08:00 Lois and I tumble out of bed to have our shower - we're expecting our daughter Sarah back about 6 pm today for another weekend stay, with her husband Francis and their 9-year-old twins Lily and Jessie, newly arrived in England after their 7 years in Australia. During the past week they've been staying at an Airbnb near Sarah's Evesham workplace, where she signed on again this week at the firm she worked at before moving to Australia.
the Airbnb where the family have been staying since Monday
Our plan is to do all the cleaning and tidying away here before they arrive - however it's a mistake to do planning of that kind, because the unexpected can so easily happen, when families are concerned - yikes!!!
08:30 Sarah texts me from her work to say that Jessie isn't feeling well, and asks if Francis can bring them over to us, which he does. We will just have to leave most of the cleaning and vacuuming till Monday now - oh dear!
There's some news also about the house the family are hoping to rent from next month, until their own house purchase plans go through to completion. It seems that they have the owners' agreement to rent the house out to them now. They've paid a deposit and Sarah's new boss has supplied the owners with a reference, so that's been sorted now at least. But what a madness it all is !!!!
the 3-bedroom house that Sarah and Francis are hoping to rent temporarily
10:00 Francis arrives with the girls, and gives Jessie a dose of Calpol sedative. He stays here till 2pm, when he has to go off and charge up their electric Austin Mini and then pick up Sarah after work.
After Francis leaves, Lois and I have a nice time keeping the girls entertained, and it's gratifying to see Jessie slowly recovering and getting her strength back, which is nice.
Lois and I have a great time keeping the girls
entertained and seeing Jessie gradually getting her strength back
Jessie in particular is keen to experiment with playing our piano. She can't read music so I show her middle C and write the notes down for her to "When The Saints Go Marching In" - always a good one to start somebody off with, because you just need 5 notes to play the whole thing: from middle C up to G.
When she has fully mastered that, I decide to write out the music to the verses of "Waltzing Matilda" - it's a tune she knows already, so that's half the battle, isn't it really! I'll leave the chorus till tomorrow.
Isn't it great when kids want to learn things - it's a real pleasure to teach them then, isn't it.
Then we have a game of grown-up adult Scrabble with them. We can see that they're really bright kids, which is gratifying - both in word-formation and the maths of working out the scoring. It's a pity that their formal education apparently suffered while they were in Australia. Let's hope they adjust all right when they start attending school over here!
And nice to see the girls' cuddly toys joining in the game as well, and apparently whispering suggestions in the girls' ears, which is gratifying!
18:00 Sarah arrives home - she's finished her first week back at the old job and can relax now. The partners are not assigning her any projects to start with, just leaving her to familiarise herself with the firm's new systems and software, which is the sensible approach, no doubt about that!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz!!!!!!
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