Monday June 29th 2026 "Blog offically paused - and that's official haha!!!"

Yes, Friends, blog officially paused as my wife Lois and I host the visit of our dear daughter Sarah and family from Australia: husband Francis and their 12-year-old twins Lily and Jessica. They arrived at Heathrow Airport, London at 5 am this morning, despite which they're looking remarkably lively, which is nice, as we chat to them in our home here in semi-leafy Liphook, Hampshire, that's for sure!

See you in a couple of weeks haha!!!

(left to right) our other daughter Alison, Lois, Francis, Sarah,

and the twins Jessica and Lily in our tiny back garden today

Byeeeeeeeeeeeeee !!!!!!

Ooh, also on Monday...

Ooh - and by the way -  on Tuesday June 30th ... we drive to nearby Petersfield to let the twins sweep through the charity shops and also we visit the famous lake, the one the locals call the "Heath Pond" (!). We lunched at the Plump Duck Cafe, where a cheeky swan was pestering a poor old man for a bit of his panini - what madness!!!

Also we get first pictures of our 15-year-old grandson Isaac all dressed up for his junior prom, which is nice - what a dapper young guy he's turning into !!!!

And now I come to think about it, on Wednesday July 1st Lois and I decide to go for a morning walk with our daughter Sarah and the twins, in nearby Radford Park, including a game of pooh-sticks, which is nice!

And then we have a drink and a snack at a cafe in Liphhook's partially-bustling town centre. Francis, our son-in-law, is not out with us today because he's gone back to bed for a nap. 

Poor Francis!!!!

And not forgetting our big trip to London on Thursday July 2nd, when we took the train in from Liphook to London's Waterloo Station, then took a taxi to Tower Pier on the Thames and had a lunch cruise. After that we took a taxi to the Shard, Europe's tallest building, and went up to the top in the lift.

in the taxi

in the Costa .....

on the lunch cruise on the Thames...

Going up the Shard...having champagne in the bar on the top floor, and looking at London from 1,000 ft up, which was nice!......

 And... um... that's it!!!!

And then there's the day (Friday July 3rd, evening) when we saw our grandson Isaac's band, New Horizon, opening up the Haslemere Fringe Festival.

And then there was Saturday July 4th, when the twins decorated a special 'unbirthday cake', and we had lunch in the garden while our son-in-law Francis was taking a nap upstairs - poor Francis !!!!

Then we waited for our guests to arrive for tea this afternoon evening - our other daughter Alison, plus husband Edward, and their 3 teenage kids, Josie (19), Rosalind (18), and Isaac (15).

Then there was July 5th, and our son-in-law Francis somehow manages to chivvy the twins into getting ready for an 8am-ish departure.  The three of them are going up to the English Lake District, for three days of hiking and sailing, which is nice! They leave Lois and me, and our daughter Sarah, to 'chill out', which is also nice!

We get a call later to say that they had arrived at a hotel near Lake Windermere by 5pm or so, with a lunch stop at Harrogate, which is fair enough! From Monday they will stay in a camping pod (see below):

After Francis and the twins go off, the three of us - Lois and me, plus our daughter Sarah proceed to chill out "in spades", to put it mildly!