This Weekend...

... has been amazing. Incredible. We are so blessed to have found an amazing family here in Sussex! We got home quite late Friday night from Wales, and all the plans for tidying up and sorting things out went out of the window. So, when Libby phoned and asked if there was anything they could do preparation-wise as Nathaniel had a really bad cough and they wouldn't be going to the airshow, the sense of relief was huge! Saturday morning came along with trauma as we had no milk (and therefore I couldn't have my weetos) and my stomach decided it didn't like anything else I tried to feed it with. But as it turned out this meant that I had the house to myself for an hour and a half, to have a bath and write out the destructions for what needed preparing for the barbecue. And Libby and Julian outdid themselves - when we got back after the airshow, the Gardener and Chef Wray had done EVERYTHING - and we all had a brilliant evening barbecue followed by a waterfight, courtesy of some incredibly small yet powerful water pistols I'd bought for partybags!

A selection of photos at the end of this blog.

The airshow itself was brilliant, I was so absorbed watching the planes and enjoying the sunshine that I forgot to take any pictures, so hopefully Steve will let me put some of his on here later! At the end of the show we decided that we wanted to buy a remote-controlled helicopter (I had mentioned that I'd wanted to buy one for Steve for his birthday, but didn't know which one to buy and would rather he chose it himself) so we have bought Airwolf as a joint birthday present between us. It's finally working - Steve had fiddled and fixed and made it work, and yesterday the boys were playing with the helicopter and the Wii while us girls had tea on the lawn - the rain stopped long enough for us to have our cucumber sandwiches and scones and jam and cream and cupcakes and jelly babies and strawberries and tea in pots and posh cutlery and crockery outside on the lawn! What a perfect weekend. And we'd bought so much meat and vegetables for Saturday's barbecue that there was still enough left for a second (indoor) barbecue on Sunday after the baby shower / helicopter playingness.

What a weekend. And the presents people have given baby - Steve and I have been so touched by peoples' generosity and thoughtfulness but of particular overwhelmingness was the gifts from mum Entwistle's work colleagues. It's evidence of how much they love HER that they put together this enormous cellophane-wrapped parcel of baby bits and pieces for her son and daughter-in-law that they hardly know! I was so overwhelmed that I started crying and had to go and compose myself before heading off to the Shower proper.

Anyway, here's a selection of photographs from the weekend.

First - the airshow. More photos will be added later once they've been retrieved from the camera.
These guys are the RAF parachute display team. They freefall from so many miles up, and stay in such close co-ordination, performing twists and turns and all sorts, and land within meters of each other at the end of it.

I took many photographs of these guys and then become so absorbed in the rest of the show that I forgot to take any more pictures! I used Steve's camera a couple of times though, we'll see how those photos come out.

And the baby shower...

Cucumber sandwiches, scones and jam and cream, and strawberries....



I had to put these next three in together. How many attempts does it take to get 6 people to all not pull silly faces at the same time?!




Is my tiara on straight?

The enormous wrapped parcel from the girls at St Anns Hospice where Steve's mum works.

And some of the presents. I was gnashing my teeth at the thought of teething.

This one had me worried. I am still at the point where the thing I am least looking forward to over the next two months is the prospect of someone else having to cut my toenails for me. Labour - not a worry, yet anyway. Toenails - freaking out slightly. So the realisation that I'm going to have to cut my baby's nails REALLY has me worried...