Boys weekend...

George and I went to Gloucester last weekend, leaving Sharon time to do lots of things back hom and also spend some time relaxing. We had a great time... We met up with Steve and Jane in Cheltenham on the Saturday (Steve took the photo) and went to see my brother and his family on Sunday. George's first birthday is approaching fast. Sharon's sister arrives today and on Saturday we are going to the unveiling of the Breakthrough Challenge wall. This is where you can put name if you raise over £1,000 for Breakthrough. We raised over £6,000 when I did the marathon in 2003 (takes time to get enough named for the wall!), but we just nominated one name, which was Sharon's mother Jennifer who died from breast cancer when Sharon was 8. Sunday we are planning a small barbecue/party for George's birthday, although the weather is looking a little dodgy at present. This confirms my rule that planning a barbecue is always asking for trouble.

Never work with children or animals

Nearly a month since the last update; shameful. Last weekend was spent sorting out our rather large pond (with the invaluable help of Sharon's father), a job that has not been done since we moved in. It took all of Saturday, draining the pond, getting out the fish and then the mounds and mounds of sludge. What fun that was. Still, the pond looks so much better now and if I could ask the fish, I am sure they would say they are a lot happier. We counted 80 of them, which was something of a surprise (quite a few tiddly ones). Furthermore, there were 5 frogs and about 8 newts. The weekened before, Frank, Ann and Pieter-Jan were over (see pic), P-J being born just six says after George. We had a barbeque and a relaxing afternoon in the garden. As for this weekend, amoung other things we went to Barnes to see Paul (George's godfather), who cooked us a lovely roast. We then went for a walk round Barnes, with the village green full of people sunbathing in the baking weather. George and Gertie (Paul's dog) met for the first time. Gertie was very unsure what to make of George and barked a lot from a distance, whilst George was quite happy to chase her round the house and pull her fur if he got the chance. Finally, our planning application for our upstairs extension went in earlier in the month. I only saw yesterday that it was stuck to the lamp-post next to the house, covered by the branch of a tree! Found it online though, so hopefully if there are not major objections, we can get on with the next stage of the process August/September.