Yet to be impressed by the English summer...

---

We arrived at my mum's place in N. Lincs about 10 days ago. Great to be in a familiar place with regular meals and the prospect of staying in the same bed for an extended period of time. Also good to be outside doing physical jobs again - mowing lawns, chopping down trees, etc. Mum is well and (I hope) happy to give up her normally peaceful existence for the time we'll be here.

The days have generally been fine but we've been spoilt by the Italian/French sunshine we experienced last month, so we're still waiting for the real summer to start! Although we're happy not to be tied to the car, we've managed to have a few trips out - York, Beverley, Brigg, Scunthorpe, Sheffield.

My brother Keith visited us for a day, along with with Lesley and Sarah. Alex was otherwise occupied 'drifting' his car at a racetrack further south but we hope to catch up with him in due course. Maybe we'll have chance to visit them later, after they come back from their holidays in the Maldives.

Last week Pat attended a 3-day international 'child indicators' conference in York and presented a paper on her PhD research findings. Despite being the last presentation on the last day, there was a good audience and a good number of questions raised.

Yesterday we spent a day out at the Meadowhall shopping centre in Sheffield, which is large by UK standards and positively overwhelming for these rural visitors from the Antipodes. About the same level of culture shock as going into the Collesseum in Rome! We met up with Jennie, my niece who's soon finishing her children's nursing training there, and got to see her house. She's just started her holidays, so we kidnapped her and brought her back to Grandma's for the night. Andy will come this evening and bring her back to Lichfield.

We're just making plans to train down to London on Saturday and spend 3 days/nights seeing the sights and exploring old haunts of mine...

M.

---