The week started quietly… Easter Monday. No work :-). Tricia and me dropped Ellie off at work and then went onto the gym. After a good work out, it was a quiet afternoon at home, until we went and picked Ellie up, and went onto Nikki’s for afternoon tea. Nikki and Matt are working extremely hard at the moment, lambing constantly, and around the clock, and Nikki trying to do her job as well. It was a pleasant evening… but we didn’t stay too late as they had work to do. Here are the horses just before Ellie helped Nikki get them to the stable for the evening.

Tuesday was back to work… I had hoped that with it being the school holidays, and with people on hols the traffic might be quieter. Not a bit :-(. I got caught on the M25 coming home, and was nearly late for the monthly pub quiz. I joined Tricia, Ellie and Sally… and whilst we didn’t win, we didn’t do badly either. Ellie did extremely well, answer plenty of science questions! Wednesday I worked from home… gym for me in the morning, and them later on Tricia and Ellie went. In the evening Tricia was out with girlies to go to a pub quiz at the Bell in Hardwick… they came second. Back in the office Thursday I got caught in traffic coming home again, and didn’t get home till after 8pm :-(. I spent the evening checking the quiz Ellie had set for her World Challenge evening, which was due on Friday.

On Friday I worked from home…and was actually working online at 6:30am… there is so much for me to do at the moment, it was a case of just getting up and getting on with it. I did take an extended break later in the day though, and walked across to the Eco farm where Ellie is working, and got her to make me a ‘flat white’… which she did very nicely. I even paid for a piece of Tricia’s lemon cake!  The day got really busy later on. It was Ellie’s World Challenge Quiz. Ellie is going on a ‘world challenge’ next year, the summer of 2017. It is a trip to Swaziland and Mozambique, and she needs to raise £4,732 to go. So a quiz was part of her fund raising. Tricia sold 60 tickets, which included a raffle and a chilli supper, which she had to cook on the Friday. Chilli for 60 people is a lot! We had to set the hall up – all the tables and chairs, set the laptop / projector up etc etc… then the quiz itself. Ellie stood and asked the questions and did very well. Tricia tallied up the scores. It was a very well supported event, lots of friends donating raffle prizes, and buying tickets. Rob and Amy came across, but sadly Nikki was full of cold and so didn’t make it. By the time all the washing up had been done, and everything packed up in the hall… and the cars loaded and unloaded I was shattered. Tricia and Ellie, Rob and Amy and myself sat having a tea in teh living room afterwards. I managed to drink my tea… and then crawl to bed.

Saturday, Tricia and me were off to London. Alan and Pete were both celebrating their 50th birthdays, and we went to a ‘posh’ Indian restaurant. The food was fantastic… we got there just after 12, and didn’t leave till near 4pm… It had been a lovely afternoon. The restaurant wasn’t busy and there was no pressure to move us on, and so it was nice and relaxed. We got home around 7:30pm… and did a few quick chores, before sitting and watching a couple of episodes of ‘The Night Manager’… before collapsing into bed.

Ellie had been out Saturday herself, out on a friends birthday trip to see Leicester Tigers play… and she met Tom Croft.

Today Tricia and I were up and out on a 9.1 mile walk … partly practice for the Pennine Way, and partly practice for the 3 peaks Tricia will be doing in September. Trevor and Simon joined us. A lovely mornings walk. We finished around 2pm, and when back home I settled down to watch the World Cricket T20 final… a game of ups and downs, with one over to go I thought England would win… but they didn’t. Oh well….