The first weekend in October was a busy one… as often seems the case. On Friday the 4th Ellie hosted a quiz in the Village Hall to raise funds for the local church. It was part of a £10 challenge, where people had to grow their £10 for the church. Ellie set the questions, and with Tricia and me giving support, she then did the quiz, standing up in front of a full village hall, asking the questions. She grew her £10 into over £200. Not bad for a 13 year old girl 🙂

Then on the Saturday we were off to Cold Ash, to see Wendy and Rob, and go to the Cold Ash ball. The food was lovely, the live band good, and so we danced and enjoyed ourselves till the early hours. I spent most of the following Sunday feeling tired, but had an evening rehearsal I had to attend. Here we all are just before going to the ball.

I was rehearsing for a production of ‘Seperate Tables’, and Terrence Rattigan play. The play went on for three nights, Oct 10th – 12th. Mt went well, I didn’t make any mess ups, and people seemed to enjoy it. The one thing I did do was dye my hair, as I was playing a younger man… it took 3 colouring to get my hair reasonably near my original colour. I won’t be doing it again, it looked awful. If there are no parts in the future for grey haired blokes like me, then that will be that. On the Saturday night performance Peter (a work friend) and Sandra came along, and they enjoyed it, and we also had an incident where an ambulance had to be called during the interval for one of the more elderly members of the audience. All was well in the end fortunately. Straight after the Saturday night performance I had to dash back to the village, and go to Pat and Clive’s, where there was a celebration for his 65th.

During the same week, we had had to replace the oven… It had been a good oven, but with Tricia’s catering work, had covered many more hours than would have been expected in it’s seven years of life. We replaced it with a similar model, Neff, with two ovens, both fan assisted. Tricia now had a contingency plan if the main oven failed…apparently sponges cook much better in a fan oven.

Sunday 13th Ellie was off to Guildford for the National Dance Champs, looking to defend her title. Sadly this year she didn’t win, but to qualify for the finals two years in a row was an achievement in itself. Ellie was disappointed, she sets her expectations for herself, and gets disappointed if things don’t quite work out as she hoped. But we know she gave it her best…

Anyway, the following week Ellie enjoyed a birthday celebration, turning 14. She had some friends over for food and a film, and her main birthday present was some lovely ‘beats’ headphones.

Robbie was disappointed to learn that his ‘internship’ with BGO was to be cut short, and so he started looking for work again. It was an odd situation, they were happy with his work, but reorganising the office, and taking on some other staff. Just before he finished, the general manager took Robbie aside and said that if Robbie didn’t find work in the next few weeks they would be able to offer him a full time job. It didn’t all seem to add up. But, as it turned out they let Robbie’s boss Dan go, and when he went took Robbie on again full time. They took him on as a full time employee and on a better salary than he was on…. all’s well that end’s well I suppose.

Nikki spent some of October with us, some down in Bath testing, and some time in Germany with Kevin. At the end of the month she was off to North America for the first part of the Bobsleigh season.

At the end of the month we had a trip planned to Norfolk for a weekend. Robbie had intended to come, but had stayed home doing some artwork for jobs he was applyinng for. Ellies friend Emma came along. We were staying at the holiday cottage of one of our friends (Sara from the village) Mum. It was in a lovely little village called Field Dalling. We had a lovely stay over 4 days with planty of walking and eating. The weather was pretty good, although the Sunday on the way back was quite cold in the wind. But it was a lovely break before the oncoming Christmas season. As we were there over the Halloween period the girls had to do a pumpkin .. of course. One of the highlights of the trip was a trip out to a seal sanctuary and seeing the young pups.

Here are some pics of the weekend in Norfolk, Ellie at the Dance Champs, and her birthday cake… in the shape of her Olly Murs hat