I know I have said before that the time goes by so quickly here, well since the family arrived the days are positively whizzing by. I have eventually found a few minutes where I can catch up with our news.

Thursday 3 Aug
I was still in UK and as I had an eye check-up at the Ultralase Clinic in Tottenham Court Road, I spent the afternoon and evening up in London. I had lunch with two of my friends from the ABF, catching up on their news. Later in the afternoon I went across to Tottenham Court Road, took one look at Oxford Street and decided that wasn't for me, so I spent some time in the British Museum before going on to my appointment. All was well with my eyes, the optician was pleased with the healing process and I was soon on my way to Victoria to meet my friend HB from SSAFA Central Office. We decided to wander into St James's Park as it was such a lovely evening. We went into an open-air restaurant/bar in the park and spent a pleasant evening sinking a couple of bottles of Rose wine, watching the ducks on the lake and catching up with each other's news.

Friday, 4 August was a lovely day as Debi, Andrew and the boys all returned from their break at Centre Park. They were all pleased to see me as I was to see them and they spent most of the afternoon telling me what they had done with their cousins. They had been swimming, bouncing, cycling and much more. They gave me a lovely gift of a wind chime made with a blue humming bird on the top. Come evening I met up with some of my girlfriends at The Ship and Traders; Roni Brill, Angie and Stella joined Debi and me (and Joe came too). It was good to see them all again and hear of Roni's family, Angie's potential house purchase and Stella's week with her family.

Saturday, 5 August I spent sending myself a parcel (wonder how long it will take to reach me?) and doing some last minute shopping and packing. Late afternoon I went to see Roni and Mike who had just returned from a holiday in Canada. They had spent 3 weeks there and had a wonderful time. Roni's brother and wife are staying at their house for a few weeks, and it was good to see them also.

On Sunday it was time to do some serious suitcase packing ready for our flight on Monday morning. I knew I would be over my baggage allowance but I hoped that with so many children travelling with me and their allowance being fairly generous, I would get away with it. I also spoke to Aunty Betty about her trip out to us in September. She was thrilled with all the arrangements. I also told her about this Blog in the hope that she might be able to see some of it, either at Kath's or Dereth's house. We all had a reasonably early night as we were to be up at 5.30am. We knew it was going to be a fairly stressful day but could not believe just how stressful it turned out to be.