Premier Inn - 7 Quick Takes

Oh, my ears and whiskers, I'm late! Our family has been at Legoland UK - and while there, I wrote my 7 Quick Takes in my head - a pretty different type of Quick Takes, but it deserves to be written nonetheless.

In order to visit Legoland we stayed at a Premier Inn, a popular budget hotel chain in the UK. It has a purple and yellow colour scheme, which somehow works. I think. I used to stay in it for work, and have until recently stayed up to 5 to a room for family holidays. Our family is getting a bit too big and noisy to sustain this arrangement so here I have, in 7 Quick Takes, the Top 7 Premier Inn stays of my life!

1. Premier Inn, Norwich. I stayed here for work when I was doing very occasional freelance research when First and Second Sister were young. The girls were ill with a sickness bug while I was away, and I missed them so much I ended up paying for the entire meal of a family dining in the restaurant nearby to try and compensate. (It was the last time I worked away.)

2. Premier Inn, Dover. We drove down south to a very cold and windy Dover beach before catching the ferry boat to Calais, France and continuing the rest of the way to Disneyland, Paris. I love the sea. I remember pebbles on a cold beach. It was a wonderful holiday.

3. Premier Inn, Hull. I remember this as a very tall building with a lift, and we visited The Deep submarinum on an extremely rainy, and windy day. It was the first (and only!) time to date we took a taxi as a family , after a very tiring walking tour of the city. I used to work in Hull - lots of driving around with FirstSister in utero playing classical music on the stereo of my little Nissan Micra, interviewing children from deprived areas - but this was the first time I had stayed in a Premier Inn there.

4. Premier Inn, Manchester Airport. I remember running a really deep bath for the girls in the morning before breakfast! My husband was away at a conference so I madly took a very small First and Second Sister to visit a friend, meeting up for a meal and then retreating for an early night. The drive back through the Peak District was very windy - little SecondSister was literally almost blown off her feet when we stopped for a toilet break in Stockport. (I don't see this friend often enough these days; a lovely memory.)

5. Premier Inn, Boston (Lincolnshire). Not really much to say about this place other than that there is a play area outside the attached restaurant, which keeps the kids occupied while the car gets packed up. We've stayed here a couple of times and driven to the Lincolnshire coast for seaside holidays.

6. Premier Inn, Ipswich. I stayed here for a snowy week in January while working on an evaluation. Over the course of the week I realised that I was having a very strong nauseous reaction to the cleaning products used in the hotel. I had thought my period had arrived, but it had disappeared again. My husband and I had been getting used to the idea that we may never manage to get pregnant. Over the course of the week, I realised that I really should have had a proper period by now. After leaving the hotel, I purchased a couple of pregnancy tests. And sure enough, I was pregnant with FirstSister.

7. And so to our latest (and last for now) hotel, at Heathrow Airport, London. Soundproofed from aeroplanes, which we could see, large as life, outside. The children got balloons! Not far from Legoland. There was even a quiet booth where my husband could take his laptop in the evenings. (But I tell you what, dear reader -  it was the first time in a Premier Inn where I could not walk in, drop my bags and make a cup of tea - we arrived to a hotel room WITHOUT TEABAGS!)

Join Jen @ Conversion Diary for more Quick Takes every week.