A Pox On Our House And Some Holidays To Look Forward To

It's been a long time since the last blog but that's hardly surprising in view of how busy things have been. Last Thursday our daughter Sarah travelled all the way from St Andrews by train with four-year-old Rose and two-year-old Melody to spend a long weekend with us here in Framlingham and get to see our Rochester family and meet our grandson Teddy for the first time. All went well on Thursday as we met the family at King's Cross and spent an hour playing with them in the nearby Coram's Fields.

On Friday evening we left the kids with their Mum and went to the opening of the Art For Cure exhibition at Glemham Hall. This is a huge art sale held in support of Breast Cancer research and it has grown massively since we visited a couple of years ago and bought our super seagull sculpture. It was a very pleasant evening - despite the chill, the sun shone and there was some fabulous art on view. We didn't buy anything this year (apart from raffle tickets) but we enjoyed the viewing and the plentiful supply of canapés and fizz.

Rose and Melody enjoyed Saturday here in Framlingham and had ice cream at Simpsons and Scotch pancakes at Over The Moon at the market and were excitedly looking forward to meeting cousins Catherine and Teddy on Sunday when the pox of today's headline appeared (and, okay Shakespeare purists, I know it's "A plague on all our houses" but that wouldn't work). Melody came out with chickenpox and our trip to Kent was abandoned. 

So Teddy will have to remain an unknown quantity to our Scottish family (this is the second thwarted visit - last time a bereavement ended in cancellation). Let's hope it's a case of third time lucky (they're trying again in October) or our daughter Sarah will never see her nephew as a baby.

So instead of Rochester Sweeps Festival , Sunday saw us at Framlingham castle where they were holding one of their regular re-enactments. It's quite amazing how violent thirty little kids armed with foam batons can be.

They put the medieval knights to the sword. It was a sunny day and, although they didn't join in, Rose and Melody found the proceedings quite hilarious.

We took them to have a look around Sutton Hoo on Monday and on Tuesday it was time for them to travel back to Scotland.

They broke the journey in London again and this time went to the Diana Memorial Gardens in Kensington Gardens, It's a fantastic playground and we were lucky enough to visit at a relatively quiet time. After seeing them off we spent a few days at home catching up with housework before enjoying the spring weather that has finally arrived here in Suffolk.

It was glorious with a very cosmopolitan feel outside The Dancing Goat on Market Hill this morning.  

Our friend Jane was telling me off a few weeks ago for not sorting out a holiday for Marion for the last two years- holiday? When do we have time for a holiday? So I've taken her words on board and we've booked this little cottage on a tiny Caribbean Island called Bequia for two weeks in January. It should be two weeks of total relaxation.

And we've booked a place in The Lake District too to celebrate our Ruby Wedding anniversary with friends.

It promises to be an enjoyable break. Am I back in your good books now Jane?