Domestic weekends

It was nice to get back home after several weeks of travelling. However, the garden was completely overgrown with the grass a good foot/30 cm high. So we have spent the last two weekends trying to get back on top of the grass, weeds etc.. My seedlings that I had planted before we went away are making good progress, so I have put some of them in. Labour weekend (this weekend) is traditionally the time when everyone plants their vegetable gardens and the weather has cooperated with a beautiful weekend. However, there are a few more southerly storms forecast for the next week - so I think I will wait a few more weeks for summer to start and before I plant out the tomatoes seedlings.

I have been harvesting the cabbages, silver beet, broad beans, rocket and lettuce. The cabbages and rocket had bolted, so they were pulled out to make some more room for the new seedlings. I will have to pull out some of the broad beans as well as they have grown out of control. My 3 compost bins have also finally composted down and have some nice looking compost which I have been dumping on the garden, ready for the rest of the seedlings.

Aaron has become very good at destructive gardening! He has been pulling out some of the lavender that was taking over the front garden.

On top of gardening I also enjoyed doing some cooking for the first time in several weeks. I made some sour dough bread and some mascapone cheese. I then used the cheese to make canneloni, and tiramisu - yum!

I think the cats are also happy we are home. They have been very cuddly and attention seeking for the last couple of weeks.

Gill and Mike's wedding in the Cotswolds

We spent Friday afternoon in Oxford catching up with Sam Burgess and meeting her lovely new guy Ed before the last event on our whistle stop tour, and the main excuse for the trip which was to attend Gill and Mike's wedding in the Cotswolds. It was held in a lovely little village - Bibury. Very traditional and cute.

It was a very fun day and Gill and Laura both looked great in their dresses.


Laura, Gill and Helen


Aaron and Helen

Gill and Mike had thought of everything - including providing toys for the kids to play with. This was a great giant Jenga game!


Playing Jenga in the garden

Visiting the Bostocks in the UK

We flew from Boston to London and spent most of a week visiting the Bostocks! We started in London visiting Katherine and Jonathan (Chandlers - rather than Bostocks), but we met up with Graham, Theresa and Victoria in the afternoon at Darwin's house in Kent. We stayed with Katherine and Jonathan and were very impressed with all the amazing work they have done on their house, as well as with their Wii bowling prowess!

Then we headed up to Grandma and Grandads for a few days. Mum and Dad and Andy, Clare and Andrea had come down from Aberdeen to see us as well. We had a couple of days being entertained by little Andrea and with a day trip to Stratford upon Avon, the home of Shakespeare. We also dropped in to see my great aunt and uncle, Irene and Jim.


Andrea playing in the fountain



Four generations - Grandad, Mum, Dad, Grandma, Aaron, Helen, Clare, Andy, Andrea

Then we headed over to Wales to catch up with my Uncle Andy, Sarah, Holly and Fiona. Fortunately the weather cleared up and we got to go out riding with Sarah along the coast looking out over the Bristol Channel.


Aaron and I riding along the coast in Wales

Final family stop was Paul, Thalia, Christopher and Hattie in High Wycombe. I think Aaron deserves a medal for surviving a week of Bostocks!

Visiting Laura in Falmouth, Cape Cod

On our way over the UK we stopped off in Boston/Cape Cod to visit Laura. This was Aaron's first visit to the east coast of the US. Laura works at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, one of the very well known and highly respected oceanographic institutes, so I wanted to visit and look around.


Laura's very cute house

Cape Cod has some beautiful beaches and we went for several walks on the beaches near Falmouth and Woods Hole. This time of year you can often find the horse-shoe crab carapaces on the beaches. Some of them were enormous. To me they look like trilobites!


Horse-shoe crab carapace on the beach


Helen and Laura