April 1st - Beccy and Brian travelled to Millwall FC's ground to watch England Ladies in a World Cup qualifier against Spain. They went with Beccy's Aylesford football team. Most of the girls and a number of parents went. I was unable to go because we had interviews for new students and I didn't get home until 8pm.
I got home to a letter that stated that someone had made a claim on my car insurance for an accident, stating that I had driven into the rear of their car. Unfortunately, the claims office was, by then, closed for Easter. I had to wait until Tuesday 6th to find out that the accident had taken place in Chorley, Lancashire and that my registration number had been quoted. I can only assume that they quoted the number incorrectly. It did cause me some anxiety for a while.
April 3rd - we had an afternoon and evening in London. We caught the high speed train to St Pancras and then the Piccadilly line to Covent Garden. Ben and Beccy immediately spotted the clothes and shoe shops and asked if they could go off shopping without their parents. So while they went fashion shopping, Brian and I went shopping for tea and cheese. We visited The Tea House where we bought four different types of tea (leaves rather than the dust we seem to get when we buy our tea in the supermarket). We then visited Neal's Yard Dairy were we bought Colston Bassett stilton, Montgomery's cheddar and Tunworth soft cheese (like a camenbert). We had gone prepared with a chilled plastic box and bag to pack it all in so that we didn't stink out the restaurant or theatre. Quite expensive, but all three cheeses were well worth the effort.
After the brief shopping trip, we went to the Fire and Stone pizza restaurant nearby where we had pizzas, garlic bread and salads. It was a good enough meal and the pizzas were quite different to those you get elsewhere.
Finally, we walked to the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, where we had tickets for the penultimate night of Becket's Waiting for Godot with Ian McKellen, Roger Rees, Matthew Kelly and Ronald Pickup. Ben and I enjoyed the play but as it lacked action and had a message that was fairly difficult to understand, Brian and Beccy found it boring and didn't enjoy it at all. I had bought gallery seats which were the most uncomfortable seats we have ever sat in at a theatre. Brian couldn't face the second act and decided to stand outside instead. Luckily, though, there were spare comfortable seats in the upper circle and we were allowed to move into them for the second act. Brian conceded to stay but, although he was now actually able to hear all the dialogue, he still didn't enjoy it and wanted to get home for the football!
April 4th - Dan and Helen came over for lunch and dinner. We spent the morning painting eggs for rolling. Alexander was more interested in painting on paper than on the egg but managed to get some green and orange paint on the egg.
Alexander got the hang of throwing the egg and watching it roll down the hill while he clapped. His egg broke first but managed to stay in one piece for quite a few rolls. Ben launched a number of eggs as far into the air as he could once we had rolled them so many times that it became clear that they weren't going to break. Afterwards, we went into the play area to put Alexander in the swings, on the slide and to bounce him on the trampoline before walking home again. Mum joined us for a roast beef dinner.
Kent Football
Beccy played half a match for Kent against Middlesex. She got into the game quite well and fed the ball in from the left wing. Kent scored two goals early in the match. She was substituted around 10 minutes before the first half and went back on around 15 minutes before the end of the match. By the time she went back on Kent were losing 4-2 and they conceded another goal towards the end. On Monday, she played a similar amount of time, and in a similar way in a game at home (Gravesend) against Surrey. This game had a better result, a 4-4 draw.
Babysitting
I looked after Alexander while Dan and Helen went out for a meal. He was really good and we had a great time. We shared the spoon while he ate his dinner. I would put food on it and give it to him, he would eat the food from the spoon and then give it back. He also ate his tuna bake with his fingers. For dessert, Helen had made some biscuits and Alexander had his without cream in the middle. He ate all but a small piece of biscuit then started poking the biscuit to make it into crumbs. When I realised what he was doing I said his name in a gently reprimanding way, to which his reaction was to raise his eyes and say 'o-oh'. I couldn't help laughing and he started laughing too! Grandma is not going to be very good at discipline! After dinner we played and read a story (The Enormous Crocodile by Roald Dahl). He loves being read to. I got him ready for bed and we laid down and read the whole story. He listened attentively all the way through and only turned pages when I stopped reading. Dan use to listen attentively to stories from an early age and Alexander is just the same. I had a wonderful time looking after him, he is developing his personality and is great fun to be with.
Travelling
The day I looked after Alexander was the same day that I walked Cosby at 6.30am and took Beccy to Greenford. It took 2 hours to reach Greenford and, as I tried to avoid the M25 on the way back and took the south circular instead, it took 2.5 hours to get home. I had an hour at home before I set out for Dan and Helen's. I left at 5.20pm so that I would arrive over an hour before they went out and could feed Alexander and look after him while they got ready. Unfortunately, careless drivers put paid to that plan. I sat in almost stationary traffic on the M25 from just after the Dartford Tunnel until just before the M11 exit and then, due to another accident on the M11, I sat in a 3 mile tailback trying to get to the Stansted turn off. The journey took 2.5 hours and I arrived just as Dan and Helen needed to leave to get to the restaurant (their table was booked at 8pm). With the one hour drive home, ending at 12.30am, I had an incredibly long day and 8 hours driving!
Monday 12th also involved a lot of travelling. I took Beccy to Gravesend for her Kent game and then, on arriving home, I had to take Ben to Orpington to play in the Knoll Easter Tennis Tournament. He played a really good second set to bring the score to one set all and then, unfortunately, lost in the Championship tie-break 10-7. He played well as his opponent was a higher rating meaning that he had much more match practice, so I think Ben can be pleased with how he played. His friends Ben and Chloe came along to support him.
Ash Cloud
All flights in and out of the UK were cancelled making travel plans difficult for many people. This didn't affect us as we weren't travelling at the time but it meant that Brian's sister Alison couldn't get back to Hong Kong. We arranged to got out for a meal with her and Brian's parents as the children and I hadn't seen her during her two week visit (we aren't on her list of people to see and don't always see here when she comes home).
We saw a few lovely sunset pictures, made more striking by the presence of the ash cloud. On the 10th we decided to go for a walk in Nashenden Valley to watch the sunset in the hope that it would be a spectacular one. It wasn't but it was a nice walk anyway. Ben's friends, Chloe and Ben, came along and then came back to the house for something to eat.
Back to school
Beccy got her GCSE chemistry paper results, a B and a D (I don't think she can concentrate long enough to perform well in the second paper, she managed an A and a D in physics). We need to work on helping her to concentrate for much longer. Her teachers gave very positive reports at her parents' evening. Having been the only child in the family not to go to grammar school, she has every chance of getting the highest GCSE grades if she achieves her potential!
25th April
We went to Brian's parents' for a barbecue on Sunday. The weather had been lovely all week and was especially bright and sunny on Saturday. We did quite a bit of work in the garden, tidying it up and planting vegetables (carrots, shallots, courgettes, squash, peppers and pumpkin). Brian made some progress on fixing the shed and we both had turns at painting shed and playhouse. The garden is looking reasonable at the moment.
On Sunday, unfortunately, the weather wasn't particularly good. We did, however, manage to sit outside and were warm in the intervals when the sun came out from behind the clouds. Dan and Alexander came with us. The barbecue was a farewell do for Alison, Brian's sister, who was returning to Hong Kong over a week late due to the volcanic ash cloud that grounded all flights for over a week. She was one of the few who were quite fortunate to get more time at home rather than stuck away from it. There were stories of people getting taxis across Europe and spending a fortune to get home. Others just extended their holiday, although I'm not sure how good that would have been if it wasn't planned and they didn't know how long they were extending it for.
On that morning, Ben filled in for another coach at the David Lloyd Tennis Centre in Dartford. He was quite pleased with the way it went and thinks there might be some work for him in the summer. He is starting to make enquiries about running some of his own coaching sessions. I hope that he can. He is very keen and committed and should do it well. He also went out for his first go in a rowing four at the rowing club in Rochester. He is working towards the coaching qualification for this at school.
29th April - Ben did his performance and coaching assessment at school in front of the moderator and, with his coursework so far has been awarded 97% for AS level PE. A great result so far.
30th April - a last minute decision to visit the Rochester Sweeps Festival meant that I bought tickets to see local bands playing in a marquee in Rochester Castle Gardens. We arrived too late to see the first act but saw two bands, The Flowing and The Lovedays. Both were really good but The Lovedays especially so. Brian and I really enjoyed it and have decided to try to see them again (one of the reasons for going to the local bands evening, the other reason being that the headliners, Bellowhead, had sold out). The setting was brilliant, standing at the foot of the castle as you queued for the loo and having a sneaky look at the stalls set up for daytime. As soon as we got into the castle grounds I could smell fish (Brian couldn't, he lost his sense of smell years ago). We spied a smoking cabinet, lit and full of herring. Needless to say we had kippers for next day's lunch! The bar was serving Adnams and we were enjoying our third pint when we were asked to leave (at 10pm) so that they could pack up. We found a small beer festival at the Gordon Hotel, where there was a band playing to a small audience. This was, unfortunately, where we made the one mistake of the evening. I chose an ale I hadn't tried before, didn't like it and had to leave most of it in the glass. Brian chose a cloudy cider which, although he enjoyed it, gave him a nasty headache the next morning, presumably because he mixed drinking cider and beer in the same evening. We managed to miss the last bus home (I was at the bus stop when it came but, unfortunately, Brian was still in the kebab shop) and so we had to walk, only a 25 minute journey, which gave us time to talk, which we don't often do. This was one of the best evenings we have had for a while, we both thoroughly enjoyed it.
