All together

Met early arrival of Ryanair's Stanstead flight. Charlotte came with me and I perched her on a high chair at the counter directly where passengers come through customs. Yesterday, Kate and family had taken ages to get through, some trouble with Russian, Ukranian, Algerian flights all landing at the same time. SO having seen the Ryanair plane land as we drove up to the airport and again with more than one plane on the tarmac, we were prepared to wait.

And wait we did, hardly any movement at all. Very strange. Kept sending off WhatsApp messages, no reply. Strange. However when the three police & customs officers then walked through and smiled at us, I knew something was wrong. Turned towards the exit and then saw them leaning on  a pillar concentrating on their coffee to go mugs!

J has a habit of doing this and one of the reasons he likes doing the 2am drive all the way around London to get to Stanstead instead of the easier Gatwick flight to Munich.

So now J and partner Laura have completed the family. Back home to join the others for breakfast. Afterwards a walk in the forest with the dogs for the most of us, J and Barry tuning up the two push bikes and heading off for a "Tour de Attahausa" and occasionally meeting up with us on a forest or field track. Barry earnt the grease monkey shirt for fixing a year old major problem with Angie's bike and the Iron Man award for managing to keep up with J despite the horribly heavy bike and dreadful sitting position and the Brave Man award for cycling in the company of a colonial Brit with Pith helmet and trousers tucked in his socks.

J is actually in a group of MTB riders who are out and about on the Sussex Downs at least twice a week and 52 weeks a year.Their efforts, times and the odd photo are kept on one of the online mobile phone apps for all to see. I think he dressed up like this to show his mates under what difficult circumstances he was out riding and thus explain away his awful times/speeds etc.

Spot of lunch and then Ottobeuren for the traditional ice cream at Pepe's Organic Ice Cream shop on the marketplace.

Same photo as yesterday because someone offered to take a photo of us all. Very kind but he chopped off the top of the Easter fountain decorations, so I cropped it even more to get a close up.

On the way home stopped off at the supermarket to load up with food, Firstly we were going to do a meal together, including the just available new season white asparagus. Angie was again out for the evening doing her sports.Secondly, shops closed tomorrow and we need a bit to feed 8.

Evening then everyone given a job. While Laura, Kate & I slaved over the stove, the boys did their best not to get the BBQ lit. They claimed the charcoal was damp, we knew their blowing at the coals was destined to failure - the moisture content of their breath after several bottles of beer was above any measuring device's capability.

Good "wet"evening and some slept ver well.

I had forgotten to write yesterday that Flash seemingly had another stroke and though not as bad as the total inability to move of the first one, he now has a slight bend in his neck. However he was delighted to see everyone and the tail wagged incessantly. To be truthful, if we had been alone with him, we may well have taken "THE" decision today.

Oh and just to get us in the mood today. The electrician arrived at 8am this morning to start drilling holes and making loads of work for poor Angie who was busy all day with dustpan, brush, vacuum cleaner and buckets of masonry and stripped off wire. We are seemingly getting the ability to run a nuclear power plant - given Germany is decommissioning theirs, no doubt there will be some good deals on ebay in the near future. Photos of the old fuse box before the drill had really got to work and the electricity company also turned up unannounced today to put sheaths on the overhead lines. Next week we start work on a new roof!