I was hoping to start this blog post by saying that we were about to be in France tomorrow…but things have changed a bit since I last wrote. We are of course still heading to France, but a bit later than originally planned. More about that later. This month has proved to be a bit up and down in many ways and we are feeling a bit tired and very ready for a break now. So, what exactly has been going on in our lives to have brought all this about…
A lot of the month has been about doing “normal” things…well as normal as things ever are here! We have been busy with church activities, as always, including a very hectic Mothers Day café church session, which went very well but was quite a marathon! We also had our Easter Fair last Saturday, where I “chickened” out of knitting little chicks this year to sell and instead bought some Easter bunny soft toys from the shop and paired them up with small chocolate eggs instead. They sold well, so I was pleased with that idea. I also helped the Guide troop who meet at our church, to make some really pretty floral arrangements for Mother’s day, one evening. That session went very well and the posies they made were really lovely.
Mother’s Day was a bit strange for me this year as I had no children with me on the day to help me celebrate it! I did get some really nice gifts though, including some flowers, a great pussycat mug and a book from Matthew for me to complete. The book will eventually tell the story of my life and will help my children and grandchildren to know more about my family in past times. It will contain all the sorts of details I wish my parents had written down before they died, which would have made my construction of our family tree much easier and would have allowed me to know more about my grandparents too. However, it will take me quite a while to fill it all in! I will take it with me to France so that I can make a good start on it. Hazel & Phil made up for their absence on the actual Mother’s day (they had to go to Somerset for a family funeral) by making lunch for me the following Sunday, which was lovely.
We have also continued with our childminding activities with me looking after the baby each Monday morning allowing Hazel to complete her course and Geoff taking L to the school Breakfast club each Friday…a firm favourite activity for them both now! I’m beginning to think that Geoff has started a new “networking club” of other dads and grandads. There is always lots of stories and contact details of others to tell me about, when he gets home each Friday!
I have managed a few swimming sessions too this month with my friend Linda which has been good for us both. It had become very complicated trying to fit these sessions into both of our schedules lately, so it was nice to be back in the pool again. And, of course, sharing a cake and coffee afterwards to catch up with all our news! I am still hoping we might get a bit of swimming done when we get to France… but suspect the sea might not be that warm so we will have to see! We did manage to meet Mike and Linda for lunch one day too during which they received the news of the birth of their ninth grandchild! All of those grandchildren has been one of the reasons Linda has been so busy of late!
One of other things we have done this month which we haven’t done for a while was to go to the cinema one afternoon. We rarely have the urge to go to the cinema, as a lot of the films these days are not really to our taste. However, our neighbour kindly gave us some tickets which he had won in a draw, so we went to watch Mothers Pride….and really enjoyed it. It was one of those lightweight amusing films like the Full Monty & we left the cinema with smiles on our faces. It was a nice way to pass a rainy, cold afternoon 
I did my talking Newspaper for the Visually Impaired session again this month. It will be the last one in our usual premises as that place is being sold. It will be difficult to have to move all the equipment to a new venue as there is a special little recording studio, expressly set up for this activity. Hopefully it will all go well and when I next go, they will have it all up and running smoothly.
I mentioned at the end of last month’s blog, that I was about to compete in the Carlisle Music and Drama Festival again. I had a bit of a panic the week before I was to do this, as I lost my voice but happily it was “alright on the night” as they say, and I won all the classes I had entered and came home with four trophies once again. I got invited to the Gala concert, which closes the Festival, on the Saturday night, where I read one of the poems again and was awarded another trophy for best performance in my category of classes. It was very flattering. Now though, I have the task of getting all these trophies engraved yet again. That gets expensive!!
The other big event of this month was the annual meet up with the Old Boys of Hutton Grammar School and Preston North End football fans in Preston. This year the organisation of this meet up has been a bit of a nightmare, as the football match they all go to after lunch on the Saturday, kept being moved to the Friday night and it was not possible for everyone to make that! Eventually, the “boys” agreed to meet up as usual on the Saturday, but not to go to the match. It is quite important to everyone that this gathering goes ahead each year, as one of the attendees is now 101 years old, she loves seeing us all and we all really want to see her! Geoff and I made a nice trip out of it, by going down to Garstang on the Friday night and driving through the Trough of Bowland to get there. Geoff’s parents loved that area and Geoff really enjoyed visiting a lot of the places he knew from family trips out. We drove down via a lot of very dodgy narrow lanes through some very pretty countryside and had a nice night in a hotel in Garstang. The next morning, we had breakfast at Barton Grange Garden centre…and spent a fortune as always on plants! I love that place! The lunch meet up was good, although several people were not there this year…I told you it had been a nightmare to arrange a date! Betty (the 101year old lady) was there however, and we all enjoyed all the chat over lunch in the sunshine. In the afternoon, Geoff and I headed off to Southport where I spent a great afternoon with my childhood pal, Jennifer and Geoff met up with a friend from Cambridge days. All in all, we had a really good couple of days
What was not so nice was the letter Geoff received a couple of days later informing him that he had committed a traffic offence whilst driving through Preston. We had taken a route through the city, which he has taken since he passed his driving test many moons ago, but it turns out it is now a “bus gate”. Apparently, there is a blue sign at the roadside which tells you that this street is now only for buses & cycles…something that we missed completely! We had wondered as we drove through it why there was absolutely no traffic…not a car, bus or cycle in sight! The camera evidence was clear, he had been a naughty boy and he had to cough up the fine. He also did some research and discovered that this road is a major money earner for the county netting a grand total of £1M+ per year. Needless to say, we will be finding another way through Preston when next we visit!
And now we come to why we have had to delay our departure to St Aygulf. As you know, if you are a regular reader of my blogs, our daughter-in-law is having treatment for cancer at the moment, and our son asked if we could take the grandchildren away for a few days over Easter, to give them all a bit of a break. So instead of spending Easter in the sunny climes of the South of France, we are off to sunny (??) Silloth instead, for the weekend in a caravan! I’m just hoping the weather picks up a bit as it has been awful this week. Someone told Geoff the other day that it was a “Spring of Deception” which sums it up beautifully! Hazel and Phil are coming to Silloth too, so there will be all four grandkids there! We managed to get our flight to Nice changed (at a cost!) and to change the hotel booking for a week later, so we will be off on the 8th April. It has made all our arrangements a bit complicated, but we are almost there now. It has given me a bit more time to rearrange hospital appointments, to get my hair cut, and I am getting my nails done this week so all has not been lost entirely.
And so, March is at an end. The clocks “sprang” forward on Saturday night which always upsets my body clock completely…and we will have another clock change next week too so I’ll be totally up the creek by the time we get to our flat in St Aygulf! However, I’m hoping April will be a month of sunshine and relaxation…we both really need both of those things now!
A bientot mes amis