GREAT AUNT AVIE

I am celebrating today, for the third time I am a great aunt, this time a boy, Matthew Thomas Steven. Every one is delighted with the name as there has been a Tom in the family for at least eight generations that we know of. Both mother and baby are in perfect health and my lovely nephew Dan is over the moon, bless him, if his son is half as good looking as he is he will be a lucky boy. Today has been good all round, Pa and I had fried egg and bacon sandwiches for breakfast, I hope my G.P. never finds out! Today I made a roast chicken dinner so first thing this morning I collected some baby carrots, white turnips, French beans, a couple of shallots for the stuffing and some apples for the sauce, I get such a kick out of making a meal with home grown things it's worth all the work that goes into it. There are enough courgettes to make a lovely soup for tomorrow or a cheese and vegetable pasta, I know which one my son will chose he would eat pasta every day I think. Having barded the chicken with streaky bacon and prepared all the vegetables and so on I decided to tackle the ironing ...***!.

As a reward to myself for this endeavour I took the buggie and went to explore the local canal, it is something I have been meaning to do for ages and I thoroughly enjoyed my adventure. For quite a large part of the journey a Red Admiral butterfly perched on in the centre of the tiller sunning its self, one passer by stopped me and asked if it was real. I trundled along the tow-path looking at the many pretty old barges, moorhens and ducks. Some boys were playing a strange game of basketball while sitting in canoes, it looked tricky but they seemed to be having a lot of fun.

The thing that struck me was that the canal is so straight that I reached in a few minutes a road bridge that would have taken a good half hour on the pavement, canals seem to be a good way of getting about. All too soon it was time to turn round and return to get the dinner. I have promised myself that one day soon I shall take a packed lunch and explore properly, it is a place I never visited when I could walk anywhere so it has the advantage of novelty as well as beauty.

I am very tired today as I got very little sleep last night, My knee was hurting and the latest crop of midge bites was itching like mad, my son was bitten yesterday and is experiencing the same trouble. I do not mind not sleeping very much,you do get used to it after a while and as there is a T.V in the room I can always put on a film of watch the all night news, I am usually very well informed! Bread day tomorrow, and perhaps I will make some marigold buns for tea. Bye for now.