Murder Mystery

Adrienne's long overdue birthday party is still in progress as I type, but I've finished slaving in the kitchen now and am typing this for a bit of light relief! Feeding eight sixteen year olds is bad enough, but trying to subtly guide them through a murder mystery night from a distance without looking like an overbearing mother is quite a task. Still, this is what she wanted to do. I think they did OK. They got a bit confused in the middle but then so did me and my friends when we did it last month (of course our confusion had more to do with alcohol than anything else, I'm sure!) Adrienne and her friends do not have that excuse. So, here they are, still trying to work out which one of them is a murderer. There are a few more photos but Adrienne has the camera with those on in the room with her and I dare not go back in! I'm sure they'll be all over facebook by lunchtime tomorrow though.

Noah

Yesterday we went down to Claire's for a party in honour of the arrival of Noah. He was two weeks old, but this photo was one that Carl took when he was only three days old. I took my camera to the party yesterday but was so busy talking and eating all the yummy food that I forgot to take any photos! How does Claire manage to run a house of six children (accepted the oldest two are not children any more) with a two week old baby and still find time to cook?!!!

Ah, but isn't he cute??

Spain

Here are some of our photos of our holiday in Spain. It was great to get some sunshine. And it was very, very hot while we were there. We had to go without Carl because he couldn't get time off work, but they did let him come out for the last three days, so that was better than nothing.

This is Adrienne on her birthday. I wanted to go for a nice meal and we ended up in an Italian. She polished off the whole of that pizza!

She also spent most of the ten days under an umbrella with her jumper on!

Caitlin and Ellie liked it in the pool. Ellie in particular spent more time in the water than out of it.

They also liked body-boarding. although I suspect they will go off the idea after experiencing it in British waters.

We spent one day in Aqualandia, a water park in Benidorm, and one day at Rio Safari, Elche. There were lots of animals to feed. They liked the limas best, Ellie wasn't quite so sure about the goats.

We're back in rainy old England now and my tan is fading already! Not much chance of topping it up either - so much for a barbeque summer.

Pilton Green Man Festival

Ellie danced in the Green Man Day Pagent on Saturday 18th. There are two performances, 12.00 and 3.00. This is the only photograph Carl managed to get of her! Straight after the second performance we all piled in the car and headed off for Newquay airport. It was a busy day.

Race For Life

Yesterday me, Adrienne and Caitlin did Race For Life. This must be the fifth year we've done it. I'm not bothering next year, it costs way too much to enter, and by now everyone is fed up of sponsoring us. Adrienne went off with her friend and did it in 37 mins. Caitlin met a friend and her mum when we got there and we all started together. We managed to get ourselves in the Runners lane by mistake, but that turned out to be a good thing because we got to start early and everyone walks the first bit anyway cos it's such a crush. Then when there was room I managed to get conned into jogging for a bit. Well I didn't keep that up and let them go at 1km. Caitlin finished in 38mins. I did it in 43 mins, which is a record for me! Today my legs are killing me - I knew jogging was bad for your health.

Ashes Day 4 - Cardiff

I've spent the whole week watching the weather forecast convinced that all we were going to see today was an empty field and lots of rain, but luck was on our side - for a small time at least. We whizzed up to Cardiff first thing this morning and the worst traffic we faced was on the link road, the sailed into the IKEA car park and there were loads of spaces! That almost never happens when you actually want to go shopping there. We travelled to the grounds on the bus, found out tickets easily, and headed for the gates, and security. The b******ds confiscated my beer! They let you into Lords with beer; what's wrong with the Welsh!? AND they took away my Dalek bottle opener. What did they think I was going to do with that? It only says 'Exterminate', it doesn't actually do it!

Anyway. We saw four hours of cricket before the rain set in. England bowlers did their best to get an Aussie wicket. It just wasn't enough. And why Ponting waited so long before declaring goodness only knows. Still, the trumpeter was good. Carl managed to be in the loo when the first England wicket went down, and on the stairs up to our place in the Gods as the second one went. We hung about in the rain for an hour looking at the scene below before giving up and going home. Our seats were a bit undercover so that was lucky. All in all, it was a good day out. And now I can finally say, after years of trying, I got to watch an Ashes game.

P.S. I got the Dalek back on the way out.

Ballet Open Week

This week is the last week of ballet before the Summer holidays (hooray!) so it's also been Open Week (boo!) - which mean's I've had to sit through several hours of lessons to watch how my children have been getting along. Well it wasn't that bad really. Most of their lessons are tomorrow and I won't be here (more of that in a later post), and one or two other lessons I managed to avoid. It will be of no surprise to any one, for example, that Adrienne told me not to come and see her. (I hope she wasn't expecting me to argue with her!)