This plus that equals…. weekend away

Here’s the latest instalment in my series of posts all about what makes our lives here at home tick. This week is all about the perfect weekend away I recently enjoyed. Yes, I spent Mother’s Day weekend in Cambridge, without my child!

Child free time

We all deserve it! We do. I love my son to bits but he is hard work, his interest differ wildly from my own and it’s good to have a break. For us all.

We walked, miles and miles, without hearing a single complaint. We browsed shops at our leisure. We weren’t pestered or harassed. We heard the cries of other tired, hangry, bored children and then relaxed, because they were not our children!

We got to enjoy the amazing Fitzwilliam Museum without a moments worry about them destroying a priceless artifact or asking to leave or demanding a loo round the gift shop.

We got to visit the University Botanic Gardens, a place we were both desperate to see, and we actually got to look at everything and spend time in the bits we wanted too, and again, not one mention of a gift shop!

It was blissful.

Relaxing

We relaxed so hard!

We didn’t have any real plans, we just meandered and did whatever took our fancy.

It just so happened walking to a park and sitting on a bench, in companionable silence for an hour is what we fancied.

Enjoying a bottle of wine with lunch and watching the world go by for most the afternoon was also highly enoyable.

Not really fancying an evening meal we ate crisps and fudge and drank gin whilst watching trashy TV in our hotel room, that was lush.

We slept in, enjoyed a late breakfast, chatted and just relaxed.

Amazing friends

I have the pleasure of many great friends, friends who put up with me and love spending time with me. I have work friends, mum friends, old friends and new.

I’m very lucky that L’s best mate from nursery has a brilliant mum, who I adore, and was happy to spend a weekend away with me.

Everyone needs a friend like her. One who enjoys gin, walking and gets what having a child the same age entails.

We are actually very similar, so a weekend away together was perfect as we like the same kind of activities and aren’t fussed about a night out, but would prefer gin in a tin and some TV.

Go by train

Honestly, travelling by train makes all the difference. The second we booked our hotel we started looking for train tickets, I was just very lucky that Greater Anglia very kindly arranged our tickets for us. They were intrigued to see what two harassed mums would get up too if let loose in Cambridge for the weekend.

From the second the kids waved goodbye to us from the platform we were in holiday mode!

No one had to stress about driving or finding parking. We got to see the countryside and sort a few bits out on the go, so we could switch off even sooner. I had some emails to send and calls to maker that I wouldn’t have been able to do if I were driving.

It just took all the stress out of it. We hopped on the train in Wymondham and an hour later arrived in Cambridge ready to start the fun.

It also meant the gin drinking and fudge eating got to continue until we were picked up at the train station the following day!!

Getting home

The best bit about going away is often coming home.

We had a fabulous time, we explored and recharged our batteries. But coming home late afternoon on Mother’s Day, to a bunch of flowers, hot cross buns and a chinese ordered was lovely as well.

I missed the kid and he had missed me. See some child free time is good!

We had an awesome weekend, we loved everywhere we visited and I would definitely take the kid back to the Botanic Gardens, he would love them. I’ll wait a couple of years on the Fitzwilliam Museum though.

We’re hoping mum’s weekend away will become a more regular occurrence, at least once a year, hopefully more!

Finally, I’m linking up with #TwinklyTuesday, #Blogstravaganza and #StayClassyMama

Disclosure – Our Train Tickets were gifted by Greater Anglia in return for a mention. All thoughts, opinions and images are my own. We would have genuinely travelled by rail regardless and all the other events of the weekend were funded by us.