Just Visiting

 After the initial coffee, I headed to my study to attend the weekly Zoom call with my cousins. It was Simon and Sarah's Birthday so we obviously wished them a Happy Birthday along with all of the expected banter that accompanied the weekly call. Tim is off to Lanzarote in a couple of weeks and asked if I had a journal for our trip back in 2006. It only took me about 15 minutes to produce an extract and send it off to him. Hopefully, he will find it useful.

With the call complete, we had to prepare for today's visitors. The garden furniture was retrieved from the garage in the hope that the day would be warm enough to sit outside. Floors were vacuumed, Jasper's litter tray was moved to the Orangery and much of the detritus we had been saving for Ellie's next school project was shifted to the garage. I made up a couple of huge bowls of salad,  and we settled down to wait. Denise and Dom arrived at about 13:00 after a dreadful journey down from Buckingham. Drinks were provided and we settled down to a light lunch as we caught up on all of the latest news from the family.

Su, Trevor, and Jean arrived late afternoon. The chat widened and we caught up on their news and the various family tensions regarding Tim and Beth's forthcoming wedding. (We were invited, but can't go). It does sound as if there is a need for some "chill pills" in the vicinity of Cambridge, it seems astounding how people can get so worked up over small things - particularly when they have the completely wrong end of the stick.

We ordered some Indian food for delivery and I cooked some salmon and new potatoes for Diane and Jean. I timed it to perfection as I had just started serving the salmon when the doorbell rang and Indian food arrived. As usual, from Habib, the food was excellent and even Sue found it to her liking. We stayed chatting around the table until it was time for Denise and Dom to head home. As it happens, they had a really good run back, fortunately. The others stayed a while longer and the discussions strayed onto cruises (clearly a no-no for Trevor who suffers from dreadful sea sickness), vertigo (which again, affects Trevor as well as Diane), Vienna, Florence, old photos, and goodness knows what else. They left soon after 21:00 and we finished tidying up before sitting down for an hour in front of the TV.