Summer visiting starts!

My trip down started with a four hour hold up on the M25 due to an overturned minibus. It is amazing to think that it took me only an hour and a half to get from Inverness to Gatwick but then another four hours from Gatwick to Sutton! As usual I managed to meet up with a number of old friends in between shifts which was lovely and was comfortably lodged in the guest suite at Richards Mum and Dads flats.

I made it back to Inverness twenty four hours before Tanya and Daniel arrived for a packed eight days. I have been barred by Tanya from posting most of the photos with her in but this one is allowed - we had another jam making session and she is now thinking up a suitable label for her own raspberry jam.

It is always a risk, when we have guests here that we will wear them out with all the activities available and we certainly did a lot, with trips to Loch Ness, Landmark, the Cairngorm Railway and the reindeer herd, as well as Loch Morlich, the local park and playzone, not to mention fitting in a full English at Moy and a meal at the Boathouse at Loch Insh which those of you who have visited in the summer will remember. They helped pick the fruit and veg from the garden and we are able to eat fresh produce every day now. In fact the mange tout are growing faster than we can eat them! The weather is still unpredictable up here but apart from a drenching at the reindeer we did pretty well. They left on Wednesday afternoon suffering, as all visitors do, from the fresh air induced sleepiness of the Highlands.

On Sunday I went to Inverurie to pick up the trailer tent which had been borrowed by the youth group from Kings church where Richard, Sarah and Joe go. Amazingly it was only a couple of miles from where we needed to pick up the turkey poults so my journey back was accompanied by much cheeping! They are now comfortably installed in the run which Peter has built and despite some nervous moments as we tested the electric fence all seems to be well with them. We did wonder at one point whether we had managed to electrify the whole fence and whether the birds would be cooked well before Christmas day, or whether I was going to have to explain to Trish how I'd managed to electrocute her husband!

They aren't the most attractive birds so hopefully we won't get too attached to them. The farmer I picked them up from told me that he had sold forty a couple of years ago to one man but in the end his wife wouldn't let him slaughter them. Of course, come Dec 26th no-one is really interested in turkey and they eat an enormous amount and are visibly bigger after just a week. We are certainly realising why free range turkeys are so expensive to buy.

Richard has been down South watching the cricket with his best man, Rutton, an annual event for them and after a few days back here has gone back to Sutton for his sister, Vanessa's wedding on Saturday. Daniel, Julie and Chads en masse are arriving on Saturday which we are really looking forward to. They have only seen the house in the snow and although of course it is still uninhabitable, they will at least be able to see the gardens this time.

Work is beginning to pick up for me with another long day yesterday and five more shifts booked over the next two weeks. It is encouraging that there seems to be so much work when initially it seemed that there would be very little but I am hoping to spend a bit more time at the house over the next few weeks and will be putting the tent up again in the next few days. Camping here certainly gives me a lot more time in the garden which is romping away at the moment. I did have a willing helper to cut the grass but unfortunately 'rain stopped play' and as it hadn't been cut since I left for Sutton two weeks ago it is now quite a job again......hopefully tomorrow....

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