Each year on (or around) Chris’s birthday he does a mad challenge. We’ve done Land’s End to John O’Groats, the Tube Challenge and “Visit as many family members as possible in one day” Challenge.
This year Chris’s goal is to ride 29 rollercoasters or theme park rides in one day. It was his choice and he decided that he was going to go to Blackpool and ride the rides. Officially there are only 10 roller coasters there. So he needs to ride all the rides 3 times (minus 1!). I’m not a fan of roller coasters but thankfully they do a ticket for the park which is like an observers ticket. So although Chris pays full rate for his ticket, we aren’t paying out on a ticket that doesn’t get used in a way. Also by going during term time and towards the end of the season it should be a bit quieter.
Our adventure started with church. We decided that if we went to the 9am service at Three Rivers Bedford then we could get on the road around 11/11:30 and still make good time. The boys loaded the car while I fed Jaxon (and then expressed so we could feed him on the go if needed).
We were late for church which wasn’t good but at least we made it for 90% of the service instead of missing church completely.
Chris drove and I sat in the back on “baby duty”. Jaxon was really good and had fallen asleep as we left Bedford. By the time we reached the A1 he was fast asleep.
I’d expected that we would go direct to Blackpool and stop for lunch somewhere along the route. Well Chris had been thinking and suggested we stopped off to see Kewey on our way. Well of course if she was free and wanted to see us then of course I wanted to go via her house!
We left Bedford around 11:30 as planned and made good time. On the outskirts of Peterborough there was an accident which meant we hit traffic but that didn’t slow us down too much. Maybe by about 5-10 minutes.
I got a chunk of my knitting done on the Adopted WIP project. I’m down to the last ball so in theory it’ll be finished soon. It could even be finished this week.
I had a headache when we left church so really needed to sleep rather than be stuck in a car but I took some painkillers and with Chris driving I was able to chill out, by the time we got to Grantham it was clearing but still achy. Had drank a litre of water so needed to top my bottle up before heading off for leg two.
Kewey lives really close to her parents house so we’d suggested that if they were in and free that we popped round to introduce them to Jaxon as they haven’t met him yet.
We arrived at their house around 1:30. We had a drink, a catch up and gave Jaxon a feed then pottered up to Kewey’s parents house. They’d had a big family get together this weekend so lunch for us was leftovers from the party but I didn’t mind I know our visit was a little last minute and we didn’t expect to be fed we were happy to find something ourselves.
We even met Kewey’s brother and his girlfriend for the first time. I’ve known Kewey 10 years and this is the first time I’ve met him although I have heard loads about her brother.
Chris decided that rather than taking the route along the motorway he’d take the route that went up through the Peak District. It was a lovely route and involved lots of green fields and windy roads (some definitely more windy that others!)
We arrived at the hotel around 7ish and were made to feel very welcome. The receptionist had put us on the ground floor once she realised we had a baby with us which was lovely of her. To get to our room you actually walk past lots of windows that overlook the indoor pool. The rooms on the opposite side of the corridor to ours looked out over the outdoor pool.
We got ourselves organised and unloaded the buggy which had become a luggage trolley from the car to the room. For dinner we went into Blackpool itself as the hotel restaurant was ridiculously expensive. Nearly £20 for one course expensive!
We went to a local pizza restaurant. I ordered a deep pan pizza and because they didn’t have individual size left they upgraded my pizza for free, that wouldn’t have been a problem had Our Sidekick been with us as he could have gobbled up the spare pizza but I couldn’t manage the whole pizza by myself. We did take away the remaining pizza but I wasn’t able to eat it (which is actually kind of a good thing).
Following dinner we went back to the hotel and got ready for bed. The mattress was very firm so I struggled to get to sleep but in the end I managed it.
