After a yummy breakfast of crumpets and coffee/orange juice and feeding the deer, we set off to Bournville to meet up with Samuel and Alice to share a day with them at Cadbury World.

We had a good trip and only went around the roundabouts once, and it was good to start recognizing parts of Birmingham that we once knew. We made good time and arrived at about 11.40 am.

David and I decided to take a tour of the Cadbury shop in advance (how could we not???) to pick up a couple of souvenirs, while John waited outside with the tickets for Samuel and Alice.

Our eyes were nearly coming out of our heads looking at the array of chocolate and sweets and we were going "we'll take one of those, and one of those, and one of those...".

Samuel and Alice arrived exactly on time for us to start our tour and we were given a pile of chocolates to keep us going... Alice wanted to keep them all as she loves chocolate, but we made David put them in his bag for "safe keeping!!!" ha ha.

We had a lovely tour of the factory, heard how it all started and enjoyed amazing shows and displays. My Grandmother (Elsie Elizabeth Shepherd b.1888 was a Quaker as were the Cadbury family and lived close to Cadbury's where she worked in the early 1900's so the Cadbury story was almost known to me!)

We all boarded little bean cars (No, not Mr Bean!!) and had a wonderful tour around a Seasonalscape of singing flowers and flying chocolate beans, right through to a Christmas Wonderland of chocolate bean houses - it was amazing, we were like children laughing and waving at each other, and of course we had the obligatory photos taken.

We were able to taste the chocolate in a tiny cup with whatever topping we wanted on it (buttons, popping candy etc), it was so so good and we all wanted to go back for more. Then we saw chocolate being tempered and moulded, it was extremely interesting. We picked up our photos and went through the music shop where we spotted a gorilla playing the drums, oh boy was he good!!

We ended up back in the chocolate shop where we all went completely mad! It was so good, and as we can't take the chocolate, licorice allsorts and jelly babies back home in the plane, we will have to eat them before we leave...what a hardship! No blood glucose testing for a couple of days for me and David.

We called in to the cafe for a light lunch and sat chatting for such a long time. Samuel and Alice are wonderful company, we enjoyed being with them and having a laugh, so much - why do we live so far away from all this amazing and wonderful family? We will miss them immensely, without a doubt.

After a big hug for Alice who is heading off to Florida tomorrow, we reluctantly made our way to the cars and headed back home and only got lost twice! We enjoyed our day so much - thank you Alison for arranging the tickets, and Samuel and Alice for a lovely day, love you all so much.