Beach Hut Resurrection

After making good use of our old beach hut for the past 18 months it was time for it to be removed before it finally collapsed into a heap. Mike has been busy constructing a state-of-the-art new hut which will be the pride of West Beach and will come equipped with all modcons.

The hard grafting and ground work needed to be done before the big day when the hut gets put into position. So Dad, Mike and Lee set to with spades and concrete to embed the new foundations into the ground to create the platform for the hut to sit on. It was back breaking work but finally the job was done.

In a couple of weeks there will be an amazing new beach hut waiting for the first BBQ.

Presents From Australia

Yes, Christmas has come early for us with the arrival of our old friends, Kate, Rob and Scarlett. We have been eagerly anticipating their appearance for months and having not seen them for over 2 1/2 years when I opened the front door to greet Kate it seemed liked only yesterday.

Hugs and kisses were liberally shared all round as well as a meeting of the baby bumps too. It was incredible to see Scarlett, our Goddaughter who was only 3 months old when we first met her, now a fully fledged walking, talking little lady. You can tell she has her mothers traits as she has an array of hilarious facial expressions and the inheritance of the whoopie cushion has obviously had an effect on her sense of humour too.










We spent the first day putting up our Christmas Tree whilst singing along to Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin belting out Christmas numbers in their inevitable crooning style. What made this so wonderful was the most beautiful gift given to us by Kate and Rob, a very special red bauble with Ruby's name on it. It now sits, pride of place in the middle of tree and sparkles and shines in memory of our wonderful little girl.

That evening after a very warming fish pie we sat and watched our honeymoon video where we spent a month in Australia. Amazingly though, at least two thirds of the video consists of footage of the whole day and night spent on a fabulous campsite at Mooney beach with Kate and Rob. We managed to capture the long sequence of events that led to all of us being extremely drunken and disorderly by the end of the evening. What a great memory of 4 responsible adults having a reunion together and something to show our children in years to come....

The following day we took a long walk out along the beach having had a lovely slap up breakfast. It was not quite to the standards of the Australian beaches or weather but was wild and windy and very exhilerating none the less. It was great to get home and light the fire and sit around reminissing about the past and re-telling stories that we have all heard before but are always so hilarious. We rounded the day off with an early dinner out and back home to a roaring fire again and more reminissing. A perfect end to Kate and Robs stay with us.

Eat your heart out Rachmaninoff

Yes, so inspired by my love of classical piano, particularly Rachmaninoffs music from the film 'Shine' Mike very generously bought me a fabulous digital piano for my brithday this year. It arrived last week and once it was set up we both had a little tinkle on the ivories to test it out. It sounds amazing.

As you can see I have a long way to go before I reach the dizzy heights of the famous concertos that I so love so its back to basics with easy nursery rhymes as a starter. I hope to take up some lessons before our baby arrives and will continue again next year. It will be a great challenge but one that I have often thought of undertaking but never did anything about.

Luckily there is a port ofr headphones so nobody will hear my excruciating first attempts.