It has been pretty much full on since we posted the last blog entry hence the delay in writing this one.

It all started with a trip to Bristol for our first grandson’s fourth birthday party which was great as we hadn’t seen him for a while.  Next was a Gala Film Night to see Top Gun Maverick.  We put on our posh outfits and were greeted with pre-film fizz and canapés.  It was an excellent night, lots of chat beforehand and a film that was a tad plotless but exciting nonetheless.  A week or so later it was time for Phantom of the Open.  This was a good old British comedy based on a true story of a shipyard worker from Barrow-in-Furness who, in 1976, blagged his way into the British Open Golf Championships despite never having previously played a round of golf.  Boy, did we laugh.

Then it was time for the Celebratory 40^th Anniversary Dinner at The Twinning.  It was a pretty low key event for everyone except us.  During the dinner our new grandson Luke was born in Canada.  Needless to say, Cheryl was extremely excited, with one eye on her phone for messages and couldn’t wait to tell people.  Neil is deputy Chair and had to say a few words to the gathering and started by explaining why Cheryl had been wiping the odd tear from her eyes – a round of applause followed!

Events were now coming on thick and fast with us volunteering at The Natural Seaton Event organised by The Tramway.  Cheryl, never missing an opportunity to ham things up, dressed as a pirate and wandered around the town with Eric to promote one of the events in The Gateway, a children’s performance called Shipwreck Sam. 

We could only help out at the event for the Saturday as the main event for the month was arriving on Sunday – the second annual visit of Barmouth South.  10 adults and 6 teenagers descended upon us for best part of a week for seaside stuff, good food and the odd drink. 

As several of them left towards the end of the week friends Chris and Viv arrived in readiness for the next event, an Abba Tribute Band.  This time we all dressed up to go and dance and sing to all our Abba favourites, wow what a night it was.

Chris and Viv stayed for 3 nights which included a tramway trip and a long walk to Branscombe. 

Almost immediately after they had left Alan and Heather arrived from Scotland.  Neil went to school with Alan, so has known him since he was 11, and was in the same Scout patrol, Panthers, with Alan as Patrol Leader and Neil as his second.  Sadly they could only stay 2 nights as they had a fully loaded trip planned but it was great to see them.  We must find time to get to Scotland!

Still on the go, Alan and Heather dropped us off at the station for us to travel to London to finally see baby Luke.  Alex & Freddy flew back from Canada a few days earlier as they had to organise a passport before he could travel. The surrogacy was amazing and we have so much love for Winter who carried Luke. Wow is he a cutie.  Hardly a peep from him when he’s sleeping, eating or being changed…..amazingly chilled little fella.  Well done boys for being such great Dads. Of course, Nana had great fun in feeding him and even Neil had a go! 

While we were in London we also attended an Indian Visa office to apply for Neil’s spouse OCI visa.  It all seemed to go well despite the inevitable wait time, they took his money, and now we await a video call just to make sure we are who we say we are.  We absolutely roasted on the train home as it was a heatwave and there was no air con.

Shortly after our return to Seaton it was Neil’s birthday.  We had planned a long walk with lunch out but the much needed rain finally arrived on the day.  We still managed lots of short walk in between showers between several of the town’s pubs.  Pub crawl over we headed to Monsoon for an Indian dinner. 

While we were there we had a message from Paul and Maureen to say they were away and that a parcel had been left on the doorstep – could we please take it around to the back of the house and put it in the shelter at the back?  We walked back to the house, well Neil staggered, and we settled into home.  At 5am the following morning Neil woke up, ‘Shit, the parcel’!  He rushed across the lane to rescue the parcel and make it safe.

Another guest arrived less than a week later.  A couchsurfer called Marie from Germany.  She had finished her studies and was spending 6 weeks exploring the UK.  We had put couchsurfing on hold because we had got so much going on but she only wanted 1 night and from her profile she did sound very interesting.  We were so glad we allowed he to stay – for a 20 year old she was very mature, spoke excellent English, she was enquiring and extremely funny.