Busy Days and a Family Visit - W/E 20th July 2024 - Part 2

From Wednesday this week, I needed to start getting the house ready for visitors, namely OH's sister, her husband and their teenage granddaughter, who were arriving on Thursday afternoon. I'd done a lot of cleaning the previous week, so it was more a case of refreshing some rooms and cleaning the one's I hadn't got around to.

Before getting started on Wednesday, I went for a walk to forage some blackberries for jam. It took me a couple of hours, but I came back with quite a lot, which I froze until I have time to make the jam.

After lunch, I set to on cleaning the two reception rooms. I'd cleaned them a few weeks before, when I'd changed the rooms around for the summer months, so they weren't too bad. I just dusted, vacuumed and mopped the floors.

I then continued down through the hall to the vestibule and downstairs toilet making sure everywhere was clean and tidy.

On Thursday, it was a case of cleaning the bathroom, a quick vacuum and mop upstairs and in the kitchen and then changing the bedding in time for our visitors arriving. We were still cleaning when our visitors arrived. Such is life. I was in the process of getting ready for work and just needed to mop the bathroom floor and then put everything away. 

Unfortunately, I was due at work on Thursday night, so I just got to say hello and chat for an hour or so, before I had to head off to work, leaving them to OH and LB. Work started off quiet and then got quite busy, so passed pretty quick in the latter half of the shift. Everyone was in bed by the time I got home, after a long journey down here.

On Friday, we had a nice breakfast and then headed into town for the day. First stop was The Lookout at 8 Bishopsgate, which is a new viewing platform in the City of London. It's free to go and see the amazing view of London from there, but you need to book online before turning up.  The platform is on the 50th floor and the views are absolutely amazing, especially as it was a super hot, bright, sunny day. It was definitely well worth a visit.

From there we stopped off at the Cafe on the Corner which is just next door and enjoyed 15% off their wraps for lunch. We were given vouchers at the Lookout for this and the wraps were lovely. I had mango and beetroot and it was super tasty.

We then hopped on a bus to London Bridge, where we'd booked to go to the Fashion and Textile Museum The Biba Story Exhibition, featuring the story of Barbara Hulanicki's amazing success with her Biba fashion and lifestyle brand in the 1960's and 1970's. It was a great exhibition that I really enjoyed. Here's a few of the highlights for me:

From here we caught another bus to Covent Garden, where our youngest visitor wanted to do some shopping. We mainly left the youngsters to it here and went to the pub, but we did go to a couple of shops with them.

Once they'd finished shopping, we all headed off to get some supper in Soho, which was nice, before the girls went off to a theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue to see the musical Hades Town, which is based on Greek mythology. They really liked the show and we enjoyed chatting in another pub in Soho, whilst they watched it. We then all headed home exhausted from a full and busy day, but a good one where we all had a good time despite the 30 degree heat.

On Saturday, we all woke up a bit groggy from the day before and had breakfast together before our visitors departed to make the long journey back to Yorkshire. We'd all enjoyed the visit and it felt strange after they left, as we'd been so busy getting ready for their visit in the week leading up to it, suddenly we had free time, but it was nice to just sit back and chill with no more cleaning or entertaining to do. I ended up having a nap in the shed and then watching Mrs Harris Goes to Paris on Netflix, which I enjoyed.

It was a busy but enjoyable week.