Friday Smiles 2023 #Week 34

 Hi. Sorry I missed last week's posts. I didn't even manage to visit any of you. My holiday is keeping me busy, so this will be a quick post today.

Last weekend I was with my son Mike in Llanymynech, a small village on the English/Welsh border. I was only with him for a few days but we packed a lot into them, including a big family day with my grandchildren and great-grandchildren, a stroll through the beautiful grounds of Powys Castle, and a visit to the Oswestry Balloon Carnival to watch the night glow. The centre of the park was cordoned off and five hot air balloons were inflated. They are huge that close up. Round the edge there were ten baskets with their burners but no balloons,  and together they gave blasts of fire in time to the music. All quite impressive. 

Now I am with my youngest son Ben on the edge of Cheshire. We had a lovely day out at Bridgemere Garden World. I used to take my boys there when they were small to see the tropical fish. It has been taken over by a different company but was still worth a day out. We were there for seven hours and didn't see it all. 

Yesterday some friends came over with small children, so we took them to a local farm complex to feed the animals.

Tomorrow I move on to my son Jonathan's house for my last few days. He us in Manchester, less than an an hour's drive from here. That makes it easy to get a flight home from Manchester on Thursday.

I will write more about my holiday when I get home as I am more comfortable using my PC than the fiddly little buttons on this phone. And of course I have plenty of photos to show you too. But for now I will just link up with Annie's Friday Smiles. And I will try to visit some of you too.

Friday Smiles 2023# Week 32

I tried writing this earlier but I seem to have deleted it, so I am trying again. I had a lovely week with our eldest son Jim and his family, with the highlight being on Saturday when all five of our sons came over along with some of the grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Here we are minus the two little ones who were already in bed.

And here are Chris and I with the five boys.

They were mostly gone by Sunday evening, but Chris and I stayed on for a few more days, as did our son Tom who went home to Denmark on Wednesday. Yesterday Chris flew home to SpIn and I came down yo Bournemouth to see my two sisters.

During the week Jim took me into London to the Tate Modern to see the exhibition by Yayoi Kasuma. She uses lights and mirrors to create scenes that go into infinity. Very interesting and the lights were amazing.

Then we went to Jim's diocese cathedral of Southwick to meet Hodge, the cathedral cat.

A boat trip down the Thames took us to Greenwich where we browsed the narket and sampled some street food.

Tuesday was grey and rather damp but we took a train to Rochester and walked round the beautiful cathedral.

They had an exhibition called Creation through Threads. Twelve silk and stitched panels depicted the story of creation as told in the Bible in the book of Genesis. The fabrics and stitchwork were amazing. These are my two favourite panels.

 

We have had two lots of happy news in the family. Firstly our son Mike has finally got a dare fir his spinal surgery in early September,  and today Jobathan, (son no 4), heard he has got the job he had applied for. It is still with his company but is a considerable promotion for him. It was his birthday yesterday too, so he will ve celebrating this weekend 

I am sorry I am Kate posting. Jean and I went shopping this morning. Now I am going to try to add some photos to this before I publish it on Annie's  Friday Smiles.