Auntie Knows Best

Another quiet day – weather has been pretty wet which has made it tricky to get the kids outside. I have to admit that I gave the three of them a pretty big telling off today for generally winding each other up, picking and poking each other to get a rise out of each other. I know it is boring and I know they are fed up of each other but I had to threaten to send them all to separate rooms. They did improve after that thankfully!

I took the opportunity to head out for a lovely swim at the Bathing Pools. It was beautiful and mild and the tide was just starting to come over the top. Who would have thought that we would still be swimming and enjoying it on the last day of October!

We ended our day with a roast dinner and a warning for Halloween Trick and Treaters!

The Mister and Tom went out to do Park Run this morning while I did a bit of cleaning and tidying in the house.

I managed to have a nice walk with sister and her dog and I saw these gorgeous pink flowers on my walk through the lanes. This afternoon I went for a fabulous swim with a friend at Rousse. The sea is still lovely – chilly but gorgeous.

The boys did more sorting in the garden, clearing up the leaves from the garden and sorting the garage.

The kids are doing ok but are really quite bored. Some lovely friends have dropped off a few treats for them. People have been so kind and have offered to help out in so many ways. We do appreciate it so very much.

Another day in Covid Central.

It is quite useful having another adult in the house though as The Mister and Tom got the shed finished – hurray!

The other thing is that The Mister and I were able to go out with my Dad to see GADOC’s Chicago and it was absolutely phenomenal. Without a doubt, the little island of Guernsey punches well above it’s weight in terms of musical theatre. The vocals and choreography was West-End worthy and the staging and costumes were amazing. Such a brilliant night out.

I still find it odd that we were allowed to go out as we were double vaccinated. We both took two lateral flow tests to ensure we were Covid negative and made suere that we wore a mask at all times. We were as safe as we could possible be I think (and hope!)

I woke this morning to this glorious view. The sunrise was heavenly and the cat was purring so loudly she woke me up.

Our morning lateral flow tests revealed that The Little Mister is also positive for Covid so he headed off for a PCR test which was, very obviously, positive. So, now we have all three children positive and all adults negative. I guess we will see just how effective the vaccinations really are in the house of Covid.

The kids have been pretty good all day – they have played loads of games and I picked up some more puzzles from the library and have spent quite a bit of time on the trampoline. How crazy they will be after 10 days I don’t know! The Mister and Tom also put up the shed – hurray! That means that we can do some sorting in the garage and make things a bit more useable.

As I am double vaccinated and symptom free I was able to go out so I went to town and bought some food and stocked up on the essentials… more lateral flow tests and large quantities of booze. We’ve got this!

This morning The Little Miss and I masked up and went to an audiology appointment. We visited a couple of shops and went for a fabulous wave-jumping swim at Vazon and then went home and as we walked in the door the menfolk dropped the bombshell that Mark’s Covid lateral flow test had tested positive. We then tested everyone else and The Little Miss’ test was also positive.

So, I spent loads of hours on the phone to Public Health sorting out tests and speaking to them about what we could and couldn’t so. Anne and the older two boys hastily rearranged their flights and flew back today as they were LFT negative. I took Mark and The Little Miss up to the hospital for PCR testing and we are awaiting those results but we expect them to be positive so it looks like we have two house-guests for an extra 10 days. Not really what we expected but we will get on with it!

It has all be made easier by wonderful friends offering help and support and even delivering an enormous pile of cakes!

We had a lovely morning starting with a visit to the Shipwreck Museum at Fort Grey which is known locally at The Cup and Saucer. It was interesting to see just how many wrecks there have been off the coast of Guernsey. My Dad still talks about the Orion oil rig which ran aground off Guernsey in 1978.

We then headed to Portelet and walked around the coast to visit the Fairy Ring, spotting a really big seal bobbing about just off the coast. When we got back to the bay we decided it was calm enough to go for a quick dip – in fact it was a beautiful swim and the water was lovely.

We finished off our morning with a picnic lunch before heading home before The Mister and Tom started putting up the shed that has been sitting in the garden in pieces for months.

This evening I went out with Dad to watch The Globe touring theatre company perform The Tempest. It was really enjoyable and I especially admired the actress who was performing with the script in her hand as she had stepped in last minute. She was absolutely brilliant!

I had to go to work today and then Dad requested I returned his bike. I am so sad. I have loved cycling it around.

However, I did get to spend some quality time with Susie and Claude. They are super cute.

So this morning The Mister and his friend Tom ran the Guernsey marathon – they ran half of it each and rather surprisingly they came third out of the men’s relay pairs team. This is The Mister running with my sister who was also running the first leg. They managed to drag each other along it would seem.

Meanwhile Anne and I and Mark went in for a lovely swim at Vazon. Big waves and the water was really quite warm – loved it! We then followed the marathon route around until we ended up in town to meet the boys.

This afternoon we chilled out at home, watched TV and played games before getting a Chinese for tea. The other picture on here is the heavenly sunrise that I woke to this morning.

This morning we spent the day tidying up and sorting before our friend Tom and Anne and their three boys arrived at lunch time. It is over two year ago since we last saw them and we were meant to go over this summer and camp with them but it just didn’t happen!

So, they have come over for half term and it is just lovely to see them all! It’s crazy to consider how long it is since we have seen friends who live off island and whilst social media and Zoom etc has it’s place it really doesn’t make up for seeing people in person.

In the afternoon we went for a wander up to a local farm. The kids whinged about going out and we ignored them. Good times!

This evening whilst the kids were at club at church Emma and I went for a swim in the semi-darkness.

There was quite a swell so I was a little bit cautious but we had a gorgeous swim off Rousse slipway. The water was really warm… hard to believe I know!

On the way to pick the kids off Emma and I stopped off at the shop. She was really working this look!