ramblings

I have had a lazy day today - I got up at 7.30 to find that my husband had taken out our spaniel for a long walk, so I was able to have a shower and have my breakfast at a leisurely pace. The rain was pouring down and it was rather chilly after a beautiful week. I decided to get the shopping out of the way and, apart from cooking tea, I have spent the day reading the paper, doing crosswords and generally being lazy.
The last two weeks have been a bit busy, to say the least. Our friends are over on a trip from Oz and I've been able to see Janette twice so far, and we meet again tomorrow. I used to work with her - she's a lovely person and so is her husband. They were in England for 7 years and have made many friends as John was a Methodist minister. He has now retired so they are travelling all round England at the moment.
A group of us had afternoon tea at the Midland Hotel one afternoon, which was rather grand (and expensive!)
The day after, I was off to camp with 15 guides. We had a wonderful time. The weather was glorious, the girls were really well behaved and did all the chores without moaning ( a miracle!!), the activities were good so everyone was happy.
I came back from camp on Sunday night and on Monday went off to the council offices to chair a panel dealing with school appeals. The school concerned is very popular and is full in the new year 7, but we heard 30 appeals over the three days.
On Friday we went to see a flower festival in a local church - it was amazing!! The theme was the passing of time and the arrangements were so beautiful - no bunging the flowers in a vase!! I haven't any photographs as I forgot my camera- typical!
Well, I think I'll go back to my paper - ther's only the Eurovision Song contest on TV and it's not the samewithout dear old Terry Wogan commentating.

A busy week!

I started last week with Sunday School with the younger ones. There were only about 6 little girls in my group and we had a lovely time. It was the annual meeting of the church after the service, so we got home later than usual, had lunch and went off on a walk with Jasper.
Monday was washing, cleaning and getting ready for our adult 'sleepover' at Waddow Hall, near Clitheroe in Lancashire.
Tuesday meant an hour's drive into the beautiful Lancashire countryside to meet up with other Trefoil members at the Hall. This is one of the Guide activity and conference centres in the UK and used to belong to the Pilkington family. (Pilkington Glass). It is a lovely old house in beautiful grounds with camp sites, a Brownie house and two cottages available for hire. From the front of the house the land slopes down to a river with a weir - lovely! When I was a guide and a young guider, we used to camp there and boy, was it strict! If you went anywhere near the house you had to be in full 'best' uniform or you and your guider got into real bother! Things are more relaxed now. After a wonderful buffet lunch we went a walk around the large grounds, back for afternoon tea, crafts and a chat with other people who were staying there. There was a crowd of students from Liverpool University on a field week and a group of ladies who had come away to do some uninterrupted patchwork.
After dinner we all dressed up in our western outfits, much to the bemusement of the students, and took part in a murder mystery evening - who killed the sheriff? It was a lot of fun, though nobody identified the murderer which could have had something to do with the amount of wine and other liquids which were being consumed.
Weds. we had a morning of indoor curling which was good fun and after another good lunch it was time to make our way home.
Thursday found me on the train to Manchester to man the Guide shop with my friend. We were feeling a bit tired so hoped we wouldn't be too busy. That was too much to hope for and we took quite a bit of money.
On Friday, Kevin and I went shopping to our nearest John Lewis store and had lunch there. Neither of us bought anything much but it was nice to go out together! I had Guides on Friday night and Saturday we did some work in the garden and then I was catching up on paperwork for the next two events! On Sunday we went out for lunch to Lymm with our friends - we haven't seen them since New Year's Eve so we had a lot of catching up to do! Lunch lasted until about 4.30 pm so by the time Jasper got his tea he was ravenous. Well that was my busy week and this week's as bad - or good.
I'm just off to my weigh in, then my mums and tots group, having taken the dog an hour's walk. It's glorious today - long may it last!