Hangin' on

Still not the end of term, despite the heatwave! We filled up the paddling pool this morning. By 11 it was too hot to be outside any more. By the time I left nursery at 1.30 the children were stretched out in mats in an air conditioned room!

I rushed home on the bus, to unpack my delivery of cards and await my massage client. She did not turn up. I rang, and she said she thought her appointment was next week! As she had only rearranged yesterday, I wasn't over the moon, but carried on unpacking my cards until my cousin Fi and her daughter Zi arrived. We had some tea and in the garden, in the shade, then walked down the valley to the swing tree. This is Zi doing her damnedest. The swing rope is rather short at present, so it's no easy to sit on.

We waded upstream to the waterfall, then through the beech woods and down the lane to the main road. I wanted to take them to the canal redevelopments at Capel's Mill. We got there in the end, but Z was not happy with walking. Maybe we should not have chosen the hottest day of the year! It was different in the 1970s when we had to walk to school with rags on our feet, and lick the river dry in order to cross it....

Fi and I lived in the same place in Ireland as kids, then knocked around together as teenagers in the West Highlands and Camberley, Surrey, so we remember many adventures that took place long before the iPhone and iPad were invented, and a walk to the shops usually involved climbing out of the window, getting robbed at the fun fair, or cycling five miles with a tape recorder strapped to the handlebars. (Bat out of Hell, since you ask).

Steve picked us up from t'mill, and I have spent the rest of the evening sorting out my cards for the market on Saturday.

Nursery 'graduation' ceremony tomorrow. Four of my brave boys are leaving. I've been with three of them for two years, so I might shed a tear or two :(