30th Oct.'13

The whole country was waiting for the big storm - St. Jude - to arrive at the weekend, but I'm glad to say we saw nothing of it up here. We'd been down to Somerset to visit Chloe and Sam in their new flat at Castle Cary and the drive down on Friday night was horrific. Lots of traffic and then lashings of rain and wind as we hit the bits of roads we didn't know.

I forgot to take any pictures so you'll just have to believe we had a good time! We visited Clarke's Village on Saturday and I was successful in getting a new pair of boots and a dress (for next years holiday!). We met Sam's mum, Rose, who was lovely and then in the evening we drove over to Rachel's to have a meal with the family there. Cue for more lashings of rain and wind which made us think that the coming storm was going to be nasty so we were pleasantly surprised by the easy journey home on Sunday.

Apart from a bit of rain overnight and some not too heavy winds on the Monday that was it really.

Somehow or another we have been delegated to write the quiz for the marina this month. I volunteered to do 'one in the future' but that was enough! I'm quite looking forward to it actually although I'm appreciating how difficult it is to get the right level. I don't want everyone to get top marks but then I also don't want to alienate everyone by setting it so hard they all feel bad about it.

We are sorting out the grocery list for Christmas - how many potatoes do 16 people and 2 toddlers eat? more to the point how much wine do we need for lunch? I shall err on the plentiful side I think.