Do you ever have those days where you just wish you hadn’t got out of bed? I do and today was one of them for the most part. My sister has been staying with us for a few days now and today our 5 children seem to be grating on each other and us too. It’s going to happen, you can’t expect them to get along all of the time without the odd little spat. Little Bean is doing her best to share her things but sometimes it’s too much for her and she gets a bit shouty or even worse, she screams her loudest, most ear-piercing scream and it drives everyone bonkers.
Today we had planned to take everyone over to Stamford for a spot of lunch, a little look around the shops for the grown-ups and then a trip down the A1 to Peterborough to wear the children out at Ferry Meadows. Alas, when we arrived at toddled our way over to Stamford the first car park was full, so then we trundled our way to the next one, getting out of our cars just as the heavens opened and a downpour began. We decided that 4 wet slightly fed up adults and 5 wet and hungry children was not the best recipe for a fun day so we piled everyone back into the car to make a pit stop at Costa to grab some takeaway coffees and head to The Granary in Peterborough for lunch, at least that way if the sun came out we would be close to Ferry Meadows to continue with the rest of our plans.
When we arrived at The Granary I was told there was an hour’s wait for the restaurant but if we were happy to sit in the bar we could move tables to accommodate ourselves in there. The rain was still persisting when we arrived and the children just wanted to get inside so we took the remainder of our Costa coffees with us to finish whilst we placed our orders.
Once we got seated we became aware of a woman giving rather evil glares to our party and having a heated discussion with her husband who appeared to be trying to calm her down. Before we knew it she had called over the manager and began pointing her finger in our direction. The manager walked away and she continued to give evil glares. People who know me will know that I don’t back down from people like this and so I calmly walked over and asked her if there was a problem. She slammed the remainder of her drink down, grabbed her coat and said “not now there isn’t, you’ve already ruined my day” and promptly stormed off. So I turned to her husband and asked “what have we done, is it the children?” to which he replied “no don’t worry about it, it’s fine” and then he ran after her.
I then spoke to the manager myself and asked if there was a problem with our party being there. It turns out she was a local to the pub and had taken offence that we had come in carrying Costa coffee cups. The manager pointed out that actually they do sell takeaway Costa coffee so this wasn’t a problem and we were there to eat a meal and had ordered drinks for everyone too so there was no problem.
What is it with people sticking their noses in? I never sit down in a restaurant and go, “you know what I don’t like the way she’s holding her fork, it offends me”. To be honest I don’t really pay other people much attention at all so I don’t understand why grumpy people like her have to stick their nose in. We weren’t causing anyone any harm, we spent A LOT of money in her local but she ruined our experience there.
As for the rest of our day? The rain continued so we took the gang to Garden Park to look around the shops and spoil ourselves in Van Hage with yummy cakes and hot chocolate! At least we managed to pull a bit of goodness out of an otherwise pants day! And then there was curry!!!!