Erm ... On leave again!

Alanna enjoying the sun at Longleat
Becca being a cheeky mare on the lake at Longleat
Farewell P.C. Nash (the other one wearing a tie)
Patrick and Mary-Jo keeping the kids amused


Well, to be honest I'm back for 2 days covering shortages that they have known about for 8 months, I'm sure there is a logic there somewhere, I treated myself to a ride in on the motorbike today to try and beat the grand total of 503 miles that I did in the year between MOT's (road worthiness certificates for those of you from across the pond) and tomorrow I will treat myself to a drive in the car ... as heavy rain is forecast ... again.


We managed to get our annual trip to Longleat (http://www.longleat.co.uk/) in last week. The girls were generally well behaved, including Tamisa, who slept through the back end of the lions and all through the wolves enclosure, fortunately they weren't disturbed by her snoring! Thought Becca was going to throw herself into the sealions in the lake, she certainly isn't afraid to have a go ... at anything.


The week prior we had chance to catch up with Tamisa's Uncle, Patrick and his significant other, Mary-Jo, prior to Mary-Jo heading back to Oz to prepare for the new school term (don't be alarmed, you will see from the above photo that she is a teacher, not a pupil!). the weather just about held off (at least until the above photo was taken) and we all enjoyed a good old english curry in the evening. in the absence of any other information, we trust she made it back safely.


That moody old Prime Minister paid us (Dorset, not us specifically) a flying visit a couple of weeks ago for his "family holiday" with the in-laws. Operation Cover My Backside went into full swing. Good news though (unless you are a cow I suppose) is that the PM had a good excuse to sod off back to London with the outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease ... strangely enough we didn't see him again. I think the grand total was 17 hours in county ... byeeee!


The last few weeks have also seen the retirement of PC Dave Nash, a true gentleman of an officer, who due to owning children, will be taking a break from retirement on the 1st September and returning to the squad as a "bleedin civvy" ... missing him already! Other squad updates ... Wendy appears to be fully recovered from her nagging shoulder injury and has returned to just nagging, and Geoff is back on a structured return, complete with his limp wrist, and we haven't even mentioned it!


Thanks to MC for still being the only person to post a reply, go on ... you know you want to ... its easy!