Had a nice day in Wales yesterday. SIL managed to organise everything again though, even though she was at work and we didn't actually see her!
The plan was to go to the seaside, either Barry or Porthcawl, and let Billy have a run on the beach and then get fish and chips. There's nothing like fish and chips at the seaside is there, and the last time I went the plan was that we'd do that but SIL ended up coming with us, suggesting a beach cafe to eat at instead of going to the lovely sea front chippy at Porthcawl (a rather expensive beach cafe we discovered once we'd sat down and opened the menu. It should be pointed out here that SIL is like the Queen and doesn't carry money, but that's because they're always skint unlike Her Maj). So I'd been really really really looking forward to seaside chips. We got to MIL's at around 11, had a cuppa and some biscuits and then set off for the seaside. She said that T, SIL, had suggested that a place called Ogmore was nice for walking Billy and we could get lunch there at a dog friendly pub so off we went. We passed the pub on the way and it looked very nice from the outside, but quite posh. We had a walk on the beach, it wasn't brilliant but not knowing the area we'd perhaps missed a better one. MIL insisted that she'd treat us to lunch and did we want to call into the pub we'd passed on the way back to her house. It looked like it'd be a bit more expensive than your usual pub grub so I said why don't we find a chippy but it didn't look like there'd be one anywhere near, it was just a small place, so off we went to the pub.
It was pretty expensive, around £10 for a sandwich and side salad which is more than I felt comfortable asking MIL to pay for lunch, yet she still insisted saying that she doesn't see us often so wanted to treat us. We ordered tapas, at around £7 a dish as they were the cheapest items on the menu. It was a lovely pub though, and Billy was fussed by everyone. John let him off his lead and he just sat there by the table, he was so good.
Then it was back to MIL's. The aim was to leave between 3 and 4 and it was about 3.30 when we got back because there was quite a wait for the food to be served. The middle nephew wanted to see us, he was originally going to be there for when we arrived in the morning but didn't wake until 1pm so phoned MIL and asked her to call when we got back, so she rang him when we were in the car so that we wouldn't be waiting too long for him...so it was just after 4 when he arrived (from his home around the corner) and that meant that it was gone 5 when we finally got away and of course we then hit the traffic around Cardiff on the M4, something we wanted to avoid by leaving earlier.
One day we'll go down there and do what we want without SIL and her family orchestrating everything.