Our European Adventure: This one’s for the girls

Some days, you just need to break out the ‘No boys allowed’ club house sign. Some girlfriends & I decided that instead of just putting the sign on the club house for an hour or two, we’d rent a cottage and make a whole weekend out of it. So off we went to Brook Cottage we went.

This cottage is in the middle of nowhere. Literally. It’s in a village called Buckhorn Weston. Buckhorn Weston is the county of Dorset and has a population of 330. So by us visiting for the weekend, we raised the population by 2.6%. Yeah. Needless to say, we made reservations at the local pub...

Our weekend started Friday evening after work with a little Champagne reception (or Eisberg for baby-growing Claire).

We headed out for dinner.

To also celebrate Claire’s impending arrival, we had a little baby shower at dinner. Within the office we’ve set up a betting pool to guess the birthday, weight, gender & name of little baby A. In my ever competitive nature, I’ve offered to take her diner of my spicy Texas chilli on the evening of December 11^th. I’m just being helpful.

Wild people, we’re not...I’m pretty sure bed time occurred about 10 minutes after we walked home from dinner.

The following morning, weekend organiser extraordinaire, Harriet put together what I can only describe as a perfect mixture of entertainment & relaxation. There was an optional early morning run. I think you all know me well enough to know that there are at least two words in that sentence that I don’t agree with. Thank goodness it was on the optional list! I chose the slow, leisurely breakfast instead.

When the runners returned (they went 8 miles in about 90 minutes – thank goodness I didn’t go...they would have had to carry me home!), we had a pottery painting party. We had each pre-selected an object to paint and were told that we would need about 2 hours to paint our masterpieces. As we are all accountants, and seriously lacking in the artistic arena, we had determined that we would probably only need about 15 minutes to throw some paint on mugs. However an hour & forty-five minutes in the painting hostess had to remind us that our time was about up and we needed to finish our works of art.

Lucy's Green Army (Plymouth Argyle Football Club) Mug

Holly's flower moneybox to store her vast wealth!

Sue's 'I have to make two because they're going in the girl's Christmas sockings' matching mugs

Claire's Baby A Uni fund savings moneybox

Harriet's Brook Cottage inspired mug

Kirstie's Mince Pie Plate

My British bird mug -- the inside is painted too -- I'm just that artistic now...

Sophie's puppy mug

Our creative pottery has now been whisked away to be fired and sealed and should be delivered back to us in a few weeks. Can’t wait to see the finished products!

After we tidied up from the painting party, we realised we were a bit chilly so Sophie started to light the fireplace only to discover that we couldn’t find any matches in the cottage. At this point I walked outside to see if there were any in the detached garage. Upon my return to the house (sans matches), Holly had devised a plan using some newspaper and the toaster. I’d like to take a moment to reassure anyone concerned for our safety or the continued viability of the cottage that we did also stand with the fire extinguisher and blanket at the ready. It worked. We did get a fire started – though I think Holly was a bit surprised when the flame did catch.

In the evening we played Articulate – a British board game hybrid of Trivial Pursuit and Taboo. My lack of knowledge of British pop culture, history, and geography along with constant English to English language barrier was definitely a hindrance to my team. Sorry, Kirstie & Claire – I’ll keep studying for the next time!

Our final morning we tried to take a group photo infront of the cottage. Balancing the camera on a trash can lid in the middle of the road kinda worked...

Attempt #1: