Hello again

It's been a long time since my last post here. We've been and gone to Australia, had Easter and are now starting to think about our next long vacation to USA - we fly out in less than 4 weeks' time.

One of our concerns on returning from Oz was that we would again be surrounded by the noise and the mess created by the seagulls who have taken residence round here for the last 3 or 4 springs. We decided to buy a cover for our car to stop the mess and damage from the aerial bombardment. So far, that has worked pretty well, but it has been much quieter on the seagull front when compared with the last few years. They're still around but seemingly not so many of them and most appear to be a little further away from Arbor Court. The gym etc Unit next door (formerly D.I.S.C.) has put up 2 large bird kites which have probably helped.

Anyway, the holiday Down Under was great - we spent virtually all the time at Chris' and Kelly's place, enjoying their new pool. We only went away once - the short trip down to Carrickalinga for Chris' birthday - but we also did a few Adelaide Fringe shows in the last week of our stay. The holiday did us both good - Jo, in particular, had been pretty poorly prior to our travel but, within a few days she was back to her old self again.

We've seen Gary and Luca a few times since we've been back - my birthday, then Jo's, then Easter Sunday when we feasted on:

We're still trying to get a replacement fence in at the back of our house. We've had a couple of quotes and we're in discussions with our neighbour. It was windy overnight and when I looked out this morning, our joint fence had been further damaged up at the embankment, but also our neighbour's fence at the back had completely collapsed:

Next week we're paying a return visit to the St. Andrews area. We didn't dare risk a return to the Old Course Hotel where we'd had an awful time trying to celebrate our 50th anniversary when we were both under the weather. This time we're going to the gourmet Peat Inn, a few miles out of the town. Hopefully this time, we'll manage to enjoy it.

The following week, we're meeting up with Barry, Helen and Dawn in Perth for one night - courtesy of Barry and Helen. The week after that we go for our monthly curry with the Kilgours and Masons and I'm travelling to Dunblane to meet up with my old school pals again. Then, on Tuesday 9th May, we fly off to Oregon to meet up with Scott, Lucy, Cade, Audrey - and the bump:

Unfortunately we're not going to be there when our first great grandchild - a girl - is born in July. We had booked our flights last year before we knew Audrey was expecting.