Birthday Surprise !

It's been 10 days since I last wrote, what have I been up to ?
Getting older for one thing, I am now 38 - how depressing :-(

Spent the weekend before last doing house work with Carol,
ready for my Mum coming down on Monday the 11th Sept. She
couldn't make it on the following day, Tuesday 12th, my birthday
so she came a day early.

Had a lovely day with my Mum, she always enjoys spending time
with the boys and they love her just as much. Evening came and
Carol came home from work with three surprises.

1) She had secretly arranged for my Mum to come down and stay
for three days. Monday through to Wednesday.

2) Carol and booked Tuesday off from work to spend the day with
me on my birthday.

3) We were all going out to Exbury Gardens and meeting Carol's
Mum & Dad there for a family day out.

So, my Birthday came, I had some lovely presents, stuff for my
computer set up and some vouchers which I have put to very good
use.

After breakfast we all set off for our day out, we got to Exbury
got the pram out of the boot of my car only to find that it's tyre
was flat. Pumping it up only made it worse and it want totally flat.

So I left Carol and my Mum in the Exbury cafe having a cup of tea and
watching the boys, whilst I dashed off to the nearest town to get a local
bike shop to fit a new inner tube.

I was only gone about 45 minutes and by the time I got back Carol's Mum
and Dad had arrived. So we all set off for a walk around the gardens.

Here are some photos:



This pheasant turned up and strutted around us, about two feet away, the boys thought it was great, despite that fact that it was missing half it's tail and had definitely seen better days:



In the evening we all went back to our house and had a lovely meal and talked for ages. It was a great birthday and a lot better than last years !

On Saturday just gone, we attacked the rest of the house work and got ourselves ready for a visit from my cousin Stephen and his wife Alison, their two daughters Sophie and Emma and Alison's Mum.

They have just moved down here from Yorkshire and due to this distance I haven't seen much of them over the past decade or so ! In fact I saw them twice, which isn't enough as they are lovely people and good company.

So they all came to visit on Sunday and we had a really nice day with them. I meant to take a photo but I forgot !

So that was what I have been up to for the past 10 days. I put the boys to bed for their midday sleep 30 minutes ago, I can still hear Ben chatting to himself. He might not be tired, but I am. So I am going to stop writing now and go and have 40 winks myself, well if Ben keeps the noise down and we all get some peace and quiet :-)