Then on Friday we headed off to Wickford to spend the afternoon and evening with Janet and Pat. On Saturday morning Pete and I were off to Bernie and Karen's wedding in Watford, leaving Vincent for the day and the night (first time both of us have been away from Vincent for the whole night) in the capable hands of Nanny and GrandPat. It did feel weird heading off and all day Pete and I kept looking round for Vincent! However, Vincent was as good as gold for his Nanny and GrandPat... in fact he didn't seem to miss us at all.... typical!
The wedding was just great... a good old Irish Catholic do, starting with a full communion mass at Karen's family church. It was brilliant to see Bernie and Karen again. The do was at Bushey Hall golf club, the food was great, there was a completely free bar all day and evening (what a pity I couldn't drink!) and lots of lovely and funny touches. First off, as part of his speech, Bernie played guitar and sang a song he had composed to Karen. this could have been really cheesy but wasn't at all as it was a very funny cheeky song. Then to kick off the dancing, the DJ was called Elvis Schmelvis and was a fantastic Elvis impersonator, complete with white and then red rhinestone outfit! Then there was dancing (I did quite a bit even if I did get a bit out of breath!). Pete was very impressed that the evening food (served about 11pm) was bacon butties and chips! We were both knackered by about half twelve, but apparently the festivities were continuing into the wee small hours back at the hotel in true Irish tradition...Karen said that they had had to make special arrangements for this at the hotel... I'm sure we would have partaken in pre-Vincent/non pregnant days.
On Sunday morning we headed back to Wickford to pick Vincent up before driving off to Brighton for 5 days of the TUC congress. We had dinner at an Italian restaurant where I was meeting up with the rest of the delegation later, where the waiter doted over Vincent and gave Pete and him a free meal! Vincent didn't eat much of his spaghetti, but as you can see had no trouble digging into the banoffee pie!
The next four days I was at the Congress most of the day, heading back to meet up with Pete and Vincent for lunch. Vincent attended the TUC creche for Tuesday and Wednesday (the same days he would normally go to nursery at home and Pete worked in the hotel room)-he was the only child there-out of 720 delegates, only one had a child in the creche... what a comment on the demographic of delegates. So Vincent certainly had a lot of attention: three members of staff to one child! We knew the staff because they ran the creche at last year's TUC and the UCU congress in May so it was good to have some continuity. Vincent got a certificate on his special contribution which was playing football with the staff.
What a pity the weather was so crap the whole time we were there as Brighton is lovely. Pete and Vincent went swimming in the hotel pool a good few times and hung out on the beach where Vincent could throw stones to his heart's content. We also had some lovely food while there... a highlight was a hot kipper roll from fisherman's smoke house on the sea front and a fantastic vegetarian restaurant (even Pete was impressed!).
But... I did find it absolutely knackering and was very glad to be on our way home Thursday afternoon. Had to sleep most of Friday to recover... how nice to be in our own home again.
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