08:00 Lois and I tumble out of the shower and do our last preparations for our daughter Alison's visit with her 3 children, Josie (14), Rosalind (12) and Isaac (10). Ed is staying back in Haslemere today and working from home - the Government regulations specify social gatherings must be limited to six.
12:00 Our guests arrive - we've set up a table and 4 chairs in the utility room, and a smaller table with 2 chairs in the kitchen, so we can talk to each other through the doorway - simples! We have hot dogs and baked beans: yum yum!
(l to r) Rosalind (12), Isaac (10), Josie (14), with our daughter Alison: what a lovely family they are!
we talk to them through the open doorway
After lunch they go off to check into their Airbnb self-catering apartment, while Lois and I go to bed for a couple of hours. It's been absolutely exhausting already - usually it's just ourselves all alone in this big house, and we're not used to the non-stop chatter and laughter there's been this morning: my god! But it's fabulous to have them all around, even if it's only for a few hours today and a few more tomorrow.
15:30 We roll out of bed. Alison and the children arrive and we go off for a walk round the local football field and over to the new housing estate where there's a zip-wire.
Long shadows: Josie, Rosalind, Isaac, Alison and Lois, with Cleeve Hill in the background
me and Ali: Rosalind and Josie in the background
Josie, Isaac and Rosalind working the zip-wire
17:00 We come home and have a dinner of jumbo fish fingers, mash potato, broccoli and carrots, followed by various desserts.
19:00 They go back to their Airbnb for the night, and leave Lois and me to collapse in a heap. We're completely exhausted - oh dear!!!!! They'll be coming round again at 10:30 am tomorrow, so we've got to get our strength back by then.
20:30 We watch a bit of TV, the first edition of this year's Autumnwatch, which covers wild-life stories from around the UK.
Unfortunately both Lois and I fall asleep on the sofa, not waking up till the closing titles appear. Luckily we stay awake at least long enough to see giggly presenter Michaela Strachan celebrating her return to the programme. She wasn't able to take part in this year's Springwatch - she was back home in South Africa in March and unable to travel to the UK because of the coronavirus travel bans.
Here we see Michaela doing what her co-presenter Chris Packham calls her 'good-to-be-back' "mum-dancing".
This is the first time Lois and I have heard the expression "mum-dancing". The derogatory expression "dad-dancing" is well known, and must have deterred large numbers of ageing dads from strutting their outdated stuff and 'grooving on down' at many a disco, party or wedding, that's for sure! Perhaps if the phrase "mum-dancing" catches on, it'll do the same for ageing mothers. After all, we are living in the age of full equality of the sexes, so fair enough, we think!
21:30 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz!!!!
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