One thing we didn't have on our 2024 reality telly bingo cards was the cast of The Real Housewives of Cheshire starting filming two months early and going on a surprise week-long trip to Thailand together.
Last time we checked, the show was suffering from one of the biggest cast divides in RHOCheshire history resulting in fireworks at the series 17 reunion. Since then, the rival groups have been meeting separately and not being shy about it on Instagram.
As the months ticked away we feared the worst for the long-awaited series 18 – the show's milestone ten-year anniversary season. We all the love the drama, no question, but not when it tears the cast in half like this.
Summer passed and all of a sudden all of the ladies are teasing a last-minute girls' trip to Thailand (they didn't reveal the location initially, but we figured it out because The Real Housewives of Cheshire has our souls) in late November, two months ahead of the usual January filming date.
One thing that also became clear from the cast's Instagram posts and stories is that the aforementioned rift has now healed. Suddenly, Paige Chohan and Lauren Simon are chummy (and even making a point of letting Closer online know directly) and so are Lystra Adams and Rachel Lugo.
No doubt we'll find out what brought the girls back together when the episodes finally air next year, but we don't believe for one second that the ten-year anniversary series of The Real Housewives of Cheshire is going to be 100 percent drama free now. We need this lot to meet us half way. Seriously.
Fret not, because just as filming wrapped on the Thailand trip, Rachel took to her Instagram story to tease a 'storm'.
Taking a snap of the horizon, she wrote, 'The storm has passed', the morning after a big girls' night out.
Now, as the cast is in Thailand, it's entirely possible that Rachel is referring to an actual storm (or Storm Darragh if she's been checking the whether back home), but let's remember - this IS also The Real Housewives of Cheshire, so it's entirely possible she could be referring to some turbulent filming scenes that we're just not privy to yet.
Saying that, we also know that Lystra had an emotional return to Housewives during the Thailand trip, telling her Instagram followers, 'I’m going to be real with you guys, yesterday was… I think this series of Housewives, you guys have got to really stay tuned because yesterday was the first day of filming and let me tell you, I literally bawled my eyes out all day because I was so out of my comfort zone.'
She elaborated, adding, 'I think when it airs you’ll understand what I’m saying, I can’t really give too much away, but I did an activity yesterday that completely is not me. It took everything out of me to do it. Now, I know I do this for your entertainment, but yesterday almost took the life out of me.'
If we had to guess, the ladies will now have the Christmas period off and will return to film the bulk of the ten-year anniversary series in Cheshire in January and February.
WATCH: RHOCheshire's Tanya Bardsley and Lauren Simon tease new cast members
Ben Pulsford is a digital writer for Bauer Media, writing for both Closer online and heatworld. When he's not getting paid to gossip about Big Brother, Love Island and The Real Housewives of Cheshire, he's storming the London LGBTQ+ scene as drag queen, Beary Poppins. Both Ben and Beary are awaiting an invite to join The Real Housewives of Cheshire for series 18. The budget's not there, but the drama is 💅.