Absolutely terrific

We all headed for Exeter, 8 of us plus dogs to the shops, via a vaccine centre to see if Dot.T could get her 2nd jab, which she couldn’t, and 2 headed off to a running track .

But this afternoon, we went for a proper up hill and down dale walk together, and it was terrific. 14k, with some nice stops, great scenery, confusing directions leading to a few false turns, very very few encounters of other people, lovely chats, happy dogs, decent weather with light drizzle occasionally, and all out a terrific outing.

We walked through South Tawton, Sticklepath and Belstone - best known for it’s epic bog, location of many mud fights as a teenager on camps …

Best day.

One of the big kids is reading a book about being real with one another. It talks of the facade of social media and living with the ability to hide behind impressions and also of submitting to a culture of … ‘I’m fine, thanks’ when anyone enquires.

So I want to add, that ‘fab and wonderful’ days on holiday as a family are fab and wonderful but of course, of course of course, sometimes it’s a minefield, and we often say or do things wrong or unwise. I had a friend who had children at the same time as me who asked me outright what possible advantage there could be for having a big family. Well, one advantage has to be learning how to put up with and still love one another, with Gods help.