Ha!

After a good sleep we had a slow start doing word games and chatting before getting up and going for breakfast at the farm shop near Great Brickhill. Delicious bacon and lovely to sit out in the warm sunshine. O came with us on his way to work at a local garden and we caught up on how his wee boy is growing up and all the things about nature they’re teaching him.
From there K and I went to a garden centre then a couple of other shops looking for particular bedding plants she’s after (limited success!) as well as something for me to give to N for her birthday tomorrow. It’s shaping up to be another really warm day…caught me by surprise as the sun’s been a bit absent recently so I’m not really in the summer mindset yet!
Set off for the drive to London and finished listening to The Bay novel which I had started yesterday. I enjoyed it…. interweaving the stories of the young Chinese woman and the old local man on Morecambe Bay. It was iInteresting to think about P’s perspective on getting older and needing help through the passages voiced by the ‘old uncle’.
A lot of traffic on the M25 and then near their house so it was a slow journey, but managed to arrive in time for school pick up with Mt and I caught up on how his birthday had gone yesterday but was dismayed to see when I walked in the kitchen that he’d already been given a bread maker as that’s what T, A and I had got him, with a morning’s viennoiserie class at a cookery school. Drat! Didn’t say anything straight away as once the kids were changed I walked them round to Taekwondo. I sat in the class to watch. They were both very engaged and attentive and I was surprised just how much it involved various fitness exercises and core strengthening work….really hard work! They bounded out afterwards and we stopped at M&S to buy them a snack each and Mt a little birthday cake (they’re having a joint party tomorrow with N and G’s brother K too as they all have birthdays this weekend, but I felt he needed his own wee cake today!). Mx was as usual chatting on about all sorts, including expanding on his theory about how delicate old people are, this time prompted by me saying I didn’t want a bite of his double chocolate muffin as it was too sweet! Apparently other characteristics of old people are that by the time I’m about as old as 69 I’ll be bent over, walking with a stick (cue demonstrations of tottering along!), and not able to hear anything. I think I have some educating to do (but it did make me laugh)!!
We had some supper then it came to the present unwrapping…we all had a bit of a laugh about the duplicate bread maker and agreed we’d swap it for some sort of flying experience, but he was delighted with the baking course. Also gave H her birthday present for her 40th next week. This was the star necklace I’ve been looking for for so long, and I was very relieved when she so obviously loved it. It looked lovely on her and she showed me the rather beautiful ring that she’d chosen as her present from Mt…lots of talk of next phases of life and how lucky she feels.
After the kids went to bed we watched a programme on Thailand and chatted about holidays and travelling the just before going to bed we tried to see if there was any sign of the northern lights that were due to be in evidence right across the UK tonight because of a huge sun storm. We couldn’t see anything just looking out of the window (not least because of how light it is here), but Mt took a long exposure photo out of the window and wow there they were! Quite a magical end to the day.