Thursday July 3rd 2025 "Where will you be taking YOUR visitors this summer? It's a head-scratcher and a half, isn't it !!!!!"

It's a problem that's been around for millennia, experts report - deciding where to take your visitors, be it friends or family - when they "descend on you for a few days" !!!!!

It's an issue that's very much exercising the minds of Yours Truly at the moment, not to mention my dear wife Lois, or "Mrs Y.T." as I call her (affectionately!), that's for sure! Because, in just 9 days' time, our dear daughter Sarah (48) will be arriving here from Perth, Australia, together with husband Francis and their 11-year-old twin daughters Lily and Jessica.

flashback to 2022: our dear daughter Sarah, husband Francis

and their twin daughters Lily and Jessica sailing their boat

on the Swan River with the skyscrapers of Perth in the distance

Yikes!!! Where to take them !!!!  What a dilemma !!! And by coincidence, this story grabbed our attention at the breakfast table this morning, with news that this dilemma is nothing new, to put it mildly. Did it catch YOUR eye too, I wonder? 

Yes, "where to take our Australian visitors" - that's the "head-scratcher" that's taking up my time this morning, while Lois is dusting and scrubbing everything in sight, including me, I might add - despite my protests !!!!

You see, quiet rural, semi-leafy Liphook, Hampshire, where Lois and I live, hasn't got a lot of world-beating tourist attractions, unfortunately, after you've seen the bay window at the Royal Anchor Inn, where the young Princess Victoria practised her "royal wave" for the first time, in front of a crowd of cheering "Lip-hookers" (!), back in the 1820's !!!

Liphook, Hampshire's main claim to fame: the bay window in The Royal Anchor inn,

where a very young Princess Victoria practised her first "royal wave" back in the 1820's

By the end of the morning, however, I can now exclusively reveal that I've at least "sorted" the showpiece of my "programme" for our Australian visitors - a day-trip to London, a city which is only an hour away from here by train; a trip which will include visits to a host of world-class attractions including a ride on the London Eye, a river cruise on the Thames, then, a lunch overlooking the river, followed by sightseeing trips on the on-off buses, and visits to museums like the British Museum and the Natural History museum.

Lois and I will go with them, but we'll just be doing the tour's "cheapo" version - the London Eye, the river cruise and the lunch, yes, but skipping the on-off bus sightseeing and the museums etc, so we can come home and go to bed for the afternoon. Call us lazy if you like, but we don't like to miss our "nap-time", to put it mildly!!!!

(1) the full tour that will keep our 'Australian visitors' busy all day, to put it mildly !!! .....

...and (2) the 'cheapo' version, half-day only, 

just for Lois and me (!): 'EBLAB' - Eye, Boat, Lunch and Bed!!!

Sorted !!!

13:00 And by lunchtime today, I've provisionally scheduled the London day-trip for (probably) July 23rd, and Lois has scrubbed everything in the house to within an inch of its life (!). So now we can celebrate with our "fave" lunch of bacon-and-anchovy sandwiches and then go up to bed for nap-time with a clear conscience, which is nice! 

us - a recent picture: London trip now sorted, we can enjoy 

our "fave" lunch of bacon and anchovy sandwiches, which is nice!

14:00 Our nap-time today, however, proves to be a bit less relaxed, and a bit more curtailed, than usual, because we're aware that our other daughter Alison's son, Isaac (14), will be dropping by here after school, so we've got to listen out for the doorbell. 

Isaac be a bit later than usual this time, however, because he'll have been taking part in another "final rehearsal" (!) for the school's production of Wizard of Oz, in which he's playing the Tin Man, and singing the iconic song "If I Only Had A Heart". Lois and I have got tickets for next Friday's performance at the Bedales Theatre, which we're very much looking forward to.

flashback to last month: early school rehearsals for "The Wizard of Oz"

Isaac will be turning 15 next month, By coincidence Isaac has the same birthday as our Lily and Jessica, our "Australian" twin granddaughters, so part of our planning for "the visit" will be about celebrating their joint birthdays, when the twins will be turning 12. We think we'll probably be having a big three-way-birthday meal at Liphook's iconic "Guido's" Italian pizza restaurant, with all 11 of us - yikes!!!! I guess we'd better book it - they may not have many "tables for eleven", to put it mildly !!!

Liphook, Hampshire's iconic Guido's Italian restaurant, where 

Italian tourist Angelina Biasella Amato famously said on social media,

she had had "the best pizza she had tasted in England",

which may not be saying much, on reflection (!!!!!)

One of mine and Lois's most iconic memories is from July 2013. We were giving our grandson Isaac a birthday tea and cake in the garden of our then home in Cheltenham, when news of Lily and Jessica's birth in Gloucester Royal Hospital came through on my mobile, together with a picture of the sleeping new-borns.

flashback to July 2013: just as we were celebrating little Isaac's 3rd birthday,

in the garden of our former home in Cheltenham, news came in that the twins 

were being born in Gloucester, and we saw first pictures of them on Alison's phone

Awwww!!!! Memories !!!!!

18:00 We wave goodbye to Isaac, who is picked up by his dad, our son-in-law Edward, and Lois and I can relax with some chicken thighs (yum yum!), followed by an evening on the sofa watching a bit of "telly", which is nice!

(left) we wave goodbye at the door to our grandson Isaac and

his dad, our son-in-law Edward, before enjoying a dinner for two of chicken thighs

("yum yum!!!!" ) followed by a relaxing evening in front of the "telly" 

And that's the way you do it - if you're us, that is, which you probably aren't haha !!!!!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!!!