Duncan with gin

We got the house tidied up a bit for my cousin Duncan and his wife visiting till tomorrow. She is very house-proud which doesn’t bother me but Mr C cares more. Grace bans any political chat which is just as well as he is a member of the Reform Party. I can’t get to the bottom of his thinking apart from the fact he was in the TA. He is such a caring family man and clever, witty and good fun. (And he brought gin!) His wife is the sort who talks a lot about people we don’t know. Sadly she has a bad heart and has been waiting months for an op. We used to go for walks together but he says she can’t even manage a mile on the flat without being exhausted. They are only young- 67 - so sad when things like that happenshe was a nurse and very health-conscious.

I really enjoyed the Saturday Guardian magazine this week. Not only was there an article by Michal Hussain about Uzbekistan but also an extract from Olivia Lang’s new book “The Garden Against Time”. I love her writing. Daughter has ordered it from The Bound for me. I emailed a friend in France as I thought she might be interested and she replied she’d just ordered it. Great minds?!

Good news is Chris is home. She can’t drive for a while so I have offered. She needs me to drive her dogs to the vet on Wednesday. Help! I said of course but I really don’t like the big Rex who is go powerful, barky and jumps up on my shoulders so I hope they behave in the car. She’ll come too and then maybe we’ll go to Harbottle woods to see if the bluebells are out yet. She’s to take it easy and it’s not far.

Just posting after cousin and wife went off to sleep in their van parked in the drive for the night. They’ll be back for breakfast.

#2 daughter sent pix of James and his football team with the trophy. Although the West Denton team won against his team last week and assumed they’d won the trophy etc turns out it wasn’t just about games won - it’s for Outstanding Team which includes not only winning games, good football skills etc - but also considers feedback from refs etc about good behaviour, accepting decisions, discipline and sportsmanship. Apparently the West Denton parents contested the result which just epitomises the problems in football that I wrote about last week. Hopefully they’ll learn from this and not be so aggressive and intimidating in future.