Visits

 Ellie was awake soon after 6:30 but played quietly in her room until the Gorse Fox started moving about at 7:30. Very civilised. She had some breakfast and then, having dressed, insisted on playing school teachers. As a result, the Gorse Fox had to write out a page of "number sentences" for her to complete. the approves of games like this and is just waiting for her to ask about spreadsheets. Urban-Cub popped along to pick her up and we prepared for Betty and Barney Rubble to visit.

Before their visit, however, Cousteau-Cub and the Coventry Hobbit turned up. The primary purpose was to give the Silver Vixen her birthday presents but it was also a chance to see the Coventry Hobbit's new Mercedes. He gave us a demo of how the roof folded away into the boot. It was like watching origami, and was immensely clever. They didn't stay for long and planned to go on to se Urban-Cub.

No sooner had they left than Betty and Barney arrived. We settled down with some coffee and biscuits and started th catch-up on health and family news. The former subject seemed to dominate the whole day for both families. It is clear that we are far better served by our doctors' surgery down here than they are in Odiham. They pointed out that for a non-urgent appointment they had been offered a slot in 16 weeks. That is outrageous.

We drove into Bognor Regis for lunch at Mustard's. There were two large parties at other tables. Even though we were tucked away it was quite loud in there and made conversation challenging. It's a shame because the food was excellent.

The Gorse Fox started the crispy pork belly shown on the photo, whilst the Silver Vixen and Barney had Salmon Gravadlax, and Betty had a butternut soup.

For the main course the Gorse Fox and Barney had fish and chips, the Silver Vixen had sea bream, and Betty had supreme of chicken.

We didn't bother with a sweet course as we had some blackberry and apple pie waiting in fridge at home. We had a quiet afternoon chatting over cups of tea and bowls for blackberry & apple with custard and cream.

Better and Barney left around 17:30 and the Silver Vixen and tidied away and settled down for the evening.