July

On the first Saturday of the month, as it was very warm (we had a mini-heatwave with temperatures up to 30 or more degrees for around a fortnight), Brian, Beccy and I went for a walk at Cliffe Pools RSPB reserve.  I was surprised that Beccy wanted to come with us but she brought a football and practised some tricks as we walked.  She also managed to find plenty of places to do some free-running!  We managed to see a young kestrel still sporting its fluffy feathers, an adult (probably keeping an eye on us while her young was hopping along any available high perch alongside us), a flock of long-tailed tits, a great tit, little grebe and little egret.  Ben had decided that playing some football in the park with his friend, Ben, was more exciting.

Earlier in the day, Beccy had started her referee training.  I dropped her off in Faversham at 9.30 for the day and returned to watch Ben compete in the school sports day (javelin, 1500m and 4x400m relay).  It was really hot and he looked exhausted afterwards.  His friend Rob, on taking the baton from Ben after the first lap, sprinted amazingly fast for around 300m, then obviously hit a wall which meant that he couldn't quite make it to the line.  The next runner had to prize the baton from his hand as he lay on the floor.  Apparently he took quite a while to recover but it was a brave attempt to catch his team up.  They came fourth in the end and I'm sure Rob's run helped.  Prior to the sports day, Ben had been at Rochester Cathedral for the Founder's Day ceremony where he had to carry out prefect duties for the first and last time (he'll have left school by next year's ceremony).

On the 7th, Beccy helped out at the talent show at school.  She was a stagehand this time as the sound was covered by a returning sixth former.  She is obviously keen to be there but not in the limelight.  During the day, Ben had travelled to Portsmouth University to their Open Day.  He went by train and spent the entire day in the biology department and the marine institute which, unfortunately, left him no time to see the accommodation and campus facilities before the event closed.  It isn't his first choice but was good to visit just in case something jumped out at him that wasn't in the prospectus.

On the 9th, Dan rang at around 6pm to say that Helen had gone to help get things ready for her sister's wedding the next day in Tonbridge and the car had broken down. It was the gear linkage and couldn't be fixed straight away.  The trouble was that they were travelling to the wedding the next day and then going camping for a week from Monday, they needed a car.  I said that they could borrow mine (I can easily manage without it if necessary, but we are all generally too lazy to cope with necessary!).  Helen arranged to get the RAC to tow her to our house so that she could collect my car and go home.  Poor thing, the guy didn't turn up until gone 9pm and she arrived at ours at 10.15pm.  She finally got home at 11.45pm and had to drive back to Tonbridge the next day.  Just to add to their lucky weekend, they got caught in a horrendous traffic jam on the way to the wedding caused by the closure of the southbound Blackwall Tunnel.  The traffic was stacked all the way back nearly to the M11 junction and they were stuck for 2 and a half hours in temperatures of 34 degrees!  Poor Alexander was a bit de-hydrated.  They arrived at the wedding just after the vows!  Apparently they enjoyed the rest of the day and made it back home OK.  Let hope they don't have any more travel bad luck!

On the 10th, Ben went to Gilwell Park for the Gilwell 24 event where they stay up and do activities for 24 hours.  He said it was far too hot to want to queue for anything and they tried to stay in the shade as much as possible, making it more of a non-event.  When he returned home on the Sunday morning he was tired but determined not to sleep too much so that he could have an extended sleep overnight.  To stay awake he went out to play tennis and have a water fight with Jeni.

Also on the 10th, Beccy did the final part of her referee training and came home very keen to get started.  We ordered her kit straight away so that she could be eligible to run the line at a ladies match sometime soon.  While she was there I visited Sandwich and Eastry and went looking for information about ancestors who came from there.  I didn't find anything much but did get an idea about buying a flat in that area, especially near the waterfront, so that we can rent it short term, long term or holiday let or we could use it as a base if we rented our own house out.  It's close enough to use if we were to re-arrange our working to only work three days a week and then two days at home.  Otherwise the travelling would be at least an hour each way.  I came back with my head full of ideas about this but, unfortunately, there aren't any available flats in Sandwich.  Still, we can afford to wait.

14th July - this was a good day for both Ben and Beccy.  First Beccy had her school sports day.  She won the long jump with a jump of 4.36m, then she won the 800m, then her team won the 100m relay.  Her house won the overall competition so she was really pleased.  The house system has only recently been brought in at her school and it has been, as far as Beccy is concerned, a great success.  It really added to the atmosphere of the sports day that students were cheering for their house rather than for individuals.  Unfortunately, there is a good chance that she will be doing work experience on sports day next year and the year after that will be on study leave and so she may not experience this again.

Ben was presented with the Trustee Prize for Physical Education at his school prizegiving.  This recognises his achievements in PE at the school and he was pleased.  He had to choose a book that the school put an insert into and presented to him on the night.  The book was called 'Diving the World' about the best dive sites.   Maybe he will try one or two out, although he was disappointed that they were almost all in the southern hemisphere and therefore more difficult to reach.

Beccy sat her referee exam. She went a bit early to do some revision before the exam started and then she had to sit 9 papers (some very short and some involving video clips to make refereeing decisions about).  She passed!  Her kit arrived the same day and so when she got home she could dress in the kit and blow her whistle.  We took a photo of her giving Brian a red card but he deleted it! The whistle was so loud it deafened us - it probably won't sound quite so loud on the football pitch but should do the job it was meant for.

Dan and Helen's bad luck continued when, on their way home from Norfolk, my car broke down!  They got the recovery service to get them home and then we arranged for our recovery service to bring the car to a local garage.  The cam belt had gone and, as they had been accelerating at the time, it had ripped the engine to pieces.  Luckily, Brian had fixed their car and it was ready for them to pick up, so they came down on the train with the car seat and were able to drive it home after we had been out bowling and eating for Sarah's birthday celebration.

What to do?  We have managed for over three weeks now without a car and haven't missed it.  Although it generally gets driven once a day, this is because either Brian isn't home in the evening and his car is, therefore, not available or because we have a choice of cars and mine is the most economical.  Obviously if we had to lose one car it would have been better to lose Brian's but you can't choose these things. The cost of repairing my car will just about match what it is worth.  We could sell it for dismantling and cover all our costs.  Then we can cash in the insurance, transfer the breakdown cover to Brian's car and cash in the tax and we will be quite well up at the end of the day. Both children were very happy to encourage their father to come home more often so that we can share the car more easily and I'm all for this as well. Ben's solution to the problem was to suggest getting a scooter (he wants a Vespa) that we all share and that gets used by anyone who is going out on their own (including Brian going to work when he doesn't have any equipment to move about). So we have started to look into this.

This week, Beccy visited Howletts Zoo (which she said was quite boring as they were marched around and she didn't get to see the creatures that interested her - like Ben, she likes the reptiles and sea creatures).  Ben visited the University of Greenwich and started the UCAS application process.  He also attended a talk on taking a gap year and decided that he wanted to take a gap '3 months' between leaving school and starting university - what a brilliant idea!  He needs to start looking into it now if that's what he wants to do.

Friday was my last day at work before the summer holiday.  We have been told that we are moving departments and staff rooms. This is no problem and should be a fairly painless move.  It is a bit worrying, however, that most of the implications of this in, especially in terms of resources, don't seem to have been considered.  It could be a disaster but we just need to work hard to make sure that this doesn't affect our students.  They were affected very badly last year due to staffing problems that I don't think anyone could have foreseen or done anything about but which, under our Head of Faculty at the time, were expertly handled so that the effect on the students was minimised.  Without this we may have lost many more students.  It should be an interesting year next year, especially in light of the many cuts that are likely to be put into place.

The weekend of the 24th/25th July was really quiet.  As the children have got older and have their own social lives, Brian and I have more and more time to ourselves.  I am in the process of learning how to fill that time but at the moment, I am often quite underemployed.  I have had the luxury of not having to depend on the TV for the last 30 years and now that I am sometimes at a loss for things to do there is, more often than not, nothing interesting on.  I keep the TV listings handy so that I can pinpoint things to watch or to find on replay and need to get a little better at this.  The big advantage of public transport is that it provide plenty of reading time, so I don't feel the need to do this at home.  In the next few years I won't have to be at home so much and can find entertainment in outside activities (I am really looking forward to doing some voluntary work as soon as possible).

Ben played at the Sundridge Park tennis tournament starting on Monday 26th.  He played in the under 18 and under 21 competitions.  He won his first match but lost his second in both competitions.  He went into the consolation draw for under 18s and won his next match.  This put him in the semi-final (small draw) with a very good chance as he had beaten his opponent before.  Unfortunately, winning this match would mean that he would need to get the train to Norfolk for Norjam and I don't think his heart was in it.  He lost the match.

On the 31st Ben travelled to Norjam with everyone else.  It was a good week for him, although he said he didn't get much sleep.  He had a good go at the trapeze and was apparently quite good at it.

June - the rest of it!

This month has gone by so quickly that this posting is being hurriedly made to ensure that there is a posting for the rest of June!

Having done that, I can now write the rest (at the start of July).  Having not had time all month to write anything I now find, looking back, that we didn't do very many things to write about.  The month was busy due to work.  Ben and Beccy both had exams.  Ben had his AS exams in biology, physics, PE and history.  Beccy had some GCSEs, English and biology, and some creative and media diploma coursework.  Brian is still trying to sort out cash flow problems.  He needs to get enough money coming in to create a surplus but it comes in too slowly and he is always too busy to look at how to improve things.  I had loads and loads of marking and have been working overtime.  Although it is nice to have the extra money, I am now not getting a day off and am often not home when the children come home from school.  Even though they are old enough to cope with this, I don't feel comfortable with it.  I will quite likely work five days again next year but will try to ensure that each day finishes early enough for me to beat them home from school.  At least then I will feel that I have an evening.

Beccy's main events this month were a dance presentation evening at school where she was in charge of the sound production and a win at another football tournament.  This is the second production that she has been involved in and it looks like it will become a regular thing.  She is really keen to be involved in all school productions but not in the limelight.  Aylesford Girls Under 15s won the Castle Colts tournament on the 5th June and she brought home yet another trophy.

Dan, Helen and Alexander came to visit on the 20th, Father's Day.  We had lunch, which I cooked on the griddle of my new(ish) cooker, then played in the garden for a while before going for a walk.  Alexander ran around in the garden having a whale of a time.  Dan would spin him round a couple of times and he would try to walk, staggering from side to side.  He made us all laugh.  Ben and Beccy played ball with him and Beccy fished a newt out of the pond for him to see (he wasn't impressed and didn't even try to touch it - he wanted to get back to running).  Dan had cooked Brian some delicious custard cream biscuits as a present, really tasty (obviously he wasn't allowed to keep them to himself).  After lunch we went for a short, local walk and found a thatched house in a residential street not far from home.  It was quite an unusual sight for us.  Dan and Helen have many thatched cottages in their area.   Many are very old.  This one was quite strange for three reasons: one, because there are very few, if any, thatched houses in this area; two, because the house was relatively new; and three, because most of the roof was obviously a replacement for a tiled roof (some was covering a new extension)!  The house was named 'The Thatched House', presumably it had been renamed.

On the 27th Dan, Helen and Ben ran the Stansted 10k.  It was incredibly hot, which made it really difficult to run, but Ben and Dan ran it not too much slower than other 10k races they have done and Helen managed an impressive hour and a quarter.  There were, apparently, a number of casualties from the heat.  A few days before this, Ben competed in the Kent Indoor Rowing Championships and came third in his race.

 

 

After the race, and lunch, we went for a short walk to the local park.  Alexander showed us how he can slide, ride the roundabout and swing (with a push, of course)!  Then he showed us his climbing skills, climbing the frame to the top with little difficulty and without using his knees.  Impressive stuff!

 

For Ben, I think the highlight of the month (or possibly the year) was a trip to Wimbledon with Jeni. They travelled there by train, leaving Chatham only after Jeni's final A level exam finished at 4pm. This meant that it was nearly 6pm by the time they got there. They bought evening admission tickets, which let you wander around the courts and, presumably, get a seat in the outside courts where there is one available. They were quite happy to do this but shortly after they got into the complex, an older couple came out of centre court and asked Ben and Jeni if they would like their seats as they had to go. Obviously they said 'yes, please' and they got their seats in time to see the final set of Andy Murray's quarter final match, which he won. They must have been so pleased with themselves. Ben rarely phones home when he is out but he phoned specifically to tell me where he was. That was how important is was! Many thanks to the couple who were kind enough to think about those who can't afford the extortionate cost of centre court seats.

 Indoor rowing championships.

We have had to pull out of the flat purchase, which I am really upset about.  There was outstanding work from the conversion (6 years ago) which means that there is no Building Regulations certificate and some of the mortgage was withheld until the work has been completed.  Unfortunately, to get the work completed it seemed that the property management company would be charging all the leaseholders, so it would be unsurprising if they said 'get lost we're not paying, charge the development company, whoever they are' and the work didn't get done, which could cause some problems for us, and them, when it comes to selling on.  As the mortgage offer will soon run out and we wouldn't then be able to apply for another mortgage until the work was done, we couldn't do anything but pull out.  I felt really sorry for the lady who was selling it, she had waited such a long time already while we got all the information and now she could have problems selling it at all.  From our point of view, we know at least one property management company to avoid in the future!

Glastonbudget and half term

We had bought tickets for Tonefest, a small music festival that we went to last year and enjoyed very much. Unfortunately, the festival had to be cancelled due to poor ticket sales.  As we had been looking forward to a festival on Bank Holiday weekend, we decided to find another festival on the same weekend.  We found Glastonbudget, held in Wymeswold in Leicestershire.  This was a festival of tribute bands with a just a few new bands in the line up.  In normal circumstances we wouldn't probably have considered going to a tribute band festival but it was great to find an alternative festival on the right weekend, which had tickets at a late stage.  As it turned out, it was a really good weekend.

On the day before we left for the festival, Chloe's dad, Steve, rang and offered to swap cars for the weekend.  He had a Multipla which seats 6 comfortably.  I wasn't sure at first as it was likely to use more fuel than my Clio, but the extra room was an attractive proposition so we agreed to swap.  Steve picked me up from work on Friday, when we were leaving and, having taken me home, he took my car and left me with his.  I drove it round to the local shop to get cat food and to make sure I was comfortable before taking any young people up north.

Brian had left with Ben and his friend Ben at lunchtime with the tent and all the other camping equipment.  I left with Beccy, her friend Shannon, and Ben's friends Chloe and Jeni at around 3.45pm.  Brian rang while we were on the way to say that they weren't letting gas bottles onto the campsite.  We decided that he should try to smuggle the gas bottle in, otherwise we wouldn't be able to cook or heat water for washing and washing up.  He managed it and we used it with no problem for the weekend.  The girls and I arrived at around 8.30pm.  We unloaded our stuff and went into the arena to watch 'Four Fighters' and for Brian and I to have a beer and relax.  At 9am I was at work in Gillingham having taken the bus to get there.  At 9pm we were in a field in Wymeswold, drinking beer and standing in front of the stage.

The night was cold but we all slept OK.  On Saturday morning we drove into Loughborough, drove into the university campus to have a quick look, then went into town to get something to eat.  Ben, Ben, Chloe and Jeni visited the Bath Store and picked up 36 rubber ducks, which they brought to them with the cafe.

We found a place to eat called 'The Cafe' next to the Rushes shopping centre.  As there were 8 of us and we couldn't all eat at the same table, we divided into 3 tables.  As the children were taking ages to make their minds up about what they wanted to eat, Brian and I ordered and paid for our food first, then ordered and paid for Beccy and Shannon, then Ben and his friends.  As we had ordered separately, this made it easier for the cafe to deal with it and the lady we assumed was the owner offered Brian and me a portion of cake each free to say thank you for spending so much and making the orders easier to deal with.  The food we had was good and the cake, although difficult to manage as we had eaten so much already.

We shopped for supplies in a supermarket, then returned to the festival site.  In the arena we watched The Splitters, a new band who were really entertaining.  They were very good to watch but were asked to cut their set short to make the stage available for the next act.  Shame, as we were enjoying watching them.  They were followed, after a long gap, by Mercury, a Queen tribute band.   They were very good and kept the audience singing and dancing.  They did a good rendition of 'Bohemian Rhapsody'.  I had forgotten about the head-banging bit in the middle and when it happened, Brian and I were knocked from side to side.  Just before this, Beccy and Shannon had been near the front of the crowd and we could only see them every now and then.  Afterwards they were not far in front of us.  I think they had been 'bounced' back by the crowd!

There were many people in fancy dress, we saw scooby-doo, a group dressed as a hot dog with ketchup and mustard, superman, batman, the Blues Brothers and many more.  We came across a group of adults and children dressed as Where's Wally.  We wondered if this was a strategy for making sure they didn't lose the children, they could spot them in the crowd as you find Wally.  However, every time we passed through the part of the arena where we had seen them, they were still there.  You don't have to find many of a group that never moves!

In the evening Brian and I watched Duran Tribute and then Money for Nothing.  Each was OK but neither was a tribute to any group we would have watched originally.  We had managed to cook a meal for all 8 of us and had left Ben and his friends to do the washing up.

When we arrived we were quite worried about the number of toilets available for use on the campsite.  There must have been more than 500 people on the family camping site and there were 8 toilets!  There were more toilets at the arena and it was only a 5 minute walk to get there (which avoided the queue).  We had visions of the toilets being disgusting after a short while.  However, the toilets were cleaned at least three times a day and, due to the open urinals provided for the men, they remained pretty clean throughout the weekend.

On Sunday morning, I walked to the arena toilets as the queue at the campsite was too long.  On the way back I saw two men trying to smuggle a gas cooker onto the campsite (we had already smuggled ours in simply by carrying it to the tent in a bag).  They had one man in the car park and one in the site and between them there were two fences each around six feet high and both about 10 feet apart.  The man in the car park threw the cooker over the fence.  Unfortunately, it didn't make it over the second fence and crashed to the ground, smashing into pieces.  At the same time, it attracted the attention of the security guards who gave them a good grilling but probably didn't take any action as the cooker was beyond repair anyway!

From lunchtime onwards we watched bands.   We watched Green Date then went back to the tent to have some very quick lunch before going back to the arena to see Cold Place, then Blings of Leon and One Step Behind.  After this band, they announced the winners of the fancy dress competition and we realised why so many people had been dressed up (we thought they were just doing it for fun - there were a large number of men dressed in women's clothes).  The competition was won by Jesus (who had a real crown of thorns worn all weekend) followed by the 118 team and the Rainbow Builders.  While we had been watching Cold Place, I had turned round to find Dangermouse standing behind me.

Later in the evening we watched the Stereotonics and ex-Simple Minds.  The first band were really good.  We didn't know any of the Simple Minds tracks but the crowd invented a dance involving clapping up and right, then left, then down left and right.  It started with a small group of people in the middle of the crowd, then it was picked up by the people behind them, then by the people to either side, until at least 70% of the crowd was doing this dance.  There had been a number of mass congas earlier in the day and many people who got their picture taken with dressed up people.  There was a real feeling of  camaraderie among the crowd, that I'm sure you get at many festivals.

On Monday, we drove home.  Brian took Ben and Jeni, along with much of the camping stuff, earlier in the morning as Ben had a tennis match and Jeni needed to get back for her sister's birthday.  The rest of us took the tent and travelled home later in the morning.  It was a really good weekend.  The children were able to fluctuate between arena and campsite as they wanted to and Brian and I could do the same. We spent a lot of time just the two of us and even had a little time to ourselves in the tent!

Once we got home, we swapped the cars back and spent Tuesday recovering and washing.

On Wednesday, we took Alexander to Colchester Zoo.  We had a lovely day, the sun was shining, Alexander wanted to walk everywhere and we covered the whole zoo.  He is not old enough to be able to recognise or get excited by animals for the sake of it, but he managed to find things to move around and to shout at.  We took him to the play area and he played in the ball pit and with the soft equipment.

May - half way through

It's been a busy week.  On Monday Beccy and I attended the Creative Writing Awards evening at the University of Kent.  Beccy had sent in a poem which was being judged against poems written by adults.  Entries had to be about childhood and Beccy wrote a poem about her relationship with football and how she sees it as part of her childhood, not envisaging it to be part of her adulthood.  It's difficult to imagine Beccy without football but it might happen.  Her poem wasn't shortlisted (she didn't expect it to be) and the standard of what was read out from the winning entries was very high.  I think it was a good experience for her, even though she also doesn't see writing as part of her adulthood.  I thought her poem was well written and written from the heart, I hope she writes some more.

I have started working almost full-time for the next 6 weeks at least.  Ben prepared by buying in stuff for the freezer that he can cook if he has to wait too long for his dinner or if he needs to eat early because he is going out.

I decided to start rowing again and arranged to meet Josie at the rowing club.  I had planned to start with a leisurely row in a double but there was a scratch race in the run up to the universities boat race and I put my name in the pot.  My scratch crew lost the first heat (I caught a few crabs, probably helping us to lose the race) and then in the second race (for third and fourth place) the bow rower lost his oar down the side of the boat and, as we were travelling too fast, he couldn't free it, we had to stop rowing to allow him to sort it out and we lost our lead.  I had caught a couple of crabs as well in that race but was quite pleased that mine wasn't the worst!  This was my first row for over nine months and I was very out of practice.  I stayed around for a while to help out at the boat race.  One thing that made the races really special was the seal who bobbed its head up out of the river and watched us turn the boats round ready for the start of the first race, then again watched us leave the boathouse to head for the start of the second race.

On Sunday 16th, Beccy and I ran the Race for Life, the tenth year running for me and the sixth year for her.  we ran with Helen, Mum, Natalie and Izzy.  Beccy ran it in 30 minutes and I ran it in 38 - not particularly good for me but I had thought that with a dodgy knee and two rowing races the day before it might have taken longer.

After the race we went to the Bull on Penenden Heath for lunch.  Alexander was obsessed by going up and down steps and I held his hand so that he could keep his balance.  He was trying to count with me when we were playing with his stacking cups.  It definitely sounded a bit like one-two-three!

Ben and Jenni came along to watch and, after they had eaten, went bag packing with the Explorers at Tesco to raise funds for their South Africa trip.

In the afternoon, we went to Cobdown Sports Ground to watch Beccy's football team collect the trophy for winning their league division and the trophy for the Fair Play award.

May - 2nd post

Ben and I visited Dan and Helen for lunch on Saturday 8th.  Lunch was to celebrate Helen' birthday the day before and we had home made courgette and cream cheese bread, homemade quiche and homemade birthday cake (made by Dan - Helen made the quiche).  All was delicious.  Mum and Sue went along as well but Brian needed to take Beccy and her friend Abby to a football match in Ramsgate.  As it was nearly the end of the season, Beccy didn't want to miss any matches.  They drew the match in Ramsgate and then won their match on Sunday which meant that they had won the league.  Parents and supporters were very pleased, more so than the girls, I think.

I sent a photo to the home exchange company we are registered with to give permission for journalists to contact us about exchanging for the Olympics.  We have tentatively agreed to an exchange (non-simultaneous) with two American couples.  The children and I have volunteered for the Olympics and so we will be staying around here for some of the time (possibly camping).  The exchange means that we can ski in the US, which Brian and Ben are very keen to do.  Let's hope it all goes ahead and that we are able to  go to the ski resort.

Our purchase of a flat for renting out is progressing amazingly slowly.  It seems to be incredibly difficult to get information from the property management company to whom we would need to pay our service charge and we can't go ahead without the information.  Hopefully it will be sorted soon.  We've probably missed the boat for renting it out to a teacher this term but might have some luck with other local large employers.  Otherwise, we might be able to rent it out for short lets during the holiday season (although that would then mean getting it furnished).  We will have to see.

May - first week

Sunday 2nd, after a visit to Sue's for Amelie's 2nd birthday, Brian, Ben and I went to Maidstone to see 'The Lovedays' again.  Ben's friend Jenni came with us and so did Claire and her new man, Lee.  When we arrived at the Babylon Live Lounge in Maidstone another band was preparing to go on stage. The published time for 'The Lovedays' was 8pm and so we asked if they were going on late, only to be told that they were on at 5pm due to a last minute programme change.

After one drink we headed back to Rochester and the Sweeps Festival where we ended up at the Gordon Hotel listening to a band with a similar style to 'The Pogues'.  We knew this time to try some different ales.  The band were worth listening to and we had a really good time.

Thursday 6th, Brian and I walked to the polling station to find a queue.  We only needed to queue for 10 minutes before we got in but it was encouraging to see that there enough people to form a queue, the turnout must have been reasonably good, we didn't remember queuing before.  We got some fish and chips on the way home and had them with a glass of beer for dinner.  Both children were out so we had a very quiet dinner.  Brian said his fish tasted bad and didn't eat it all.  Unfortunately, he chose to give what he didn't eat to the cats.  I fell asleep watching the first election results on the TV and he went up to bed.  At 2.15am I woke up to a really nasty smell.  I spent a little time looking around to see where it was coming from but didn't see anything immediately.  I put the cats out and then I found it, in the hall (the smell had been strongest in the lounge so I had been looking in the wrong place).  One of them had been sick on Beccy's shoes, had diarrhoea and had pee-ed on Beccy's bag (she needs to learn not to leave her things lying about).  By the time I had cleaned everything it was nearly 3am and I had to be up at 6.30am!  Needless to say I was tired the next day.  Brian also had a bad stomach.  Luckily my fish had been fine but I think I suffered enough of the effects.  We'll stick to our normal fish and chip shop in the future.

April

The first 18 days of April are holidays!

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.

We had a selection of our Neal's Yard cheeses for lunch and then walked to Jackson's Field to roll the eggs.






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.

April 5th - we went for a long walk with Claire, Nathan, Sue and Mum taking Cosby and Tilly with us. We walked around Jeskyns Country Park, a new park created on the outskirts of Gravesend, which has a number of wooden sculptures and a lot of new planting.  There is, however, a fair amount of established woodland to walk in.  We had a long walk and I think the dogs got enough exercise.  We volunteered to look after Cosby for Claire while she takes Nadia back to university in Bath.  This involved taking him for a long walk on Thursday to tire him out, then me sitting with him until midnight to make sure he had been out late enough not to need it during the night.  Around 11.30pm he obviously got an idea that Claire and the others weren't there and he planted himself in the garden and wouldn't come back in.  I had to drag him in!  I returned at 6.30am, took him for a long walk (which was beautiful in the early morning sun), fed him and Cola (the cat) and waited for him to go outside before I left him.  He did exactly the same as the night before - planted himself in the garden and refused to go back in.  I dragged him in again (I had to get back home in time to drive Beccy to Greenford, Middlesex for a Kent football match)

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.