Kiwi Invasion (1)

                                               Putting out the Bunting for The Arrival!

Well, apologies for nto being up to speed with reading and commenting on your blogs....but I feel I'm excused....there has been a pretty good excuse! The Kiwis arrived an hour earlier than expected and it was great! We all managed to squeeze in somehow and things are not too bad on the where-can-we-put- things front, we seem to have assimilated most of the stuff. Thank heavens for Lynne's Bessie-van (I haven't taken a photo yet, I must do that tomorrow.) which Jim calls the Gin Palace or The Passion Wagon depending on who is around! I promise you, LynneK nothing unseemly has been going on there! It is very comfortable, though and you can watch the starry sky through the window in the roof!

I did discuss having the children's photos on the blog and daughter-in-law Krissie and son Kit were fine with that. Previously I had been over-careful not to even mention family names. However I read other folks's blogs and see many of you are quite relaxed about it. So here is Fraser drawing pictures for nanny with his favourite marbles to hand.

The weather was so bad we had to keep them occupied indoors, which meant colouring, marble runs, carefully monitored amounts of time on electronic games, reading....and 3 hours at the park with Poppops in the wind and very light spitting rain.

                                    Dylan sneaking a bit of extra electronic time!

We had a gathering of the clans on Friday as it was Krissie's birthday and all her brothers and sisters arrived at ours then we all went out for a meal at our local hostelry.

                                  Auntie Krissie geting broody over her new nephew.

                                          And Uncle Kit just doing what comes naturally.

                                               Bex, Krissie and Kit ready to party.

                                                                  Birthday Flowers

                                         Granddaughters Morgan and Bex sharing a giggle.

                   Dylan and Fraser discussing the finer points of........something or other!

                                        Number one son Mike with grandson Chris

We had a lovely meal, and did lots of catching up and chatting. Jim and I left early to look after the littlest ones....yes, we have reached that stage in our lives ....it doesn't seem so long ago that OUR parents were the ones who 'sat it out' and baby-sat.

Yesterday the sun shone and we all went over to a barbeque at Krissie's brother's home. The children ran and shouted to their hearts' content and played beautifully together. Jim and I met another branch of Krissie's family and enjoyed the chat. There was the usual disaster with the Putting Together of the Barbeque which all the men pitched in with. Then Krissie's younger sister Helga broke down in their car and had to be fetched......oh the stress!! But everything turned out fine in the end.

                                                                  Kit and Krissie

So, we are at Day Four, which has been a very Chill Out Sunday. We all needed to catch up on some sleep and not have any other commitments to worry about. Kit Krissie and Bex are watching the England match, Dylan and Fraser are in bed....though not asleep....we have had a little boy down the stairs 4 times so far..I can't sleep! Well it is very light, the sun sets over the back of the cottage, and has been shining right into the bedroom; just about to set as I type, so hopefully he willbe dropping off soon! Bye for now, will post in anpother few days when I have some new photos to show you.