Thomas and his coin collection

Despite not getting to sleep till after midnight, the boys were awake at 7.

After breakfast they continued to sort their new collection of foreign coins. I saw this tendency in Thomas when he was a toddler, sorting his cars and Lego into colours, sizes etc and it continues. His coins are sorted by country and worth. He’s very pedantic and can’t bear James’s indifference to his criteria. To Thomas it’s not logical - James picked coins that looked interesting to him for their pattern, and notes by the pictures, selecting Ghandi and Mandela because he knew about them.

I drove up to Ailie’s to get her expert opinion, as a textiles graduate, on whether or not to remove flounces from the sleeves of a dress. She agreed they should go. So she cut them off and when I got home I hemmed them. We had a coffee and planned our next big walk.

Meanwhile Mr C walked the boys to the bottle bank where they had a smashing time.

We drove them to Whitley Bay where their parents were about to pack their car for the ferry.

We went on to Morpeth as I had an optician appointment, my RVI hospital glaucoma check now being 6 months overdue. I was in there 1.5 hours and he is very happy that my peripheral vision seems better than last time, the cataract treatment continues to be successful, the X-rays show nothing untoward and the pressure is no worse. However he suggests I see him every 6 months just in case the hospital doesn’t get to me. All good news.

No good news from BBC though. Strictly professional dancers abusing their partners, a horse prancing Olympic medalist abusing a horse and the right wing Reform MPs abusing the Manchester Mayor and saying it’s ok for armed police to kick people in the head.

#2 daughter and family are on the ferry and #3 and co on the plane from Luton to Jersey.