The past week

Well, here we are … at the beginning of October. September whizzed by for me
in a flash. I find it strange that the busier I am, the faster time whizzes
by.

One of my daughters moved house with her family 2-3 weeks ago, and owing to
her difficulty getting proper child-minding arrangements, we are helping out a
bit more … on Wednesdays, the occasional Thursday and Fridays as well. I’m now
going round to their house in West Bridgford every Wednesday, and will do so
until Xmas. So this last Wednesday for example, I arrived at their house at
7am and left after 6pm. (I spent the day looking after my grandson, Little J.)

Today Mrs C and I had both J and his older sister all day with us.
Unfortunately we had heavy rain on both days, which deterred us from going out
with the children. Mrs C has slept for half an hour this evening in front of
the TV (well I have to admit that had a little snooze also), and then she went
to bed early at 9.20pm, feeling shattered. I’ve perked up a bit, and am now
typing this post to you all.

Tomorrow we’re round at their house again, for some more fun, as it’s a joint birthday party for the two children, now aged 2 and 4.

Mrs C has often wondered how she managed to raise 4 daughters (and look after
2 nieces as well for some of those years) … but then she says she was a lot
younger.

We spent last Saturday, Sunday and all day Monday in London, with another
daughter and her family, as you’ll see on my Flickr site. We had a fairly
relaxing time there, putting up a climbing frame and slide (which we brought
down in our car for them on the Saturday), doing a little shopping in
Wimbledon (& having a coffee at Costa’s) plus a short walk on Wimbledon
Common (which I thought looked drab), playing with the girls at a children’s playground not far from the Lawn Tennis Courts, and pottering around their
house and garden.

I spent a good part of Tuesday with a couple of mates, playing electric guitar and singing a lot of the golden oldies (mainly Electric Blues) … so a bit of me-time there. We went for lunch as usual, at a pub nearby (I had a bread roll and a small pot of tea … I’m almost tee-total at present). I spent the afternoon looking online at Ryanair flights to Tenerife for 6 months ahead, and looking through my latest photos from our weekend in London.

Yesterday morning, Mrs C and I walked into town and back, for a bit of light shopping, and for complimentary coffee and pastries at John Lewis (a lovely
treat, I thought). I spent the afternoon doing some simple admin on the
computer, including a bit more on sorting out my late mother’s estate. She
died back in 2003, and it’s going to take me a few more months to complete the
work … it’s a long story as why it’s taken this long, but basically I’ve been
messed about by other relatives. I’ll be very pleased when it’s all finished,
as I’m feeling sick and tired of it all.