a (very) brief account of my trip to Florida

I was going to bore you rigid, but instead I'll spare you the blow by blow account and give you Orlando in as few words as possible. Mainly because I have a billion swaps to finish, blocks for my quilting bees, as well as the mountain of ironing that is steadily taking over the house. So much to do, so little time. Any one fancy telling me how I can get an extra 5 hours in each day? And could you arrange childcare and husband sitting whilst you're at it too? Thanks in advance.

Ok, so how was the Monkey family trip? Awesome. I am not a huge Disney fan, but the little Ginger monkey's face was enough to melt even the hardest of hearts. If you are planning a trip to Orlando take note - the queues are mega long, even when there are hardly any people in the parks, so small children get very grumpy and will decide to change their minds after 20 minutes and want to leave RIGHT NOW. The Magic Kingdom is great for little girls, not so for little boys (unless they are a big Beauty and the Beast fan like mine), Epcot is an overlooked treasure (and the food is by far the best there than in any of the other parks), Hollywood studios is small, but worth a trip, and we missed Animal Kingdom out this time round, because we were (to be honest) all Disneyed out, although I really liked it when we went before, when Miss G was a bit smaller. But my favourite park had to be Universal and Islands of Adventure. The Dr. Seuss bit was amazing. I could have moved right in. The fast queue system they have there is far more efficient than the Disney one (you literally jump the line, not get a time to return), there was loads to entertain both the little Ginger one (3 years) and the bigger not so ginger one (9 years) as well as me (sheer hatred of rides that move apart from a gentle swaying) and Mr Monkey (wet rides please). The food (yes, I am obsessed with eating) was not bad at all (ok, too many hot dogs and fries, but I found a sandwich place too, and a starbucks - nice). My only disappointment was seaworld, Shamu was wonderful, as Shamu is. I'm a sucker for a bit of human/killer whale interaction, but the rest of the park was looking a bit tired and there was nothing there you couldn't see in, say, London zoo (maybe I'm biased, but you can't beat London Zoo, in my mind).

All in all, though, it was an amazing trip. We took a little road trip down to Miami and hung out on South Beach for a couple of days, got to meet my husband's hero, Chris Garver, from Miami ink (who even commented on Mr Monkey's tattoos - which has made his year, if not his life), and lounged about in the sunshine on the white sand. Bliss. I think it was the best trip we've ever had, I didn't get stroppy at all (I am not good away from home without my bed - which is the best bed in all the world, actually), Mr Monkey had a 24 hour gym to go to in the hotel (always good, it keeps him quiet) and there was a starbucks in the lobby, so my tall, decaff, vanilla, soy latte addiction was fed.

Now we have to get to back into normal life. In short, catching up on sewing. Best get back to it, eh?