Farty towels...

I appreciate the blog's been through a few more days of neglect, but for once I think it is with reasonable cause. I've just seen the 2007 family birthday campaign come to a close with two particularly pleasing outcomes this year.

Firstly, I've managed to get presents for birthday presents for Dad, Nephew, Little Sis, Mum and Brother in law within the last month and barely needed to leave the house. I'm not a great fan of giving money for presents as I think it usually reflects lack of imagination, but in these cases I had something specific in mind for each.

Dad wanted to update several bits for his PC so we all chipped in towards them
My nephew got a present too big to post so his Mum kindly collected locally for me
Little Sis and Brother-in-law got a years Caravan Club subscription so they can put the new camper van to good use
Mum has a return coach ticket to visit the family down south later on this year.

The second great result was that Little Sis and family came to stay for a few days to surprise Mum on her birthday. The surprise itself went pretty much to plan and I've enjoyed doing my Basil Fawlty bit whilst also playing host, chef and general climbing frame for the kids. It's always great having them all to stay as it puts the bungalow through it's paces of accomodating a full family and gives me an opportunity to play with some new recipes on a different scale.

So now they've all headed off in search of a proper pitch and park up for the night, my plans are to do little more than enjoying the last couple of days off work chilling out, gazing in amazement at someones idea of filling the Big Brother house with so many attractive young ladies and all the time knowing I'm probably old enough to be father to most of them...