It's been almost a month since I wrote about our trip to London to march against Donald Trump and we've had another packed schedule with little time to draw breath.
We drove up to Southport to collect my mum and bring her back to Suffolk for a few days break. It's a long return journey for one day but we got up very early on a Sunday morning and hit the road before the traffic was too heavy. It was the day of the world cup final so we were lucky and had few delays thank goodness as we didn't want Mum, at 92, to spend too long in the car.
She coped well with the drive despite the temperature being in the 30s and we had a very enjoyable ten days and hope that she did too. We'd planned all sort of outings but the heatwave put paid to that and we simply stayed around Framlingham.
Mum enjoyed joining us for our regular coffees at The Dancing Goat.
A few days after taking Mum back (fortunately another day of reasonable traffic on the notorious M6), it was time to head to Rochester to collect our grandchildren Catherine and Teddy for a three night break.
We converted the downstairs to a big play area and the kids had a great time.
Despite the continuing heatwave we thought that the kids would cope with short drives and we had a great day out in Felixstowe where we enjoyed a typical seaside time of paddling, playing with sand, eating fish and chips and visiting the excellent amusement arcade on the pier.
We staggered the drive home to Rochester for them and spent a few hours in Christchurch Park in Ipswich. We've not been before but will certainly go back. It's a real oasis in the middle of a busy town.
Catherine took her books with her everywhere. Secret Seven books are as popular with her as they were with us when we were kids.
Catherine insisted on making a card for her mum and dad before she went home.
The combine harvester made its annual visit to the field behind the house.
And then the weather finally broke and we had our first rainfall in almost two months. Once the field was stubble we enjoyed watching the hares running around in it.
Until this irresponsible dog owner decided that her dog didn't need a lead. We were very saddened to see this needless waste of life.
On Sunday we had a very short sleep and got up at three in the morning to drive to Southend airport to catch a flight to Vienna.
And a few hours later we were enjoying a lunch of Wiener Schnitzel (what else?). We were in Vienna to see Ed Sheeran. We decided that we ought to see our local celebrity perform and didn't fancy a British venue. Having never been to Vienna it was an easy choice to select from his extensive European tour.
It's a city packed with incredible architecture and there are statues everywhere.
We stayed in an Airbnb slightly off the beaten track and made this bar, which sells the local fizz for three euros a glass, our local.
We visited plenty of the tourist sites such as the butterfly house.
I was amazed by the number of huge sculptures there are in the city.
We had great seats for the concert.
The crowd was enormous and Ed performed for almost two hours in oppressive heat. We were really impressed by his incredible performance and also enjoyed his support acts which included the excellent Anne Marie.
In our day it was "wave your lighters in the air" now it's "mobiles".
This, at 9pm, was as cool as it got during our four days in the city.
Here are a few more city scenes
The Kiss
Belvedere Gardens
Klimt fresco in the wonderful National Museum
The biggest collection of Breugel paintings in the world - amazing.
Volksgarten
The famous Cafe Landtmann
Where we enjoyed the most fabulous Apple Streudel
A wonderful city and a fabulous four day break.
There are more busy times ahead with a visit to The National Theatre on Thursday and then we're off to Yorkshire to see UB40 perform at Castle Howard before driving up to Scotland for a week in the caravan and, hopefully, a visit to the Edinburgh Fringe.
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