Summertime and the living is easy in Hello.

The kids have been off school a full week. It's been fairly hot too, I don't function well in the heat, only going out when absolutely necessary. I mean, a couple of BBQs and a picnic is different, you just sit there. But moving in this weather? Forget it. Thankfully John is the same, so we're quite happy staying indoors, close to the fridge and the tv remote/knitting. As much as I love being out and about, it's nice to sometimes just veg in the house. When we were little, we'd always get chucked out to play when the sun shone, it took me years to stop feeling guilty about staying indoors!

I went to the supermarket earlier and overheard the following conversation: Customer 1: Are you going on holiday this summer? Customer 2: I'm off work for a week in August, but we haven't booked anywhere yet. I think if the weather stays like this, we won't bother. What's the point in going away when it's this warm? Customer 1: Oh I know, same here! Am I alone in thinking that's odd? Surely the whole point of a holiday is a change of scenery, a break from the humdrum of every day life?

Speaking of holidays, we're probably going to Aran again this year, to Seal Shore again. I'm looking forward to that, Aran was fabulous last year and the weather was just perfect, a couple of hot days interspersed with cooler days so we could go walking. The good thing about camping is you're not committed to anything, so if the weather truly was awful, we could just pack up and go. This camp site has a covered cooking area, a day room, fridges, washing machines, lovely showers and is right next to a hotel so we can go and have a pint in the evenings, or listen to a bit of live music. It's also right on the beach and they allow you to build fires, which the kids absolutely love. I just got my rail card this morning, so we can go ahead now and organise the travel arrangements.

I ended up not going on my navigation training yesterday, and as a consequence, didn't do my assessment today. My bus ran late, so by the time I got to the venue, I was already 40 minutes late. I'm not overly bothered, part of the training involved climbing a small mountain (High Rigg for those in the know) and yesterday was really, really hot. I had filed my rucksack with ice packs and bottles of frozen pop, but that didn't seem to make that much difference. I ended up walking the four or so miles back along the railway line to Keswick. No biggie, there are more dates coming up.

Also coming up is Alt Fest! My friend, Tich (aka Tiderman) messaged me the other day to say he's hiring a mini bus for Alt Fest and there was a couple of seats left, did I want in? Hell yeah! I don't really know any of his friends, but they all seem as crazy as he is and he's on about filling the bus with booze and seeing how much room there is for people and gear, lol! It's going to be brilliant, going down on the Thursday so hopefully we'll get a decent pitch. :) I can't wait! Oh yeah, I get to spend time with The Sister too, I guess. :p

Rob has been busy with one thing or another this week, canoeing and biking with his Mosaic group, camping with his friends and going to work. So much better than causing bother with his friends like he used to do in Preston. When I asked him recently if he preferred living in the city or the country, he said country, hands down. That surprised me, because he spent most of his life in the city, so I thought he'd opt for that!

And Isabel...I've hardly seen her at all! Her and her wee gang of friends have spent every afternoon hanging out, dipping in and out of the river, playing climbing trees and just generally being a kid. I'm encouraging this as much as possible, because she's at That Age™ and I think that this time next year it will be totally not cool to have fun.

This morning we had one of those phone calls from someone claiming to be from Microsoft and he wanted to remotely fix my computer. I led him on for ages, telling him we didn't have a computer, but he was insistent we had a problem and if I just gave him our IP address, he'd fix it remotely. I asked him if he was going to buy us a computer as I'd always wanted one and he said yes, he would. So I pretended to be all excited, telling John the nice man was going to buy us one, and asking when I could expect it to be delivered? He said "you don't understand, this phone call is to help defend you from future problems!" So then I started asking him if he was going to send someone round because I'd been having problems with dragons for ages. "Are you going to send someone round with a sword and a shield? Or maybe a superhero? That Superman would suit me just fine..." John and Bel were crying laughing at me by this point, but I think he'd realised we were taking the Mick because he just hung up. This is the second time we've had that call in as many days, so I'm hoping they'll ring up again tomorrow, will give me enough time to come up with another concocted story!

Eleanor and I have just been feeding 11ducklings and two mummy ducks from my bedroom window. We see some lovely things on the river. :)