Silver with cloudy lining

Well, we're all back from Cornwall - finally. It turned out to be an eventful weekend and the fun and games started on Thursday morning...

Fi and I had packed the Vitesse on Wednesday evening, ready for me to drive to work on Thursday. En-route, I would pick Griff up, the rational of all this being that we could leave for Cornwall straight after work, or at least, once Fi had driven from Mangotsfield to meet up with us at Aztec West.

Fi left for work about 5 minutes before me and had crucially taken the house keys with her. Once I had manhandled the Rover out of the drive I was imediately drawn to a 'groaning' from the power-steering. Alarm bells started ringing..... I remembered Jim conveying a story about how one of the power-steering pipes had burst in a multi-storey car park just a few months before. Once I had driven the 1/2 mile to pick up Griff, I parked up, jumped out and my fears were confirmed. Fluid was draining itself out of one of the Hydraulic lines on the power-steering. There ended the Vitesse's trip to Cornwall. Griff had to get to work, so drove off in his car, but my problems were more compicated...

I had no keys for the house and no keys for the Fiat, which was parked in a security-minded fashion in front of the garage. Besides that, the Fiat was not big enough to get all our and Griff's stuff in and the Mondeo was in Mangotsfield with Fi... Thankfully Jay and Marie had the day off. They were planning to go to Cornwall around 10am. More importantly they have a spare key to our house! So, about 2 hours later, the Fiat out of the way and the Vitesse in the garage, Jay and Marie dropped me off at Fi's work (en-route to Cornwall) to pick up the Mondeo. Once back home I unpacked the Rover and packed the Mondeo, ready to Pick Fi up at 4pm. After an uneventful journey, we arrived in Cornwall around 8:30pm - Phew!

We managed to cram loads into the trip - Eden Project on Friday, The National Maritime Museum at Falmouth on Saturday and Minnack Theatre on Sunday, which was also Fi's Birthday. A few weeks back, Fi had briefly mentioned that she would like a 'jelly and ice-cream' party. I had informed my parents of this and they really came up trumps. After rushing back from Minnack, we suprised Fi with a party fit for a 6 year old! Jay and Marie had to work on Easter Monday so left around 4pm, whilst the remaining group finally decided upon curry as a celebratory dinner for Fi. The Balti King in Hayle is an Indian restaurant I would recommend to anyone, and my 'Chicken Tikka Balti Fairly Hot' was top stuff indeed. Unfortuantely the rest of the night was not.

After watching Phil Mickelson birdie the 72nd to win the Masters, I put myself to bed. An hour later I was throwing up.., this continued every hour or so until arounf 5am - one of the most unpleasant nights I can remember having. It turned out that the same thing happened to Rach. Being that we were both staying in the chalet, I'm amazed we weren't in competition for the bathroom at any point! We were left with a problem on Monday. I felt terrible and couldn't be too far from a bathroom at any one point and Rach was the same. We were both faced with a 3 1/2 hour car trip!! I for one couldn't make it but Rach was up for it and at around 3pm, Paul, Rach, Marla and Griff left for home. Jess, not needing to be at work the next day stayed with us and we all travelled back earlier today.

As I write this, Fi is in bed. She's been throwing up since 5pm...... Here we go again!