More fun today with a variety of different things to attend to. Uncle Stanley and Auntie Judy came over today. Strictly they are great-uncle and great-auntie, but for the purpose of simplicity we miss out the grandeur.

It's the first time I have seen them in probably just over a year. Tim (their son) also came over and as expected the afternoon was really nice. Stan and Judy are now getting on, Stan is somewhere in his eighties and his eyesight now failing badly. Aunite Judy is a bit younger, and Tim is around the same age as The Mother and The Father.

I noticed this morning as I prepared breakfast (Lucky Charms - one of the few pleasures of a sister who has just arrived back from Canada) that the space around the fountain in the garden had mysteriously been filled with pebbles. This may not hold much significance in other households, but with the Higgs family, if something is done that has not been done but should have been done a long time ago that means only one thing. Visitors.

I think The Parents think we have to make an extra special effort when this side of the family come over as they tend to do the same when we land on them, except the one difference is that they live in a fantastic, ancient, beautiful chocolate box house with all the trimmings in the Cotswalds next door to the Queen's gynaecologist. Not that this actually matters when they actually get here, as everything descends back to the normal chaos within the half hour.

Lunch was Al Fresco, and we had fantastic sun for a BBQ and salad meal followed by a good afternoon in the garden with conversation to match. I managed to explain to Uncle Stanley what an iPod is and tried to give him some reason to accept digital art as genuine art form. Unfortunately I couldn't illustrate the point as his sight is now so bad things are no more than a blur. Once upon a time he had been the greatest silversmith in the country (not an exaggeration; he won the awards to prove it) but the strength of the welding light damaged his retinas and despite a cataract operation a couple of years ago, the situation has deteriorated since. I like to talk to him though, he is always interested/interesting, but I would have loved to see him work too. Unfortunately that never will be.

Once back inside (following relatives departing) I went back inside and finished off the project I had started this morning. I am well chuffed it only took me a few hours to knock out this website for Mike; a sort of favour for him doing a drawing of me and the other lads.

Oh yeh, I'm off to Cork for a few days, so unless I figure how to do this while I'm away in a tiny little sleepy village on the south coast of Ireland, it maybe a little quieter than usual.