Great Weekend

We’ve had a pretty good weekend … on Saturday, John and Margaret and their children spent the day with us – it was lovely to finally get to meet Luke.  We had a lovely lunch at The Rowbarge and Callum had a great time playing with Rosie.  In her honour (or rather in her Dad’s honour, Callum wore his Newcastle shirt with pride.  You can tell he’s been brain-washed from an early age … even his fav cuddly toy is Black & White!!

On Sunday, we went up to my parents house with my brother’s tribe.  The plan of action needed to be carefully co-ordinated between the Valencia Grand Prix, the penultimate day of the Ashes with England in with a good chance of securing victory, and going Blackberry picking!

We just about managed to do all three!!  Alas, no victory for Button or Hamilton but a great victory over Australia in the Ashes, and enough Blackberries picked and frozen to make a couple of Blackberry and Apple Crumbles.

My nephews all did a grand job of finding and picking blackberries … Ollie beat Tom by a mere 10g when they weighed their cartons!  Callum however, just ate his way around.  Anything that went anywhere near his carton, went straight in his mouth … and the carton he ended up wearing as a hat! 

The kids all had a great day … although they did all end up looking like they’d been dragged through brambles backwards!!  Scratched to bits, but very happy.

Oh, Dan had the last laugh … his spiderman outfit he insisted on wearing, was the perfect protection against the brambles.  Superheroes … may be there is something in it after all!

He’s Finally Caught Up …

The big day has finally arrived – Jon’s finally caught up with me and has turned 40!!

Callum burst into our bedroom this morning and immediately said “It’s your birthday, Daddy!”, followed by “Where’s the card” and then sung Happy Birthday.  So sweet!!  We got Jon a new camera for his birthday (am itching to have a play with it!).

As a treat, we’d booked a table at The Hind’s Head in Bray (Heston Blumenthal’s pub) for lunch.  We were keeping fingers crossed that Callum would be OK.  He’s normally OK, but you never know.

Food was fab.  I had a Goats Cheese and Caramelised Onion tart followed by T Bone Steak whilst Jon had the Potted Shrimp and Crab on Toast followed by a Fillet Steak.  Callum tucked into the bread and Sausage, Chips and Onion Gravy (and lashings of carrots and iceberg lettuce!!)

Fab day .. and managed to crack open the bubbly when my parents, David, Nicky and the nephews and niece arrived.  Even though my niece isn’t quite two, she did seem rather keen to sample the champagne … and tried every trick in the book!!

Callum chose the Birthday Cake – a bright yellow Top Gear Cake featuring the “The Stig”!!  No amount of persuading would get him to go for the mega-chocolate cake I had my eye on.

Ouch …

I finally got around to having three of my wisdom teeth out today.  There’s no way I could keep still enough for them to extracted under a local anaesthetic, so opted to be knocked out and have them removed at the hospital. 

I must say that one day after the op, I am feeling heaps better than I thought I would.  Two teeth came out really easily and don’t see to be troubling me at the mo.  The third was a little more awkward to extract and am a little bruised and swollen on one side of my face (and have several stitches in place over the hole).  Fingers crossed everything heals up OK.

Soup and porridge seems to be order of the day … but was a little more adventurous tonight having a fish pie for my tea!!

Huge thanks to my fab friends, Janine and Lisa, for doing a grand job looking after Callum whilst I’ve been out of it. 

Butterfly Watching …

With the sun deciding to make an appearance on Sunday, we were pleasantly surprised to see so many butterflies in Mum and Dad’s garden.  We spotted four different varieties but admittedly it took us until we got home to figure out what we think each type was!

 Large White

Painted Lady
 Gatekeeper

Peacock

Snakes Alive …

Mum had a very close encounter with a snake last week.  She was bringing the washing in and felt something slither over her foot.  Looking down, she saw it was a rather large snake and was heading into the conservatory.  Feeling brave, she dived in and shut the door into the house then made a hasty retreat outside.  It was only then she realised the back door was locked and no way to get into the house without going back through the conservatory.

Her neighbours were all out, so she waited until the snake disappeared under the settee and quickly made her way into the house to call Dad.  Not sure whether Dad quite believed Mum when she called him at work to tell him what happened, but he certainly got a mouthful when he asked if he should come home straight away!!

There was no sign of the snake when Dad got home.  He tipped back the settee Mum had seen the snake disappear under, and could see nothing at first glance.  Eventually it was spotted hiding up in the springs.  Dad’s first attempt at getting the snake out only pushed it further up into the back of the settee, completely hidden from sight!!

He dropped the settee down onto the floor and eventually the snake fell out and armed with a rake, Dad guided him to the door, and he slithered off into the garden. 

The snake was about 2.5 foot long and probably an adder (too big to be a grass snake and it did have diamond markings!)

Whilst you expect to see snakes and things living in the countryside, we’ve never seen a snake that big before in the 40 years or so they’ve lived in Bucklebury.  With hindsight, it’s just as well Mum had seen him slither into the conservatory … if she hadn’t, he could very well still be nestled up in the springs of the settee, or even worse, somewhere in the house.