I always make the same excuse don’t I… too busy to blog. But it has been. Honest. Busy rehearsing – the week coming up is Calendar Girls week, and so I rehearsed today, then I have rehearsals Mon, Tue and Wed evening, before performances on Thu, Fri, and Sat. I had three rehearsals during the week, so I will be glad to get some time back into my life. The period just before the show can always seem hectic. As I ‘die’ about a third of the way in, I don’t have a great deal of lines, and I can normally finish rehearsal early, but it does still consume a lot of time… it’s fun – otherwise I wouldn’t do it, but time consuming. Combined with three trips into school on governor duties, and work itself, you can see I have ben busy. Anyway, in the play my character has gone through chemo, and so my hair has come off for the production…. eek. My greying locks were gradually shorn yesterday morning. I need to keep my hair off for a week and then it can start growing again. Tricia isn’t keen on the look…. neither am I to be honest ! But it will grow back… fingers crossed. Interestingly, I found a scar on my head from where I fell over on a train when I was about 14 and had 5 stitches in my head…

Tricia has had a stall at the Waddesdon ‘Tea, Coffe & Chocolate festival’ for the last few days. So, she was flat out last week making scones, cakes etc, and was rewarded with pretty much selling out over the few days and pleased with how it went. Ellie helped both days Tricia paid her well so she is happy!)… needless to say they are both tired out. Tricia got back from Waddesdon at 5:15 last night, then at 6:15 we were out on a safari supper evening… this time the theme was ‘pirates’… We had a cracking evening, but Tricia conked out around 11:30…. dead on her feet.

There have been a couple of downers in the last couple of weeks. First off, our good friend Wendy, who was taken into hospital recently… turns out she has bowel cancer. She is in recovery from her surgery, the surgeons believe they have caught the cancer before it has spread. She now has six months of low grade chemo to deal with. The prognosis is good, so we hope that turns out to be the case.

A couple of weeks ago my work colleague Clare, who had been off work ill since April passed away. She was a lovely lady… she was being treated for auto immune hepatitis, which was affecting her liver. Her immune system it seems was virtually non-existant… she picked up an infection, went into hospital, and sadly passed away, all too much for her. It’s difficult, I started at BP at pretty much the same time as her, spoke with her / worked with her most days, and now there is just an empty desk. She was 56, with loads of plans for the future…. and then. I went to the funeral with a few work colleagues. It goes to show you never know.

Rob has started his third year at uni this last week. The previous weekend, Rob and his mate Jordan came back for the weekend – one of the reasons for this was to go off shooting… doing ‘airsoft’ which is similar to paint balling. Only they shoot plastic pellets and not paint pellets. They met up with Rob’s old school friend Zak and went shooting on the Saturday. Nikki was also back on the same weekend, so it was great (and chaotic) to have them all back. On the Sunday, Nikki was going off to Latvia for ‘Ice Trials’… a bob colleague, Amy, came down on the Sunday, and had lunch with us (a very full table with Jordan as well) before I took them off to Stansted. Whilse I took Nikki off to Stansetd, Tricia took Robbi and Jordan back to uni…. then we slumped in the chair Sunday evening!

Nikki has done well enough to get through the trials and be selected on GBR2 for the winter season, which is a good achievement considering the achilles issues she has had. I pick her up tomorrow evening… after rehearsal… no rest for the wicked. Some piccies…Rob and his mates off on a shoot up, and Nikki on her way at the airport. I had asked Ellie to take a photo… I meant her to get Nikki and AMy together before they went, not Nikki’s back… but there you go.

Well, I am tired now. Ellie and I did prayers at church this morning, and I was up early to write those… and it is all begining to catch up. Glass of wine with Tricia whilst watching Downton Abbey, then bed…