miss bonnie

not sure if i mentioned that some of the other sony-ites also brought their spouses over to bristol as well.

we have been a little cut off from the uprooted sony community being in the harbour while most of them are in the clifton area. not far but far enough.

tim brandt's wife, bonnie came out with him in july so she has already enjoyed 3 months of being in bristol. plus she lives on the other side of whiteladies.

i now have someone to get into trouble with.

bonus: bonnie is a special needs teacher back home so hangin' with my outta control brood should pose no problem for bonnie.

we meet up with bonnie at a predetermined location just above the clifton triangle. not sure what we will do for the afternoon, although it will most likely involve something that will keep the peanuts entertained.

turns out that bonnie needs to bring her hubster some lunchy-lunch so the idea for all of us to head over to aardman and meet the boys for some grub soon becomes our plan.

grab the menfolk, we decided to eat a a place called the river cafe.

we could not have made a worse choice.

first of all, it is nice and looks newly remodeled. there are only a few patrons today. we peruse the menu and come up with a few peanut friendly choices - salsa, guacamole and chips plus a margherita pizza. we order up only to be told that the food will take a bit to come out; they've a new chef and since we've ordered such an array of different things, our order will probably confound the chef and give him/her a heart attack, only adding to the delay of our lunch items.

in the meantime, the kids have discovered that the small ottomans in the bar can be pushed around, leaving wonderful scratches on the new wood floor. they just go insane. they used to be such amazing kids in a restaurant, often prompting proprietors to ask us to come back, the kids had such wonderful restaurant demeanor.

not since we've arrived in bristol though. despite best efforts to tell them that the same rules apply in bristol as california, they have eschewed all previous learned good behavior.

we manage to get through lunch, and the only incident is one kid knocks over someone's beer but now everyone is fed and the mens have to get back to the grind.

in short, bonnie AKA miss bonnie rocks. she totally jumped in and CARRIED one of my now "lame" (as in no longer having functioning legs) children. dignan even got a shoulder ride.

hopefully, this particular outing hasn't put bonnie off from hanging with us in the future.