Time Out

Desperately needed some time out from the constant hubbub in this household - totally aware I'll miss it when we're on our own in Portugal, but - after breakfast for seven, welcoming a friend of our son's, hanging out two loads of washing (and more to go from the Soul Survivors), and so on, and so on, can't tell you how blissful it was to sit, just the two of us, in the sunny garden of The Green Man, with a cappuccino, reading our Bibles in peace.

Then did another small section of the canal walk we're trying to complete from B'ham city centre to Hopwas. Ended up at Fazeley Junction, where the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal ends, under the Watling Street Bridge you see at the right of this photo, and the Coventry Canal meets up with it, running across the front of the photo.

The perfect finishing touch was a delicious homemade ice-cream from a canal boat we passed - it's what the couple on the bench are eating.