Apparition Lessons Anyone?

I love Marie! She is absolutely positively one of my favourite people in the whole wide world. But damn those great big hills and world's worst motorway between us!

Yesterday, me and the munchkins tootled off to see Marie, Gracie and the Eggman. Not a bad journey, it's 60 miles and took us about an hour and we were greeted with a cuppa and homemade Hobnobs, couldn't ask for better really. So why on earth did the same journey in reverse take me 3 blooming hours?! And, to top it all, there were no Hobnobs, homemade or otherwise at this end! Just a cold dark house and no tea in the oven as it was too blooming late to get it in the oven!

To say I hate that motorway is an understatement!

However, we had a lovely day so it was worth it. Did I mention the homemade Hobnobs? (Marie's baking is impossible to turn down, it's a scientific fact!). I got to catch up with Marie, pick her brains about knitting and future Christmas scrapping classes, have a nose through her LSNED album and said Xmas journal, flick through her scrapping mags and borrow books. The kids weren't too bad (4 kids in a house is always a risk). Egg and Xander had a competition to see who could completely ignore their mother's instructions to sit on the potty and pee their pants first (Xander won with Egg a close second, makes a mother so proud!); and the girls played fairly nicely (though Emily's volume switch seemed to be broken, yet again!).

And, I got to take super cute munchkin photos like this one:
So, 3 hours sat getting a numb bum was at least counteracted by some good stuff!

So, I'm thinking there's 3 options for this hill/motorway problem:

1 - I get Marie to buy the house opposite me so it's a 3 second journey to see her (hmmm, now would she upsticks and leave the street she's lived in all her life, move jobs and the kids' schools, not to mention leave her lovely mum who lives next door? Er, OK, plan B!)

2 - I start visiting her in the early hours to avoid the carpark the motorway is in daylight hours (hmmm, possible, the kids would be quiet as they'd all be asleep. Not sure either of us would be very good company though and I doubt she'd want to bake me cookies at 2am!).

3 - I get into Hogwarts next term and get me some Apparition lessons (fantasy world? Me? Never!).

Hmmm, it ain't looking promising is it?! Looks like I probably need to start packing comfy cushions and a Sudoku book for future visits!