Catching up

We have now collected the caravan from the New Forest and brought the family home! they had a dreadfully wet week and the new site they chose to go on was so waterlogged they had a job not to walk the wet and mud into the van - oh my was it dirty! I think that they still managed to have a good time - crabbing on Mudiford quay, feeding the swans down at Christchurch and generally 'going to the seaside'. Stuart, Leslie and Charlotte would do it all again but the other two teenagers were not so keen!

When we got home with the van the first thing was to remove all the wet dirty rugs - they were so bad that we laid them on the patio and hosed them down with the jet washer! The same went for the awning groundsheet! and I set too on Saturday and cleaned the inside of the van so that we have a clean van to take away next week. 007 cleaned the outside of the van to get rid of all the animals (flies mostly) that we picked up on the way home



These are the first of the tomatoes to ripen - they are not the biggest in the greenhouse! they are from the Alicante plant - the flower pot is there to try and support another stem of the plant (someone was supposed to pinching out the side shoots......but this one was over looked and now is full of fruit!) I think a lot of the toms will ripen while we are away in Birmingham - so who ever comes in to water them will be allowed to take some as a thank you. It may well be Aimee as she is borrowing my car while we are away but it may be Jackie bringing her little charges in to play in the garden if the weather is nice.

Here are the pictures of Joshua and Emily's swimming lesson I said I would show you. As you can tell by the way Joshua is standing the day was not warm and neither was the water!

Emily really enjoys the water and was not behaving her self - she kept ducking herself under the water as though she was diving, so she couldn't hear what the instructor was saying to her half the time! The children were being taught how to float with our sinking as well as how to use their arms and legs in the water. Both of them are going to make good swimmers eventually.

The guy who was teaching Emily's little group finally made them all line up behind each other and they had those rolly things round their tummies and the one behind had to hold on to the one in front - he then took hold of the hands of the leader and pulled them round the pool like a train......great fun!

On Thursday I took my friend Margaret to Wexham Park hosp in Slough for her pre-op tests......... everything went OK and we were only there an hour. Her husband Jim, in the meantime, had to go to the Royal Berks in Reading for some more tests and to discuss what they wanted to do for his Lukemia. Over the weekend I heard that Jim is back in hospital - he took ill over the weekend and an ambulance was called....I am waiting to hear from Margaret - I have volunteered to drive her to the hosp anytime she wants.