Goodbye Diamond

Diamond the dog went home on Friday after her one week stay at our house. I think she was pleased to go as she spent all day Thursday whining and being rather unsettled. I had to take this photo of her and the kids sitting on our front lawn waiting for her owners. They sat like that for 15 minutes, looking so adorable, until the owners car drove into the cul-de-sac, and Diamond ran to greet them. Jude was ever so upset about her leaving and spent an hour in her room sobbing her little heart out.

We had some home educating friends around on Friday afternoon. It was a beautiful sunny day so me and Deb sat in the garden while the kids played in various locations. We had some good chats and I was able to show off my new found gardening skills by providing Deb with a salad sandwich picked fresh from the garden. I sat chatting in the garden with a bottle of sun tan lotion in my hands, threatening to plaster Luke in it every time he emerged from the house. Later that night I realised I was burnt to a crisp myself! I'm so silly.

Yesterday was possibly the hottest day of the year so far? It certainly felt like a scorcher to me. Steve had the day off (very unusual for a Saturday) and Sam's saturday stage school has finished for the summer, so we had a normal family type Saturday to ourselves. We promised ourselves we would relax and spend some quality time together. I think it was 3pm by the time we started to relax! I thought it would be a good idea to put Hannah's tent up in the garden for the kids. But it didn't come with any instructions, so it took quite a while to do. Once Steve realised that I knew what I was doing and just did as he was told the job was done a lot quicker! (he he). So the tent is up and Sam and Jude actually slept out in it last night. They were pretty scared until about 11.30pm when they just conked out and fell asleep. Steve slept downstairs with a window open so that he could listen out for them.

I spent my relaxing afternoon in the garden writing a letter to my pen pal. On Friday I received a lovely letter from him. It was just one A4 side but it was possibly the nicest letter I'd ever received from anyone and it had me close to tears. He felt compelled to write and tell me how much our correspondence means to him. He told me to think of the happiest day of my life, multiply that feeling by a hundred and then its close to how he feels when he see's that he has a letter from me. That's paraphrasing slightly, but you get the jist of it. Jude took a photo of me writing his letter and then we printed it and posted it with the letter.

Mum and Hannah came round for a barbecue yesterday evening. They are just back from their trip to Tunisia and were full of exciting stories about paragliding and sleazy Tunisian men! They both looked very sunned and radiant. I definitely need to take a trip to Tunisia after hearing all about it. Mum brought me back some saffron, which apparently, weight for weight, is worth more than gold! Wow. Imagine that. Mum and me had a good chat in the kitchen while Steve did the manly thing and cooked the meat. Then we all sat in the garden for our dinner. Hannah spent quite a bit of time chatting with Sam and Jude, which made their day. There is nothing kids like more than some quality adult attention. We all sat in the living room talking until 2.30am this morning! There was lots to talk about with everything that's happening in the family circle lately. Steve and Mum could have talked all night but me and Hannah were getting to the stage where words wouldn't come any more without that slurring slightly drunk tinge to our speech (we weren't drunk - its the tiredness).

Today we are off to Dublin for a fellowship meeting. Luke is hoping that his little girl friend Mishka will be there. He's really looking forward to seeing her so I hope she it there or the poor lad will be crushed.