February 2012

No lawn mowing today!

Tristan on his travels

Weather report, the month started mild and rapidly went to hell, in a hand basket. We have had some very cold weather recently, which started on Friday 3rd with a hard frost, it froze the pond filter and as a result nearly all the water was pumped out, I had the wonderful task of topping it up using a bucket, I had some help from Liz and we managed to put in about 400 litres of water to fill it to 2/3rds. The following weekend we had a tremendous air frost and loads of snow. The midday temperature was minus 8 Centigrade, and foggy as well. Louise chose this week to have her baby! Louise was told to report to the hospital in Peterborough on Monday night and would probably be induced ( or is it inducted?, ha ha) on Tuesday morning. Liz was having a textathon with her until at least ten pm. We got a call at 3:18 am Tuesday from Louise, she produced Tristan at 1:18 after less than two hours labour, unlike any of her mother's marathon efforts. Our neighbour was also woken up, and he is deaf, Liz was quite excited! We were able to visit Louise and Tristan at 4pm in the afternoon. The hospital is quite fancy, but Louise had to get permission to do anything to the baby, she couldn't even clean it's little eye without the sister being consulted. Matt was quite happy although he had been sent home at midnight and then immediately recalled. Louise was released from hospital at about six and at half seven I took Liz around to help Louise settle in with Tristan. I left her there until Saturday evening, I was in charge of the cats for a few days, peace and quiet. I returned Liz to Louise and Matt after church, on Sunday. We had a roast chicken lunch at Louise's house, prepared by Liz. Robyn and Catriona were around to play with the baby.

Robyn's graduation July 2011

We had a week off last week to attend Robyn's graduation, she has finaly made it out of full time education. We took a day trip to Ely and admired the cathedral, from the outside, and the captured Russian cannon from the Crimean war. We took a little wander down by the river Ouse and had a delightful light lunch at the Maltings on the riverside, along with all the other old folks, I think we were the youngest there! The river was idylic with the gaily painted narrow boats sailing up and down and moored alongside. Liz did admire one boat that she thought would be ideal as a river bus. We managed to find free parking near the cathedral, which was a bit of a bonus. The town was fairly busy, and it was such a lovely day. Liz was quite enamoured with the chimneys on the building on the high street alongside the cathedral. I am not puting one of those on the house, no matter how good it looks! There was one particularly pretty little house near the cathedral that realy looked a picture with all the flowers in the front garden. The area is supposed to be suffering a drought, but it certainly looks green, unlike an African drought.
We went to Wisbech (Wizbeech) the next day, but it rained, so it was not quite so pleasant, blooming drought! Thursday dawned quite brightly and at about noon we were off to Oxford with Robyn for the 'graduation'. I think no one was more amazed than Robyn when she was told she had a 2,1 pass. We went to a park and ride site and took the bus to Robyn's university. We arrived in plenty of time for her graduation, it was at 5pm. There was a lot of traipsing around to get her gown and the tickets etc for us to attend the ceremony. Robyn only spoke to a couple of the graduates there, although there was quite a greeting form one of the girls she had been there with ( she was from Mexico). There graduates were quite a cosmopolitan lot, they were from all over the world, Africa, Asia, America north and South and Europe. The only people who seemed to be missing were Eskimos and Australians, which I found quite surprising. There was one graduate dressed in full kimono and white socks with the wooden shoes, it was quite incredible, then there were other girls dressed in red skirts, there were all kinds. Robyn told us we had to sit in the front row, so we rushed in and got a seat right at the front, but it was to close to photograph her, still there was plenty of chance for that after the ceremony. The whole thing only took an hour, which was enough, as our hands were sore from continualy clapping for about thirty minutes.