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Slime success!

Phew, what a scorcher. It's has been wall to wall sunshine for what seems like forever, so much so that we don't even bother to check the forecast anymore, we just assume that it will be bright and sunny from 10am onwards. This is all very well but it's causing travel chaos for me. I've had to go into London 3 days this week and every day there has been a problem. There are speed restruictions from 11am onwards due to hot rails, there have been signalling problems and even trains on fire. We really don't do hot weather do we?


Everything has slowed down and the dogs have taken to lying around in whatever shade they can find, waiting for the point in the afternoon where someone takes them to the woods. I took them earlier in the week and Bertie disappeared, shortly followed by a loud splash. I ran to check,thinking OMG, he's fallen in, on to find him up to his chin in the deepest part of the stream, tongue lolling out and a definite grin on his face!


While we have been sweltering, the kids have been perfecting their slime making. This is a craze that you just want to end but it seems to keep coming back again and again. So far they just hadn't got it sorted (well, Izzy hadn't). Abi isn't her father's daughter for nothing however. When she finally decided to get involved she went straight onto google, looked up a precise recipe and watched a video on YouTube, wrote a list and went out to purchase exactly what she needed. Izzy was a consultant (yes, Grace has that contact lens solution...), and then as soon as we got home they disappeared into the pod with their goodies. 20 mins later we hear a cry of joy go up and they both come in with their handiwork - perfect slime!


Obviously this is less than perfect for me - it's horrible stuff and if you're not careful gets everywhere. I haven't ventured into the pod but they assure me they have tidied up - we'll see when we get there!


At least with this type of activity I can write about it. More and more I'm conscious that they don't want me including things in the blog if it's more personal. Abi wants to share all kinds of things with me about how she's feeling, how she's developing and so on, but it's not for sharing. This is normal, and at least she's sharing, Izzy tells me nothing! I will have to tread carefully.


Against this Mum and I have been concocting the idea of building a family archive of stories. I listened to a programme on dementia where one person said that they'd wished they'd asked more questions and listened to more stories before their parent had been struck down with what is a horrible disease. This was echoed by my driver last night (late night in London at a work do) who had just lost his Mum and was saying he wished he had spent more time with her, of course now he cant he regrets it. So - the family archive - anything and everything you might wnat to commit to it - songs, poems, stories, photo's whatever. I'm happy to curate.


Final welcome to Woody, who joined Amnda, Alex and the boys last week as a happy accidental idea as they left the craft fair in Devon a few weeks ago. They met a wolf hound and the idea hatched, quickly growing into reality. Last I heard he's doing well and is very sweet. He also looks very BIG!

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