Just Stopping By

I thought I would just stop by to say hello and do a quick catch up.

My sister has been here for nearly two weeks now and we've been having a lovely time.

We spent a night celebrating her arrival and my 50th birthday in a hotel in Stamford, Lincs. with our older sister who the next day was flying off on holiday to Cuba for two weeks and would unfortunately miss most of my sister's visit here, which was a pity.  We had a lovely evening though and the hotel was very nice indeed.  I couldn't have asked for a better 50th birthday.

We then returned to London and spent a week hanging out at our house.  A couple of days out ensued, shopping, sight seeing and riding the cable car in Docklands, going to see a live Radio 4 panel show recording at the BBC, visiting the Tate Modern and generally chilling and catching up on each others news.

We're currently in phase 3 of her stay, whereby we took a train up to Yorkshire, and are staying at a very idyllic cottage in the countryside for a week.

We've spent the we(k catching up with old friends, visiting old haunts, doing a bit more shopping
(;)), meeting up with family members that we haven't seen for a good few years, chilling out and catching up and have squeezed in a visit to see a very good local theatre production. It's been very nice indeed and very relaxed. I even managed to catch a couple of exercise classes and cycle into a nearby town to attend them on a bike lent to me by the cottage owners.

It's now Saturday afternoon and we're having a quiet afternoon in the cottage with the wood burner going.  OH and LB have joined us for the weekend and OH has got the Wifi sorted, so I am once again connected to the outside world and have spent some time catching up on reading blog posts and emails. Tonight, we're heading to the local pub on foot for a meal and tomorrow will be our last full day here.

We've got one more meet up with a family friend planned for tomorrow lunchtime and then a trip down memory lane in the village in which we grew up in the afternoon.  We'll be stopping off at OH's sister's on the way home on Monday for lunch before heading back to London on Monday afternoon.

My sister has three more days with us in London, before she heads back to Australia and we've got a few more adventures planned. The time has gone so quickly, but I think we've made the most of it so far and seen everyone we needed to see.

I've overspent a little, and will likely spend a bit more in our last few days together, but I'm not stressing, as it's her first return visit after 8 years and who knows when she'll come back again. Sometimes you've just got to make the most of the time you have together when you have it. Hopefully, we won't have any regrets about how we spent our time.

I'll post again when life gets back to normal.