massively d.i.y-ed snowage

I had a good weekend. On Friday I went to the leaving drinks of an ex work colleague, Steve. My favourite part of the night was Lorenzo and Marks bet on who could drink a pint of red wine the quickest. Ok, that wasn't fun to watch but the photos of Lorenzo pausing every 10 seconds and putting his pint down to do a little psyching up dance were. Mark won but we all thought he was going to puke so stood far far away.
Also what made me laugh was Lorenzo who kept trying to include the phrase 'Rosie likes massive...' into every conversation. This is because he found a condom in my bag ages ago and he likes to bring it up alllll the time. He told everyone I had a condom designed for a beast basically so now he busts out with 'Rosie likes a massive....challenge.' And people who don't know what he is talking about are all, to me, 'do you? Like what?' Tres amusing.

Then on Saturday me and my sister Sophs drove to Norfolk to see our cousins Gemma, and her 2 children Chloe and Tavi, and Holly. We drove to our aunt and uncles house first because the odds of finding their (separate) new houses were overwhelmingly low, even with the Sat Nav. We both had set of car keys because I have a habit of locking the keys in the car. I guess I didn't figure on us both locking the keys in the car. Luckily Holly has car-breaking-in experience and instructed our uncle on how to bend the door back. I think he was shocked to find his daughter was an experienced felon.

We haven't seen our cousins for ages and it seems so weird that we are all adults. Gemma's children both seem so old. We hadn't seen Tavi and suddenly he was 18 months. Chloe was surprisingly un-shy and kept whispering that she wanted 'to drive in the car with her cousins.' (We are second cousins I think but have all decided that is far far too confusing and now everyones future and present children will all be cousins.)
So we drove into Norwich together and had lunch then went to see Hollys new house then on to Gemmas.

Conversations I really liked:

Pulling into the car park (we had taken two seperate cars with Gemma and Holly both driving):
Gemma: Look at her showing off with her bloody reverse parking.
Then later, after Holly repeatedly (even though she has lived there for years) wandering off in the wrong direction:
Me: Well, she may be able to reverse park but it is going to be bloody miles from where she is supposed to be.

Holly telling us that Gemmas husband Relu loves DIY and Gemma often goes home to find he has painted or hammered or destroyed something.

Holly: Once I went over to find he had cut her sofa into 3 pieces and made a hole in the wall. He had bought a 3 piece suite but couldn't get the old sofa down the stairs and had made a massive hole in the wall. I was like, RELU!!! How do you think the sofa went up there????
Gemma: Yeah but it is because he enlists the help of the mad man down the road. I swear, if Relu had seen some of the things I had seen that man doing.... I drove past him once trying to fit a piano into his people carrier. He was trying to drive and hold it with one hand and he waved at me. I was like, oh my God, WHAT is he doing?

Obviously things like this are very amusing to me and Sophie so we were making them give us other examples. Like the time Relu was trying to wash his car so he attached the hose to the kitchen tap but he attached it to the wrong thing and ended up flooding the kitchen. Gemma came home to him trying to dry the lino and tearing it as he tried to lift it up. And the time she came home and he had repainted the lounge.
Holly: OOOH I haven't heard this. What colour is it?
Gemma: Er...hard to describe...

So obviously when Gemma called home and said 'What the fuck have you done now?' it was tres amusing.

We drove over to see Holly's new house and it is beautiful. My favourite things that happened here were:
Gemma putting Tavi's hat and coat on then shutting him in the garden and sitting down to have a cup of tea. Then her eating a chocolate biscuit and Tavi pointing and pressing his nose against the window and her being all, Tavi I don't know what you want.
Then Chloe came and told us Holly's boyfriend Adam was playing hide and seek and she couldn't find him. Turns out he hadn't told the children he was playing hide and seek and pretty much had just hidden. Holly gave up looking for him and suddenly it started pouring so she bought Chloe and Tavi in. But Adam still maintained his hiding place. It was like something out of David Attenborough - us all with our noses against the windows trying to spot him. We eventually saw some Conifer bushes rustling and him doing a mission impossible style roll through them. I like that he did all that whilst drinking his cup of tea.

Then we drove over to Gemma's house where Relu greeted us with a hammer in his hand. Holly was like, he is always apprehensive when he sees me. Probably because I am so judgmental about stuff he has done. Luckily he had only put up some pictures. One was a random photo of Manhattan. It was alright really. Just incredibly out of place. He had also put up 2 frames that could both hold 2 photos and the top photo in each had slid down. Nothing too drastic though. We all looked at the cracked lino and said nothing. We all looked at the colour of the paint in the lounge. Holly said, she's right, it is hard to describe.

Then me and Sophie drove home, picked up Hawk, and met ma and pa and our brother and sister in the pub for dinner. Nice.

Sunday it snowed A LOT and it was beautiful walking the dogs around the park and through the woods. Apparently it was the most snow London had had for about 20 years. It had all cleared up though by lunchtime and it was really odd to have the sunshine after that.