Weekend Break at Eastbourne

I would like to say thank you to CHICS for a lovely weekend break at the Imperial Hotel in Eastbourne.

I went with my mum and dad and brother David. We got the coach from Alder Hey on the Friday 13th of December. The journey by coach was very long and tiring. It took about 9 hours, stopping off several times so we could stretch our legs. When we got to the hotel, we quickly put our things in our room and went back down for something to eat. The hotel had a meal all ready for us. It was really nice. Then they had a disco down stairs. There was a disco every night.

On Saturday, after we had breakfast we went to Drusilla's Zoo where they had lots of animals and a park, we had a barbecue dinner while we were there. Later when we got back to the hotel we had our evening meal. When the meal had finished father Christmas came round with presents for everyone. David got a countdown game, I got a hair drier and mum and dad got smellies (soap and moisturiser). Then we went to the disco. Oh, we also had a "snow ball" fight with little polystyrene balls.

On Sunday, after we had breakfast, we went for a walk down to the beach, it was all rocks, stones and pebbles, and it was cold and wet, but we enjoyed it. We then went for a walk around the shops and bought a few things. Later we went to see Jack and the Bean Stalk at the theatre, I had a nice time at the theatre, it was very funny.

The next day, Monday, after we had breakfast we had to come back home, although the journey was long it was quicker than going, it only took us about 6 hours.

We had a really good time at Eastbourne and I would like to say thank you for the presents they give use.

Rachael Smith (12)

More pictures from Eastbourne are on the "Photos" page.

Paris Trip (2009)

As you know we all went to Disneyland Paris in the half term. I would like to tell you about our journey, where we stayed and what we did.

We all had to be up bright and early at Alder Hey Hospital by 5am. We were all half asleep and very weak. We all clambered onto the coach and set off by 5:15. It was a long drive but we were entertained by doing a quiz (thanks to Vicky and Paul Duvall) and watching a load of dvd's. We got to the Euro Tunnel by about 12 noon it only took 35 minutes on the train to get to France. Which was quicker than we all thought. We arrived at the hotel at about 6pm.

The hotel was fantastic and only 5 mins down the road from Disneyland. It was very clean. It had a big pool with 2 slides. There was a games room, a Disney gift shop, a pub and a few restaurants. The rooms where lovely with loads of storage and the beds were really comfortable. The only downside about the hotel was the prices of the food and drink. But all the adults were made up because they had a happy hour at the pub (mum, dad and the Duvall's where always the first there).

On the first actual day we went to Paris. It took an hour from our hotel to paris to get there. The weather was really miserable and we were all soaking. The driver's dropped us off so we could have a few hours to explore Paris and have some lunch. Then the driver's picked us up and took us to the Eiffel Tower to take pictures. We couldn't go up it because we only had 20 minutes. At 4pm we all went on a boat trip that took us down the river Seine.

On the second day everyone went to Disneyland. My mum, dad, sister and I walked around and went on any rides we wanted to. We stopped for a bit of lunch when we spotted a few Disney characters. My sister got loads of autographs and pictures with them all. At the end of the day we watched the parade. The costumes, floats and dancers were amazing. We then went into the Disney village and had our tea because at the hotel it was too expensive.

On the last day we went to Disney Studios. We were just about to enter when we spotted Yossi Benayoun (A Liverpool Player) so we stopped and asked for a picture and autograph. We went on some rides but then decided to go back into the other Disney park.

The journey felt strangely quicker on the way home. We're all very sad to leave as we all had a fabulous time and made some lovely new friends.

I would just like to say a special thanks to Judy for organising such a wonderfull trip also to Vicky and Paul for making our coach journey so entertaining. And everybody else who is connected to CHICS.

Thank You

From Georgia Hickson & Family

All of the pictures and details contained within this site have been sent in by CHICS members and contributors. If you have any stories, information, articles, pictures or jokes that you would like to share with other CHICS members, you can send them to me using the e-mail link on the right. (N.B. Please send pictures in JPEG or GIFF format and reduce there size to no bigger than approx 800 X 600 pixels - or less than 100kb.)