Catching up, and a spot of gorilla hunting!

Well how is your summer going? Enjoying some good weather I hope.

I have been trying to keep up with everyone else's blogs, I've just not blogged much myself. I have had a bit of time - I'm just lacking a bit of motivation - feeling a bit down in the dumps I suppose.

Life has been busy and it's the time of year when my nerves are a little tattered and I've had my fill of cricket! August is a tricky month as I'm trying to balance some fun stuff for the kids (without spending the earth) but also trying to keep up with all the cricket fixtures.

Number 2 son had a match in Essex this week and for the first time in a long while I gave it a miss. I touched on some of the difficulties we/I have with number 2 son here, and those difficulties are not always easy to deal with - I've reached my tolerance limit right now and one more false move on his part and I WILL EXPLODE!

So while he went to Essex with The Builder I went out for a more relaxing day with Little Miss, we continued our Go Go Gorilla hunt around Norwich. I say a more relaxing day but we actually went on a route march for 4 hours only stopping once for the obligatory coffee and cake. The waiter in the coffee shop nearly took the brunt of my current mood when he almost refused us a table (while maintaining a sneery smile) as we didn't want a full "afternoon tea". After a little discussion he asked if we "really wanted to sit in the formal tea room" to which I replied that "we really did"!

Anyway onward and upward we ticked off most of the remaining Gorillas and only have about 5 left to do on the outskirts of the city - a huge walk still to do I'm thinking. These are the highlights....

Norwich Cathedral Gardens

Inside Norwich Train Station - after we'd searched the carpark for half an hour!

King Kong outside the Cinema

Alice in Wonderland

 A lovely riverside walk in the city centre - something we'd not done before

 

 It truly is "A Fine City"

And in amongst all the cricket we've had exam results for number 1 son

 - not the greatest and a little bit of upset to console.

 

We've had a major argument with a neighbour (it's been bubbling for many years...) to do with cricket balls being hit over into his garden - that's a story all on it's own but probably not one to publish!

We did a bit of this

And boy did we pick! Heaps and heaps of strawberries, delicious big red juicy ones too.
So we spent the afternoon making smoothies - the boys were at cricket so didn't get so much as  a sniff of our delicious juice!

I've started my holiday diet, we don't go away until February but I'm allowing for all the failures I'll have in between - it's going well up to now (week 2).

And one bit of good news after all the courtesy car mishaps, I received this from the insurance company........


Now that is an apology I'm happy with!