Alun's Birthday Party

Today we hosted Alun's 40th Birthday BBQ. Various friends and relatives of Alun descended on us this afternoon and it was good fun. Alun and his brother got stuck into the BBQ'ing (Richard was at work) while the rest of us ate and drank.

It was a lovely afternoon, although the weather was atrocious at times. Still, Thomas came well prepared with a brolly.

I think the excitement was all too much for Alun's brother-in-law:


Olivia played hard and ate well all afternoon. She made some new friends, including Alun's sister Sarah and Sarah's 2 year old son Nick who, in fact, delivered Olivia's first chat-up-line - 'Do you want to come and play with my tank?'! She obviously thought it was a good idea.

Hurray! We have a Clean House

After months of dithering and indecision I finally came to the conclusion that a) I should accept that I didn't have enough hours in the day to ensure that the housework got done and that b) I should get a cleaning firm in to do it. After some research I finally settled on the firm that Richard's sister uses. They are amazing - they come on Friday's and do everything - even the skirting and under the sofas. They even managed to chisel off all the food that had managed to weld itself to the floor under Olivia's high chair. The house gleams after they've been. In fact I was so gob-smacked by the transformation when I got home that I took pictures and phoned them to say thank you. My only regret is that I didn't do this years ago.... Hats off to T+J Cleaning Services.

London Weekend Away

At the end of June Richard and I went away to London for 3 nights - our first child-free weekend away since February last year. It was somewhat marred by my bad back and Richard's bad knees but overall I'm glad we went and it was good to get away. We stayed in the Riverbank Park Plaza hotel on the south side of the Thames and on the afternoon of the first day we visited a few pubs near to Westminster to drink beer and take in the architecture:
For breakfast on Saturday we went to the famous Wolesley (next to the Ritz) which Time Out listed as one of 100 things to do before you leave London. We also saw a few sights



and bought tickets to see the musical Spamalot. Very, very funny - highly recommended, and I'm not normally into the whole Monty Python thing. Richard was so delighted with it he bought Olivia a 'Killer Rabbit' hand puppet during the interval. She loved it!

On Sunday, which was our wedding anniversary, we had lunch at the Boxwood Cafe and spent a stupid amount of money on the taster menu, complete with taster wine menu. Actually, only Richard opted for the wine menu - even I can't drink that quantity of alcohol without feeling ill. The sommelier was very good though and offered to give me a splash of each. He even took our photograph.

The whole experience was incredible. I've never eaten food like it - it was amazing. I don't know why this place doesn't have a Michelin star. You couldn't fault anything at all.

Monday morning we had breakfast at Fortnum and Mason. It was ok but the service wasn't really that good and we both thought that we should have gone back to the Wolesley.

A Messy Business!

I've been trying to get Olivia to eat with her spoon a lot more. We've had some progress but, by and large, it's a very messy business and more seems to end up on the high chair and floor than in her tummy!

Happy 40th Birthday Alun

Our brother-in-law Alun turned 40 on the 24th of this month! I guess life is just about to begin? To celebrate, my father-in-law Graham decided to take us all out for lunch to Norwood House on the Saturday. This was then followed by a Murder Mystery Evening which Kate had organised and Richard catered for. Didn't get around to taking any pics of the evening but did for the lunch.

Lunch with Julia

Olivia, Julia and I often have lunch together on a Saturday at the 3 Fishes Cafe. On June 14th though we went to her house for cheese toasties. I changed Olivia's nappy and then was foolish enough to let her run around for a couple of minutes with no pants on, whereupon she dropped a massive poo on the floor! Luckily it was laminate flooring...would have been awful if it had been a priceless Axminster...

Wot No More Caravanners?!

It's finally happened. And the place seems so quiet now. Chris and Tim's original plan was to up-sticks and buy the Post Office in Coniston. They were only meant to stay with us for a couple of weeks and were meant to move in early November. Very sadly it all fell through and they ended up staying until June! How they survived the winter in their little van was amazing really. As Chris said, 'It's a real testimony to the strength of our marriage that there was never a cross word between us all that time'. I laughed and said that they were just repressed! Still, in all seriousness, they did amazingly well given the circumstances and I'm delighted for them that they have now bought a house in Newport. We did of course try and persuade them to stay on. Obviously we were unsuccessful and I'm missing them now. It was lovely just to be able to pop over to the caravan after Olivia had gone to bed and have a chat and a drink. Still, at least they're still in town and we can visit.

Eurovision Night

Well well well....Cheese reigns supreme!

24th May was Eurovision night. Richard was working but I invited Chris and Tim our caravanners over for pizza, salad, beer and the chance to sneer/laugh at all the ridiculous acts. Neither of them had watched this in around 20 yrs so it was a bit of an eye-opener! Each act was voted on for a range of qualities ranging from song quality to cheesiness and 'shagability' (!). If you want to view Chris' cider-influenced scribblings then click here * We rather liked the Danish and Lativian entries. The rest of Europe disagreed though and chose Russia. This act did quite well we thought until some character - who looked rather strangely like Boris Johnson - appeared on ice skates and proceeded to skate around the singer for no good reason whatsoever.

*P.S. I didn't necessarily agree with all of them!