It was a drizzly morning. We slept in late and made our way to Bicester Village, a very renowned branded goods outlet.
Went to the customer service office thinking that we could get a discount card. Turned out that there was no such thing, I must have got the information mixed up. Heh....Jun was tired and actually dozed on the comfy sofa while mama made enquiries.
Heh, we spent quite a few hours and mama had a nice purchase from Prada! A tessuto saffiano large shoulder tote bag in ibisco colour. Papa was so sweet, he knew I loved pink and bright colours and he said it would make such a pretty diaper bag for Emmelyn mei mei. Luckily, it was on sale. It was some 790 pounds, then going for 50% off, then there was an additional 30% off as it was in the clearance section. WOah, so it came up to be 277 pounds (I thought I saw 270...I could not really recall, it sounded somewhat right so I did not check. Anyway, it was already a steal. I would have been in a dilemma as to whether I should buy it if it was over 300 pounds. After refunding the VAT - papa was incensed as the staff cheated him. For refund of 31 pounds, he gave him s$40 when it should be closer to S$55! well, still, the bag came up to be $450, a neat price for a prada bag. It had a waterproof material, it was my favourite pink and really bright. It was light and had no zip - I liked to rummage through my things as and when I needed to. It was such a gorgeous purchase. ARGHHHH)
Winter Wonderland at Stoke-on-Trent
We were supposed to go to Snow Dome at Tamworth. But when I tried to book the tickets for Sunday on Saturday night, I realized to my horror that there was no available slot! Ha, so I googled for Christmas fairs in Birmingham and saw the Winter Wonderland at Stoke-on-Trent.
I had mentioned this Christmas fair before, but it was more than an hour drive away, and we thought we had other activities to do, so papa did not consider this further. After some research, I found out that we could get wristbands for unlimited rides and it could be coupled with the ice skating session and it was all very affordable compared to the carnival we went to in London.
So, we bought the 14.99 wristbands for unlimited junior rides for Tong and Jun. Jie had the 19.99 wristband for unliminted junior and some thrilling rides (alas, she needs to be 1.4m to go on some rides alone, sooo….too bad). Papa just bought the 8.50 ticket for ice skating and we paid 3 pounds for the penguin aid for Jun later on. For 61.50, we could take the rides from 1-5pm and then go for ice skating anytime till 9pm!
So they took the train ride, the car ride, gor gor went on the mini swing ride...
heh, jie went on the big swing ride
eh...she was supposed to be accompanied by an adult but the staff let her go on it alone. Alas, after waiting for a long time, they finally went up into air but the staff abruptly stopped it, let them down and asked them to come back later. Apparently, the wind was too strong. Sigh.
Alligator ride
Hot air balloon ride
Jun seemed to like pink quite a lot. He loved RED, fire engines and all kinds of vehicles.
This crazy sizzler ride - it spun around so fast...this was her favourite ride.
Another wacky spinning ride called Waitzer. It spun so fast that she worried that her beanie would fly off so she took it off. This lass definitely had a taste for adrenaline-pumping thrill rides. When she was 1.4m tall, it would be the point of no return.
Such rides were not papa's cup of tea. heh heh...but mama used to love such rides, having taken exhilarating ones like Top-Gun which would spin 360 degrees at a height of several 10 storeys high in he sky ALONE. yeah... I supposed that was where she got her adventure-seeking genes from.
Break for lunch...nice yummy German sausages.
Yeah time for trampoline + bungee jumping
Well, the sky swing was operating again so Jie went to take it. Heh...she said that it was so windy and cold up there, so once was enough.
On the crocodile / alligator ride. Jun was so funny, he called it the crocodile snap snap ride, complete with hand gestures.
Well we went on to take more rides till it was almost 4. The older boy had gone off to take the crocodile snap snap ride by himself as he wanted to ride in the first cabin which only allowed one pax. He had been this little boy's companion all these while as both of them could only take junior rides. ha, we always called Jun Tong's little minion for Jun liked to stick to gor gor.
Heh, finally, Jun plucked up the courage to take the aeroplane ride by himself!
Tong at the head of the crocodile snap snap ride
Time for ice skating.
Jun's skates were so cute. He got to wear his own shoes which were strapped to double blades so it was way easier for him to balance. What an ingenious idea!
All suited up and ready to go
Heh we did not manage to get a penguin initially but finally got one. Jun actually skated for close to an hour!
The big ones were proficient at it so they zoomed around on their own. Heh...it was good that they took ice skating lessons. What an opportunity! Skating in an outdoor sheltered ice rink in a wintry country in the chilly weather.
Everything could not have been more perfect. We reached at near to 1pm and secured the wristbands and had a wondrous time till 630pm. Right after we finished buying the wistbands, we noticed a snaking queue shortly after! We also had a close shave when the car was going round the roundabout as our car nearly crashed into another...luckily papa was very alert and quick at reacting. Thank God and his angels for protecting us.
It was pouring by the time we left the place. It would have been dampening to wait for rides in the rain. It was such balmy weather throughout the time we were there. There were no queues and we could get on the rides we wanted fast and easily.
Ha, tried to do a panoramic photo and the light changed colours so I had this funny photo
Our little penguins
We had a scare at the end of the day. After detouring to Mac to get nuggets, fries and drinks, we went back to the carpark (oh 1.60 pounds for the entire day, hurray) and found the door to the carpark locked. We walked around the building to the entrance and was relieved that it was still open. Papa really thought we might be stranded, as he revealed later on. He thought about getting an uber car and was worried about how expensive it could be since it was an hour's drive!
Ours was the LAST car. After we paid at the machine, a man appeared and we thought we were in good company, it showed that there were others around. Turned out that ours was the last car and he was the attendant! He locked up the payment ksiok. When our car reached the gantry, the lights were switched off. When we parked along the side to set the GPS, the man scooted off in his car. OH my, he had to wait for us till we came back. Ha the carpark sign only stated that it cost 1.60 from 9am till close...we did not even know when the closing time was. It was a good thing we were back at 6. Could he have gone home if we were later?
Jun had always displayed comic timing, he had a funny bone. E.g. when mama talked about how she was not good at cooking...or skating, he would chortle really loudly. Recently, he was very into nuggets and his feat was eating NINE at one go. Then he liked the number 100. The kids were munching on nuggets in the car and they gobbled up all of them while I had none and papa only had 3 (gone were the days when papa would have 17 and I took 3). Reserved the last one for Jun. A little while later, he asked for nuggets again and I reminded him that he had already eaten the last one. In an incredulous voice, he asked, "Who ate the HUNDRED nuggets?"
The boys were song birds, they loved singing along to the Troll album and made up nonsensical lyrics all the time. One of Jun's favourite song was from Dora the Explorer..."come on Vamanos, everybody let's go, come on let's get to it, I know that we can do it! Where are we going *cue clap clap clap* To....XXX (whichever place)… " and he could go on and on.
Jun was also into reading things, he would ask what the signs said, what the print on the bottom of his cars said. He also loved taking his green "baby car" to bathe with him. This little lad had turned 3 and though he could not articulate his words properly, he sure was an endearing and talkative sweetheart.
He had started playing card games with us and used to team up with one of us but had recently decided to be in his own team. Amazingly, he won the Sleeping Queen game today and snatched the victory from Jie! Ha, it was really sheer luck, for he had two cards and he chose to use his King card and picked a queen that made his score come up to 40 points! Well, mama did not help him at all. I merely told him the options he could take and he chose which to execute. Ha, he was so ecstatic. He also claimed that he only hugged winners...ha when jie and gor pretended to be all wounded and hurt when they lost a game and wanted him to comfort them.
Every night we would recall what happened in the day and asked one another what their favourite part was. I usually told the stories if they came in to sleep early enough and played Jun's favourite lullaby. But when it was past their bedtime, I refused to talk and Tong would usually be the storyteller. Recently, Jun started to recount the events of the day. On this particular night, he gave a especially hilarious account about how gor and jie wanted to take the bumper car but they were too short...how he went for the crocodile snap snap ride and it went round and round...then he took the blue superman aeroplane and went up into the sky. I told him we would record him and he got slightly awkward. It was a pity that I could not post them here as the files were too large.
What precious memories.
Last weekend of the holiday. We had packed up almost all the things. It was time to head home.
