Hello! Lovely to see you, and thank-you very much indeed for popping in :). Yes, I am still alive, and very pleased to have weathered the summer and ready to share in Julie's wonderful Month In Numbers for August ...
I think I can truthfully say it has been busy: 7 weekends of delightful visitors and guests, and nearly 2 glorious weeks with our lovely son, daughter-in-law and their Littlies back home with us. So here are this summer's ...
Though in reality there are 5, of course: but at the age of 90, Dad couldn't quite manage the swings after our 3 hospital visits, 2 eye clinics and his 1st lot of cataract surgery (outcome, alas, disappointing for him). But a happy weekend for him with my brother for company allowed us to make a 320 mile round trip to an almost deserted Welsh mountainside where, having snaked our way up valley roads so narrow that the trees brushed the car on either side, we found ourselves ...
Not, mind you, that we were alone! For the occasion was Himself's Family Reunion, a 72 hour affair this year, with over 420 individual plates of food made, 23 bottles of wine consumed, a 7 mile walk to the nearest waterfall, all for our ...
And a special mention to our wonderful nephews who selflessly covered 330 miles to bring their dad from his nursing home just for the day so he could be together with all his brothers and sisters for the first time in years. Meandering home from over 1005 feet above sea-level, we tumbled down to a 900 year-old town in Shropshire with over 450 listed buildings, and clutch of triffid-like ...
Hot-foot, there was the desktop crash, 11 days if no Internet access and a whole new world of laptops with which to get to grips. Shifting stuff from one large electronic place to a slim and streamlined one morphed into a determined physical clear-out of over 20 years of materials from a previous career (ending up feeling so wired, I was unable to sleep properly for 4 nights!). Still, the 5 trips to the household amenity site, along with 3 evenings of paper combustion in the woodburner (suddenly unseasonably but usefully cold outside), and 15 bags of books delivered to the local charity shops did the trick - though in the light of an upcoming Bloggers' Weekend, I am holding on to this 13 inch-high stack of ...
Feeling energised and happy to be back, and looking forward to a fruitful autumn! With warmest regards to you all, and I will be popping in to see you very soon - did I mention the unread 462 posts awaiting in my Feedly reader?