Another Excting Two Weeks

Having read "Wife in the North's" last blog - where she is doing some tutoring on blogging at Newcastle Uni, I have followed her advice - "If you have nothing to say - don't blog!"

Well I now have something to say - so here goes. The main reason I have not been blogging for the last few days is that there have been all sorts of diversions.

Consulting the diary I see that on Sunday 1st and Monday 2nd May we had Mollie sleeping with us, due to the fact that Rachel had joined Garry in Dubai.
I took Mollie and Dot down to the railway station on Monday and they spent the day in Harrogate, then later on, after tea time I had to go and collect them.

On Tuesday I had a couple of funerals to play for, and as they were in quick succession it meant that the first one had to clear the church quite quickly before the second funeral party could get in. Needless to say the first funeral was late in arriving which could have caused chaos, but luckily the vicar taking the service (who will remain anonymous) managed to get through the service in record time yet still gave the impression that the service was relaxed!

Before going to the funerals I had arranged with Dot that she would go down to Crossflatts to pick Tom up because I knew that there would be very little time between the end of the second funeral and Tom finishing school, so as soon as the second funeral had finished I dashed off to Crossflattts - the idea being that both Tom and Dot would be there. I arrived 2 minutes before Tom came out of school - but no Dot. We hung around for 15 minutes and still no sign of her. I had arranged that after picking Tom up we would go back to Rachels house to collect Mollie and then up to the airport to collect Rachel. A quick phone call from Mollie to Dot and we discovered that her lift had failed to arrive, so she had rung the school and asked them to inform me and Tom that she wouldn't be there. The message had not been passed on!

So there followed a dash to Cottingley to collect Dot, a dash back to Rachel's house to deposit cases, schoolbags etc. and then a dash up to the airport. Just as I was parking I saw the KLM flight landing - not bad timing after all the chaos!!!

After returning Mollie,Tom & Rachel home, Dot and I got back and there was a call from Sarah. Could I take her up the St Luke's Hospital next morning as she had got a cancelled appointment to have the injections in her shoulder, she wasn't allowed to drive afterwards, and could I collect her six hours later?

Thursday, lo and behold I had another funeral to play for, and a wedding to play for at 4.00 pm on Saturday. The usual service at Church on Sunday morning, and then we were round to Monday.

Dot had discovered that one of the shirts she had bought in Harrogate on the previous Monday had not had the security tag taken off it, and I was reluctant to try to get it off in case I damaged the shirt, so that called for a trip to Harrogate.

I had my usual Male Voice Choir practice to take on Monday evening, but getting into the car to go to the practice I noticed that Dot's glasses case was on the floor in front of her seat. Her glasses had been stood on and were bent at a crazy angle, so that meant a trip to Skipton on Tuesday to get them repaired.

We took Phoebe, our next door neighbour's little girl with us, and when we arrived back home, all her family were sat up the drive in their car, waiting for us, so that we could join them in a meal at the Dalesway.

I had had to cancel my visit to Skipton TIC on Wednesday as I was giving a talk to the Crossflatts over 50's club.

I was hoping things might calm down a bit by Thursday, but no such luck - I got a message from the local undertakers requesting that I play for a funeral at the crem at 8.50 am on Friday morning!

If I survive until next year I'm thinking of hibernating!!!