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Yes I know - I've yet again let over a month slip past without posting. And such a lot has gone on during that time too. Firstly I had a flying visit over to England, primarily for mum's birthday and because a LAN happened to fall on the Easter long weekend and we keep promising to get to one. As it turned out I also needed to fit in a visit to my friend Lana (daughter of one of my closest friends) to see her new arrival (Sophia Poppy). Never thought I'd see Lana as a mum but she's taken to it like a duck to water despite all her misgivings! Lana, I think your doing great and Sophia's a little star of course.
Good Friday was spent with family, Liz and Dan both joining me, Andy and Mum for her birthday lunch along with Pete, Biddy and Margaret too. So I got to see my first-born pride and joy, even if only for a few hours. Then it was straight from the restaurant up to Wakefield. Steve had been taken into hospital with chest pains which had us all very worried and at one point I thought we would be spending the weekend at a hospital bedside.

But fortunately the problem wasn't life-threatening and he was out and home just before we got there and even well enough to join us as we invaded the Barnsley Workingmans' Club to watch Rockin' Dave and his band perform. Great night and yes Dave we really DO think you rock!!

I had forgotten how much we enjoy being at that LANs (never forget how much we enjoy the company of the Sue and Steve, but boy have we missed you guys) and probably the other LAN attendees had forgotten quite now noisy it gets with Andy there! Nothing's change on that front.

We stayed on an extra night with Sue and Steve to save driving home tired on Sunday night as we used to have to with work the next day. So by the time we got back to mum's on Monday I just had enough time to spend a few hours with Jess (lucky for me she came home early from her Bank Holiday day out).
And then it was back to Larne first thing on Tuesday morning, so my apologies to everyone I didn't get to see this time round.
Having got home, we've had just about every season thrown at us weatherwise here (apparently not so different in England either!). We have gone from a virtual heatwave...

... to Arctic gales ...

... in the last fortnight. Last Sunday as you were all up to your ears in snow, we had such a cold north-west wind howling along the coast that my legs and face when completely numb! Yet the week before I could have sat out in the garden in a bikini it was that warm. Yesterday we again had wall-to-wall sunshine, but unfortunately the northerly wind was still there, so sitting out on a sun-bed wasn't an option.
Lastly I must say a warm welcome to baby Maddison, who finally decided to face the world on Thursday night, well over a week late (which I wouldn't have minded if she'd managed to arrive on my birthday but she even exceeded that!!). Well done Emma, it was a long wait and a looong labour, but you made it. And huge congratulations to Sue and Steve on their first grandchild. She's absolutely gorgeous - try not to spoil her completely rotten! lol dunno why I bothered saying that cos I know what you'll be like ;o)
I have loads to report on the bird-watching front but I'm going to put that into a separate post so save boring everyone with it. I'm sure on an elite few of my friends find that passion of interest too!
Kxx