Friday 24 November 2023

Thea Collins

While busy consigning one family member to the English Channel, it was lax of me to fail to mention the replacement who arrived all worm and cosy in August.

While focusing on the loss of one family member who was very elegantly deposited in the English Channel, I failed to record the arrival of our seventh grandchild, to take her place.n She popped into the World in the middle of August all fairly easily it seemed to me, although her mum might disagree.

 Thea Collins is our seventh grandchild, and the first born to Kieran and Hannah. She is now about three months old and came round for her first swimming lesson this week. I wonder when she will start playing golf!!

Its becoming quite a recreational time for the family at the moment. Maxine, Emma, Ava and Nell have just completed 'the couch to 5k' programme at Birkenhead Park running club, Emilie is winning prizes at her local swimming club, and Nell is the first name on the team sheet for her school year swimming team.

Her first outing resulted in a narrow defeat to a boy in the match against Kings School, Chester. No disgrace there.

The activities have, however, come at a cost. Currently we have Archie and Emma on crutches. Archie fell out of his tree house when one of his swinging ropes snapped. He had just had a boot put on to a lightweight plaster and hopes his foot will be repaired in a few weeks so he can start games again next year.  Emma broke the bottom of her Tibia when she jarred her foot while on said 5k run. She is a couple of weeks behind Archie but hopes to get a boot too.

Her disappointment and frustration were tempered however, when Nick asked her to marry him!! She said yes, while at York Minster, the exact same place as Kieran popped the question to Hannah. Small world eh!

My golf is awful at the moment, and Tim is training as a personal trainer in Geneva, so the amount of athletic exertions seems to keep on coming. It will soon be Christmas and I can replenish my supply of sports socks and golf balls.

Ho ho ho!

Friday 20 October 2023

Sherford

It is usually straightforward leaving the A38 at Plympton and driving through the lanes to Plymstock, but not now!!

It has been a while since I was in the area, but I was startled to find a new town had sprung up in the countryside outside Elburton. It is a complex of mock Georgian style apartments and town houses together with more modern houses and flats.

There are two schools, a coffee shop and a 5G sports field which we could make out, and many of the farmers fields bordering the development are fenced off presumably for more expansion. There are at least three major construction companies involved in the building work with presumably many sub-contractors working along side them.

It has been compared with Poundbury, the new town championed by The King when he was Prince of Wales, and the word is that it is a pleasant place to live albeit that it is still a work in progress and the infrastructure is a bit slow in keeping pace with the house building.