Life!

22nd - 29th July.  This year we decided to go for 7 nights - and it worked much better on many levels.  It gave us space to do things on our own without the feeling that we were missing out on family time, and we were able to pick up things on the programme which were repeated on the Mon-Fri slot which we had missed over the initial weekend - such as the Diversity Show (which John went to twice and to which we all went because we had two opportunities so could split the babysitting), the Zumba session (more later!) and the circus. I had thought I would be driving down with Lorraine but during the week there was a message from her to the family stating that she was not now travelling by train but would drive down in her own car after work - so clearly I wasn't even in the equation!  This suited me very well as I could leave as soon as I was ready to do so on the Friday and take as much stuff as I wanted without worrying about having room in the car.  It even all fitted into the

So I got back to London at the beginning of July with only about 11 days to go before I would be back down to take Suki to stay with Lee and Emma.  Mike and I did a couple of GCU summer sings which were very enjoyable - Elijah and Israel in Egypt.  I thoroughly enjoyed singing through these pieces again.  There was a night out with the Aces "girls" to meet up with Nikki King who was passing through.  We had a great meal at Joe Allen's - where the burgers are so famous they are not on the menu and you have to ask for them.  Of course most of us had one!  It was great to catch up with everyone again - we haven't had a TARTS night out for over a year.  There was supper with Caroline and Pru - always enjoyable.  A Chiswick Choir concert - Mass in Blue plus some other jazzy numbers and a jazz trio which were my idea of hell!  They did 3 numbers - all of which sounded the same and were the sort of thing I really don't like!  I actually enjoyed the Mass in Blue more than