Much has been happening over the past few weeks and I need to get a few pictures to post on this blog. The 'wall' has been finished and I have now had the astronomical final bill. Still, it is only money. I have been spending a lot of time putting our back garden back in order after the upheaval. We should end up with a more user-friendly garden. Sid's orchestra is rehearsing madly for our Christmas concert on 10th Dec. Sid asked me to do some arrangements for this concert and you can listen to them on the 'my music' link. They are arrangements of Jingle Bells, and O Little Town of Bethlehem - with thanks to J S Bach and Vivaldi. Last Monday Julia and I bused and trained to Salisbury to collect our van which has emerged from its chrysalis as a beautiful yellow camper van - pictures to follow. We are off to Portsmouth this weekend with a very full programme to look forward to. More about this later. Church keeps us very busy still but the boat work for the Harbour Authority is very quiet as we are out of season.

Children in need

Friday night is 'Top of the town club' night, when we run two kids clubs for junior school age kids followed by the older early secondary school youngsters. The younger club runs like clockwork but the older club takes more work! We have a 'God slot' where we tell the kids about the wonderful love of Jesus, and they seem to enjoy this time. This week we had a 'crazy hat' week and donated our weekly subs to the Children in Need appeal. The photos show the hatted masses - spot the older group!

Lydia's last exam and breakdown

No, Lydia didn't have a breakdown, but the car we borrowed to get Lyd to Bristol did! Our most grateful thanks go to our friends Linda and Adrian who have very kindly lent us their car. Well the day had arrived for Lydia's last exam in 2008 and we had decided to make it a family day with a visit to Ikea (hmmm). So we set off at 5.30 am in appalling weather and arrived in Bristol at about 8 am. Then the battery light came on! A quick check in the users manual told us to switch off all electrical equipment and drive to a Ford dealer. As the light went off we drove to the exam centre and called out the breakdown services. Lydia's exam went well and a nice man in a very nice car drove us home to Dartmouth with Adrian's and Linda's car on a trailer. We gave the nice man a cup of tea and a piece of brownie before sending him home again. A day in the life of ....