course dominated by work as it always is. However, there was a mild drama on Friday afternoon. I was, as ever, on a Teams call with the doors open as the temperatures had recovered to at least double figures and the dogs were pottering about in the garden. All of a sudden I heard Woody yelp in pain and he came running to the door feeling very sorry for himself. It took a few minutes for him to stop crying and I got him inside and up onto the couch in the conservatory where he literally flaked out.

He was worryingly limp and his eyes glazed over. For a few minutes I was genuinely worried about him. I comforted him for a bit until he started to come round and after half an hour or so he was up and about again.

He’s been fine since so whether he was stung or stood on something, we have no idea. There was no sign of any damage and he wasn’t paying particular attention to any part of his body so it was a mystery. He took himself upstairs to his proper bed for an hour or so and then seemed to be fully recovered. We went out for a decent walk yesterday and he was absolutely fine. It was all a bit strange.

He’s now gone over to Liverpool with Emily to spend the rest of the weekend there at Mikey’s where as you can see he struggles to settle!

Emily’s prep for her August WDW and Universal trip continues. They have booked Mickey’s Not So Scary and have what looks like an action packed and fun plan.

They are taking some first timers with them who of course are listening to almost all of Emily’s advice. However, she did share some shocking news this week. Apparently the newbie couple have bought new trainers for the trip but are refusing to wear them until they get there despite Emily’s advice and pleadings to wear them in. Is this the most rookie of rookie mistakes for a WDW newcomer? It’ll end in tears.

Till the next time……..

Wet, Wet, Wet.

by mkingdon, posted in Walt Disney World

There’s some cosmic irony to us all losing an hour’s sleep on Mother’s Day. As if it commemorates the plight of most mothers to never properly sleep ever again. Here’s wishing all mums a lovely day and we’ll be taking mine out for tea later as tradition dictates.

Don’t worry, I can’t do another post this week about the relatively simple decision and task of changing our holiday plans. All we have left to do now is wait, anticipate and turn up at the airport which is a pretty different experience to your typical Florida trip as we all know. Oh wait, there is an app I may need to download at some point that gives me vital information about the resort so I need to make plans to reserve several minutes to do that.

I am still getting drip-fed small crumbs of planning activity for Emily’s trip, though. They are doing the full Disney and Universal experience, so there’s a lot to think about. With a couple of first-timers tagging along, Emily feels the familiar pressure of being the planner, organiser, and expert for everyone.

We were never planning to do any parks had we stuck with Florida, so I had taken my eye off any park-related news since our last trip. It seems there will be a lot of stuff closed when she goes, which is less than ideal. Stuff like Big Thunder is down for lengthy refurb, It’s Tough To Be A Bug is no more, Buzz I think is going down for a massive upgrade, Rivers of America and Tom Sawyer’s Island are gone, Astro Orbiter is not back until “late summer”, Hall Of Presidents is down, (hopefully for at least another four years) Test Track is still down, and I even think the Walt Disney Railroad is closed. I’m sure there are more than I’ve mentioned, too.

One positive, certainly for Emily, is the re-opening of Voyage Of The Little Mermaid. It will be called The Little Mermaid – A Musical Adventure. That has been sorely missed.

Whilst it’s of course unavoidable, having so much unavailable at once is not ideal even for a regular visitor, but for first-timers who may or may not ever return, it’s a bit of a body blow. That’s without even thinking about the whole question of value for money for your now very expensive park ticket.

They will of course have a great time regardless but it seems WDW is in another massive period of change and regeneration which is good to see I suppose. Not all change in the parks turns out well (are you listening Stitch’s Great Escape?) but it is inevitable.

Speaking of change. Some things never do. I often document the constant parade of tradespeople wandering around our house fixing stuff. If you remember back far enough we had a leaky shower about a year ago that only got finally resolved about a month back when we had to rip the whole base out and fit a new one having exhausted all other options.

Shortly afterwards, the shower in our en suite started playing up, so our plumber, once he’d returned from his round-the-world cruise, which we had funded, popped back to sort that. We’d also spotted, due to us being freezing cold every night, that a couple of radiators downstairs were only getting warm across a three-inch slither at the top, and they needed replacing. So he came to do all that on the same day a couple of weeks ago.

All was well, we were warmer and they even looked nicer as we’d moved from the standard white things to the anthracite column ones to better suit the period of the house.

Anyway, yesterday I made a rare visit to our downstairs loo which is in a room we don’t use that often. As I opened the door and walked in there was an unusual and unwelcome squelch. I looked behind me to see perfect footprints in the carpet.

Panic set in as this was the same room which suffered badly from all our roofing woes a couple of years ago so I was initially desperately looking upwards for signs of water ingress. With nothing to see my attention turned to other sources of water and I soon discovered that the pipe leading into the new readiator was leaking pretty badly.

An hour of trying to vax up the water from the carpet and fruitlessly tinerking with a spanner and some connections on the radiator saw little difference and I resorted to piling towels near the source of the leak and trying to get hold of our plumber. Being 5pm on a Saturday I was not hopeful.

To his enormous credit, he was with us within the hour, made what turned out to be some simple adjustments, fixed the issue and left us dry again and with no charge for his services. I may gold plate him. Perhaps that was a perk of our titanium reward card recognising our levels of spend with him in recent times?

Anyway, today I shall be vaxxing furiously again, trying to turn the sponge on our floor back into a carpet.

Of course, you will know that upon discovering the issue, seeing the state of the carpet and becoming instantly furstrated at my inability to fix the problem, I was in a right strop threatening to either move or torch the house to the ground. Turns out that may have been another slight over reaction as ten minutes of a spanner in the right hands was all that was needed, aside from maybe a new carpet if it cannot be saved.

There’s a lesson there somewhere that I absolutely will not learn.

Till the next time……

The Getting Layed In Orlando Tour 2023 – Day Ten Wednesday 22nd November

by mkingdon, posted in The Getting Layed In Orlando Tour

It’s only when you write these trips up that you start to realise what dreadfully predictable creatures of habit we are. Trying to find an original way to say we woke up and went to breakfast just before ten is proving too much for my limited writing skills. Anyway. that’s what we did.

Having laid out a load of cash to stay a few extra days to enjoy some of the lovely weather we were denied on our first few days, we were a little perturbed to see the forecast predicting a little more shit weather today.

We went to the pool anyway, as if to defy the weather Gods and we Facetimed Rebecca and the boys. Today we watched a man cut some grass. Who says you need to go to the theme parks in Florida to enjoy yourself?

The weather turned around 1pm and we retreated to the covered area and had some chips and dips for a rare proper lunch.

There was no sign of the weather getting better so I drove to a Target on the 192 to collect that doll for Louise’s friend that I told you about some time ago. I finally worked out how to get the Target website to take a payment method registered in the UK but could only seem to do so if I collected. So I drove for over an hour to get a doll I knew nothing of before this trip for the child of someone I did not know.

The traffic was bobbins, matching the weather, with the rain tipping down for the whole journey. Still, apparently, I made some little girl’s Christmas so I’ll count this as my good deed for this lifetime.

Once back at the hotel, I watched more Two and a Half Men whilst Louise got ready. We made it out around 6.30 and got a Lyft to Disney Springs. It was a mercifully short journey, as when the driver set off from our hotel, she made the sign of the cross and kissed her crucifix, which was mildly concerning for a journey that would take about four minutes.

We arrived in one piece and made our way to the stage outside World of Disney, got a cocktail from one of the little drinks places nearby, and watched a band for a bit. It was now not raining.

It was no espresso Martini but it was OK.

We then made our way over to The Edison for our reservation.

The Spings were very busy tonight but we were seated immediately upstairs. There was a very cool retro three-piece band on the stage below us.

We of course ordered the bacon thing to start and in all the excitement it escaped a photo.

I ordered the Edison Burger.

Louise, the Soup and Grilled Cheese.

Louise had wine and I had of course….

We shared a Lemon meringue for dessert.

Overall, we were not blown away by The Edison. The theming is fantastic and the live music a real bonus, but the service was a little slow and whilst all the food was good, nothing blew our socks off enough to have us wanting to go back any time soon.

My mood may have been tainted by my health at this point. I was completely full of snot. I don’t know what the bill was, but I remember it of course being fairly pricey for what was nothing fancy. As we walked back to catch our Lyft home, I was feeling dreadful. I was short of breath, dizzy and really felt out of it.

Once home I went straight to sleep. I did wonder if that first cocktail we had as we watched the band had something in it that I had a reaction to. It was a very “fruity” cocktail and I may be way off the mark, but I can’t think what else it was, as I was right as rain the next morning.

On the plus side, had we not extended our stay we would have been flying home in the morning. Sadly, for you, that means a few more of these rinse-and-repeat blogs!!

Till the next time……